INDIAN EXPRESS (New Delhi, India) 20 January 07 Chennai to Chambal, captive-bred turtles head for their home (Jaya Menon)
Photo: The painted roofed turtle hatchlings at the Madras Crocodile Bank
Chennai: Packed in three wooden crates lined with wet gunny, 26 hatchlings of the painted roofed turtle, bred for the first time in captivity at the Madras Crocodile Bank, are headed home to the Chambal river.
The crates will be loaded on the Lucknow Express leaving Chennai at 5 a.m. on Saturday and reach Lucknow early on Monday. From there, they will be taken to the Gharial Rehabilitation Centre, Kukrail, which will release them into the Chambal, their original habitat.
Experts say this is the first time the painted roofed turtle (Katchuga katchuga) has been bred in captivity. Also of captive-bred hatchlings being released into the wild.
“This is a milestone in the ten-year Freshwater Turtle & Tortoise Captive Breeding & Headstarting Project in partnership with the Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh forest departments,” said Harry Andrews, director of the Madras Crocodile Bank.
The initiative, funded by the Turtle Survival Alliance, began in 2001, with two male and two females. It was only in April 2004 that the first clutch of 19 eggs was hatched successfully. The second clutch, of seven eggs, was hatched in June 2005.
The hatchlings were nurtured, fed on fruit, aquatic weeds, leafy plants. Experts recently decided the turtles could be released into the wild.
The little-known painted roofed turtle is protected under Schedule I of the Indian Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, like the tiger. Its habitat is the Ganges-Brahmaputra river system.
Breeding males have blue-black heads, a broad red patch on the forehead, two yellow stripes on the sides of the head, and six red stripes on a cream-coloured neck. Females grow in length to up to 56 cm, males about 30-35cm.
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/21338.html
THE HINDU (Chennai, India) 20 January 07 Painted-roofed turtles set to return to the wild - 26 were bred in captivity at the Madras Crocodile Bank (P. Oppili)
Photo at URL below: Endangered: One of the painted-roofed turtles, bred in captivity, at the Crocodile Bank, which is ready for release. (R. Shivaji Rao)
Chennai: Twenty-six painted-roofed turtles are all set to return to the wild, after they were bred in captivity at the Madras Crocodile Bank.
Three years ago the Uttar Pradesh State Forest Department and the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust (MCBT) came together in a project to conserve fresh water turtles and tortoises. It was funded by Turtle Survival Alliance.
Two pairs of painted-roofed turtles were loaned to the MCBT for breeding. The ideal habitat, proper diet and better rearing management techniques adopted by the Bank yielded results and in April 2004 the first clutch of 19 eggs hatched successfully at the MCBT, according to Harry V. Andrews, the Trust director. The next year another clutch of eggs hatched. "The young turtles were carefully nurtured in the Croc Bank's nursery, and are now ready to embark on their way home," he adds. Endemic to the Ganges and Brahmaputra river systems, these turtles are classified as `critically endangered' in the red-list of the International Union for Conservation of Natural Flora and Fauna and under the Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species of flora and fauna.
The breeding males are attractively coloured animals, with blue-black heads and a broad red patch on the forehead, two yellow stripes on the sides of the head and six red stripes on a cream coloured neck. Interestingly the females grow bigger than the males. Mr Andrews said an adult grown up male turtle measures about 35 cm, while the well-grown adult female measures up to 55 cm.
Destruction of nesting beaches due to sand mining, agriculture, destruction of nests by predators including community dogs and poachers, drastic changes in river levels due to construction of dams, increased siltation and pollution besides non-availability of data for good management practices were some of the threats faced by these turtles, which had forced them to the brink of extinction. Mr Andrews said: "Fresh water turtles are important for riverine ecosystems for they keep an effective check on the growth of water weeds. Some turtle species keep fish stocks healthy by preying on sick, dead and a few predatory fish species," he said.
Despite the fact that the painted-roofed turtles categorised under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act of India, their population continues to decline in the wild, Mr Andrews added.
http://www.hindu.com/2007/01/20/stories/2007012018730300.htm
