Friends for Life!

You must all have heard of the story of the rabbit and the tortoise, but the following story, is about an unusual bonding between a baby Hippo and a Centenarian Tortoise. (I learnt, the story has been in circulation on the Internet, since January, 2005). It is a different, and very touching true story, which sends a strong message, to all of us. I only yearn, that if only all humankind can live together like this, without any prejudice of status in life, religion or colour, it will be heaven on earth!

~ ramjee

A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said.

Bereaved by the forces of nature the baby hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him. The wildlife officials were alerted to the imperilled hippo before Christmas, when hoteliers in Malindi spotted the little fellow, in the company of a number of adults of his kind, foundering in the surf off the coast. By the time wildlife officials arrived, Owen was alone, having become separated from his herd. Had he not been rescued, the ocean's waters would have done in the youngster because long immersion in salt water would have led to fatal dehydration.

As soon as the Hippo was placed in Haller Park, a wildlife sanctuary in the coastal city of Mombassa, Kenya, the orphaned youngster immediately ran to the giant tortoise also housed in that space. The tortoise, named Mzee (Swahili for "old man") and estimated to be between 100 and 130 years old, was not immediately taken with the brash newcomer he turned and hissed, forcing the hippo to back away. Yet Owen persisted in following the tortoise around the park (and even into a pool), and within days the pair had forged a friendship, eating and sleeping together. Owen has even been seen to lick the tortoise, whom he regards as his new mother. (Wildlife workers speculated that Owen may have been attracted to Mzee as a parental figure because the tortoise's shape and color are similar to those of an adult hippopotamus.)

'It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a 'mother',' ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park , told AFP. 'After it was swept away and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother.

Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together,' the ecologist added. 'The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it followed its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother,' Kahumbu added. 'The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years,' he explained.

'Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.' This is a real story that shows that our differences don't matter much when we need the comfort of another. We could all learn a lesson from these two creatures of God, 'Look beyond the differences and find a way to walk the path together.'

As of December 2005, a year after their initial meeting, Owen and Mzee are still together. Conservation workers are planning sometime in 2006 to introduce Owen to Cleo, a 13-year-old female hippo who has gone without the companionship of her own species for over ten years.

Update:

In March 2006, the Hollywood Reporter announced that Walden Media were planning to produce "Tortoise and Hippo," a film inspired by the photograph of Owen and Mzee displayed above:

Oscar-winning special-effects maven John Dykstra is set to make his directing debut on "Tortoise and Hippo," a film inspired by a photo that circulated following the Asian tsunami.

The snapshot documented a baby hippo and 100-year-old tortoise comforting each other at a wildlife sanctuary after being rescued from the Indian Ocean.

"The actual event that inspired the movie captured the imagination of the world," said Alex Schwartz, executive VP production at Walden Media, one of the producers of the film.

"We're going to create a movie inspired by it that we hope can tell a story everyone can relate to, which is that you can be different but still belong to the same family."

Save the Olive Ridleys

Dear Reader,

Thanks for stopping by. You could be a part of the effort to bring about environmentally positive changes on the ground, day after day. This time we're asking you to do a little more. Not by pulling out your purse, but with a single mouse-click.

As you're aware, the highly-endangered Olive Ridley Turtles visit India's East Coast every year to mate and lay eggs, and six weeks later their newborn babies make their way back into the sea. Orissa is one of the last places left on the planet where these turtles come together after swimming thousands of miles, from places as far away as Australia and the Philippines.

The species is fragile, it needs protection, it has nowhere else to turn to. If it dies, it takes an entire fragile ecosystem along with it.

But someone's already involved in pushing the remaining Olive Ridleys into extinction. If you've ever taken a taxi, made a phone call, sipped a cup of tea, stayed in a five-star hotel, or worn a wristwatch, chances are you've already met the culprit.

It's the Tatas. They're about to build a huge port in Dhamra, (see map--click on the satellite option to locate the site) close to the turtles' sensitive breeding area, even though alternative sites exist. We believe they can be stopped. This is close to the Bhitarkanika National Park, which is a home to the Saltwater Crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), white crocodile, Indian python, black ibis, and darters. Olive Ridley sea-turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) nest on Gahirmatha and other nearby beaches.

The port Tata is proposing to build in Dhamra will directly affect the Olive Ridley turtles. With 150,000 to 350,000 Olive Ridley turtles nesting in the vicinity, the average number of hatchlings is believed to range from 15,000,000 to 35,000,000.



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The great thing about the Tatas, you see, is that they listen to their customers (that's you) because you make them who they are. That's why we're not asking you to boycott them, we're asking you to make them better.

Ratan Tata has already promised that he won't build the port if there's any evidence of turtles in the area. Several Nature lovers have given him that proof, but he won't listen to them. There's a possibility that he'll listen to you. And turn the Tatas into the caring and nurturing corporate family that they profess to be.

When you supported an environmental in the past, the government has always heard you loud and clear. To make sure Ratan hears you loud and clear, simply click on the photo of the turtle here and join Greenpeace by sending him an email.

On behalf of the planet's last Olive Ridley Turtles,

ramjee

Hatchlings released...

Olive ridley nesting season started around December along the coast of Chennai, India. The hatchlings have started to emerge and this is the first release from the Students' Sea Turtle Conservation Network (SSTCN) Hatchery. For viewing a small footage posted by a friend (Sidharth)... click the image above.


The video below is a quick primer on the turtle hatching program in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where the turtles nest even during the early morning hours and hatchlings emerge during the day... probably a nature's mechanism for regulating their sex ratio. (The sex of hatchlings is decided by the temperature in the area during incubation. If the temperature is below -29.5 degrees Celsius the offspring will be mainly male!). Personally feel this video could be used as a good educational tool.
Courtesy: Mark Lee Read, a sailor in US of A.







The video below is another interesting one on Olive Ridley turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) nesting during the day in Ostional beach, Pacific coast of Costa Rica. This short video by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) illustrates the nesting process of this endangered species.

Turtles in Trouble

Are you going on a beach holiday abroad? Have you thought about the turtles that might nest there? Nowadays, tourism affects most corners of our world. Tourism can be used positively for marine turtle conservation, as the Turtle Conservation Project (TCP) in Sri Lanka has shown. But more often than not, insensitive tourism can present serious threats to marine turtles and their habitats, especially at the nesting beaches.
Turtles in Trouble: You can make a difference!

The good news is that there are things that we can do while on holiday to reduce tourism-related threats to marine turtles at popular holiday destinations.

Marine Conservation Society(MCS) has joined forces with The Travel Foundation and design company Juniperblue to produce this entertaining and educational cartoon called Turtles in Trouble. The humorous, 8-minute animation is for UK tourists planning holidays in the Mediterranean, but includes advice relevant to all destinations with marine turtles. Narrated by Kate Humble, the animation demonstrates how small changes to our behaviour while on holiday can make big differences to the lives of marine turtles found at tourist destinations.

Click on the image to watch Turtles in Trouble. Am sure you would enjoy it, and if you do, please tell all your friends about it!

Sea Turtles and light

Each summer, Chennai beaches host the gathering of nesting Olive Ridley sea turtles in the Tamil Nadu. Female sea turtles emerge from the surf to deposit eggs in sand nests and later, tiny hatchlings struggle from their nests and scramble to the ocean. Nearly all of this activity takes place under cover of darkness and relies upon natural light environment too often disrupted by the addition of artificial lighting.

Hatching

Nearly 60 days after eggs were placed in the nest, hatchling sea turtles tear themselves free of their papery eggshells beneath the sand and with periodic bouts of thrashing, make their way to the surface. At nightfall, as many as 100 hatchlings burst together from the sand and immediately scramble toward the ocean. Moving quickly from the nest to sea is critical for the survival of hatchling sea turtles.

Misdirected Hatchlings

On beaches where artificial lighting is visible, the hatchlings' important journey to the sea is disrupted. Hatchling sea turtles emerging from nests at night are strongly attracted to light sources along the beach. Consequently, hatchlings move away from their relative sanctuary of the ocean, toward hoardings and streetlights. Hatchlings so misled fail to find their way to the sea, often succumb to attacks by predators, exhaustion and drying up in the morning sun, sometimes even strikes by automobiles on nearby parking lots and roads. A single light left on near a sea turtle nesting beach can misdirect and kill hundreds of hatchlings. The video that’s a part of this posting shows how the baby turtles tend to move towards a simple torchlight.

Artificial Lighting Affects Nesting

Artificial lighting also affects the nesting of female sea turtles. Studies have shown that brightly lighted beaches are less frequently used as nesting sites. In addition, females attempting to return to the sea after nesting, like hatchlings, also can be lead astray by nearby lighting.

Emergence of Olive Ridley Turtle

The Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) sea turtle, named for the olive tone of its carapace. It travels in the open ocean waters of tropical Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Olive Ridleys are more abundant seaturtles, but are still on the endangered species list because only a few nesting sites remain worldwide where they can congregate for the Arribada.

Much has yet to be discovered about sea turtles, because most of a sea turtle’s life is spent submerged at sea, studying sea turtles in the wild is challenging. During nesting season, when females come ashore, we can get a rare glimpse of these animals.

Olive Ridley turtles reach sexual maturity when they are 10 --15 years of age. When it is time to mate, male and female turtles will congregate offshore of the beach where they were hatched. When a female is ready to lay her eggs, she will crawl ashore. A mother turtle is choosy about the location of her nest. She will carefully select a location above the high tide line. If she is not satisfied with the quality of the beach or if noises, strange objects or bright lights frighten her, she will return to the sea. This is called a “false crawl.”

Once comfortable with the spot for her nest, the mother turtle uses her flippers to dig a body pit in the sand. With her body in position, she cups her rear flipper and uses them to scoop out an egg cavity in which to deposit her eggs. The eggs, which resemble rubbery ping-pong balls, are laid at a rate of two to three at a time. Females will lay anywhere from 80-120 eggs per nest, depending on their species.

A great deal of care is put into camouflaging the nest once the eggs are laid. The mother will pack sand over the egg cavity and will then use her front flippers to disguise the body pit. She throws sand in all directions, making the nest virtually impossible to recognize. When the mother turtle is content that the nest is concealed, she will head back to sea. She will repeat this procedure three to five times in a single nesting season, but will, in most cases, not return to nest again for two to three years.

The eggs will incubate within the nest for approximately 60 days. The average temperature of the nest during the course of incubation will determine whether or not the young hatchlings will be male or female. Females result from warmer temperatures; males develop when temperatures are cooler. Many factors such as the quality of the sand, weather and beach development can influence the incubation temperature of the eggs.

Emergence/ Boil

When the hatchlings have fully developed, they will hatch and crawl their way up and out of the nest en masse. This event is called a “boil,” as it resembles a pot boiling over with sea turtles. Emerging hatchlings obtain bearings to the ocean by locating the horizon over the water, which is brighter than the landward horizon, and they scurry in that direction to their new home. Once these hatchlings reach the sea, their activities are a mystery to scientists. It is believed that they find floating masses predators. Before the hatchlings leave the beach, they imprint the location so they can return again as adults.

The first hatchlings of the season emerge from nests approximately eight weeks after the first nesting of the season, and this activity continues for up to eight weeks after the final nesting of the season. In Chennai, hatchlings generally emerge throughout the spring and early winter. It is a myth that hatchlings emerge only around the time of the full moon. Hatchlings ready to emerge wait just beneath the sand surface until conditions become cool. This temperature cue prompts them to emerge primarily at night, although some late-afternoon and early-morning emergences have been recorded.

The apparent brightness and glare of artificial lighting often leads hatchlings astray. To a hatchling on a beach, an artificial light source appears bright because it is relatively close by, yet it is not intense enough to brighten the sky and landscape. The resulting glare makes the direction of the artificial source appear overwhelmingly bright—so much brighter than the other directions that hatchlings will ignore other visual cues and move toward the artificial light no matter where it is relative to the sea.

Sea turtle hatchlings have an innate tendency to move in the brightest direction. Under natural circumstances, the brightest direction is most often the open view of the night sky over, and reflected by, the ocean. This sea-finding behaviour can take place during any phase and position of the moon, which indicates that hatchlings do not depend on lunar light to lead them seaward. Hatchlings also tend to move away from darkly silhouetted objects associated with the dune profile and vegetation.

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