Forest personnel arrested seven fishermen on the charge of catching fish illegally in the ‘no fishing zone’ within the Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary area in Kendrapada district in the wee hours of Saturday.
They also seized a fishing vessel along with 1.5 kg fist and six fishing nets from their possession, stated Ranger Subrat Kumar Patra.
According to Patra, the forest staffs, who were engaged for the protection of Olive Ridley sea turtles, intercepted a Dhamara-based fishing vessel “Maa Susila” in the no fishing zone Ekakula and swung to action.
The arrested were identified as Balaram Sethy, Sudhanshu Giri, Satyaranjan Sethy, Sambhu Mandal, Madan Jena, Tapan Pal and Santan Mandal, belonging to Bhadrak and Kendrapada districts.
They were produced before the JMFC Court at Rajnagar, which remanded them into judicial custody rejecting their bail pleas, said Patra,
With the seizure of the trawler, the forest personnel have so far seized as many as 33 fishing boats and arrested 179 fishermen since ban on trawler fishing was banned on November 1. The ban imposed for 20 km off the seashore for protection of safe nesting and breeding of Olive Ridley sea turtles would end on May 31, 2016.
On Friday, 45 hatchlings of Olive Ridley sea turtles emerged from the pits of a nest at Nasi-2 beach within the sanctuary area. The nest was made by a female turtle about two months back, informed Patra.
Only a dozen of Olive Ridley sea turtles have laid eggs since November at Nasi-2, which is said to be the largest rookery of the species.
Though several Olive Ridley turtles came to Nasi-2, yet many of them skipped from laying eggs due to eroding beach condition and geographical change, he said.
The forest personnel recently collected about 40 eggs from a nest to hatch them artificially at the artificial hatchery set up in Babubali.
This year, more than a thousand of turtle carcasses have washed ashore where as last year it was below 900 during this time, stated Patra.
Though the exact reason behind the rise of turtle carcasses is yet to be ascertained, the forest personnel suspect that the turtles might have been killed after being entangled with trawler propellers and other fishing vessels outside the sanctuary area.