Turtles cannot clean the sludge in the River Ganga
On Aug 20, an IANS news release said the state’s Chief Minister, Harish Rawat, had approved a 500-acre turtle breeding facility in Rishikesh. The scavengers will then be released in the River Ganga. Good news you would think?
Article quote: This is not a new initiative. The first river clean up program was launched in 1986. A year later, the Centre and the state governments funded a program to breed turtles. They took eggs from wild nests on the sandy banks of the River Chambal and incubated them at centres in Varanasi and Kukkrail, near Lucknow. After the hatchlings of the Indian peacock softshell, Indian flapshell and Indian softshell emerged, they were reared for a year and released in the Ganga at Varanasi. Barring a gap of 12 years between 1993 and 2005, nearly 35,000 tiny cooters swam to freedom.
What did this operation achieve? Click the link to find out more…
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Photo from PIVISO.
