Rare leatherback turtle swims back into the sea

WWF’s trained fisherman released turtle 100 nautical miles from Karachi

KARACHI: A leatherback turtle, one of the rarest marine turtles, was released by a World Wildlife Fund (WWF)-Pakistan trained fisherman at the Khori Great Bank near the Indus Swatch, about 100 nautical miles from Karachi, on Wednesday.

The five-foot-long turtle was caught in a gillnet laid to catch tuna by fisherman Nakhuda Saeed Badshah, captain of the tuna gillnet vessel, who, upon noticing that a giant turtle had been entangled in his gillnet, gathered the other fishermen aboard his vessel and released the turtle back into the sea.



WWF-Pakistan technical adviser Muhammad Moazzam Khan told The Express Tribune that the fisherman informed WWF-Pakistan of the turtle’s release when he reached the shore on Friday.

Khan said that leatherback turtles are among the rarest of marine turtles in Pakistan.  Khan explained that the area is suffering from a jelly fish population boom and since this specific turtle feeds upon jelly fish, therefore it must have arrived in the area to feed itself.



Responding to a question about the jelly fish bloom that affected the fishing industry last month, Khan said that the bloom has almost ended and is now only evident in the creek areas.

He also said that five species of marine turtles are reported along the coast of Pakistan - the olive-ridley, hawksbill, loggerhead, green and leatherback turtles. He added that of these, leatherbacks are considered to be the rarest species and are globally listed as ‘vulnerable’ in the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of threatened species.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 7^th, 2017.