Agra: More than 100 turtles of an endangered species were found dead in a pond at Chaddamipur village under Pinhat police station, nearly 80 km from Agra city. The turtles were identified as Indian flapshells, which are protected under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 (Schedule II) and also listed on Appendix IV of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Forest rangers and a team of district forest officers rushed to the spot to pull out the dead turtles from the pond. According to the officials, the turtles died due to continuous dumping of garbage in the pond.
The Indian flapshell is a relatively small softshell reptile with a carapace length of up to 350 mm. Three inter-grading subspecies are confined to the Indian sub-region. These turtles prefer to live in shallow waters rather than in rivers. They can adapt to a variety of aquatic habitats like marshes, ponds, lakes, rice fields, gutters, and even canals in metropolitan areas.
Speaking with TOI, district forest officer Krishan Kumar said, “Prima facie, it seems that the turtles died due to excessive water pollution caused by dumping of garbage and sewage water in the village ponds. But we saw a flock of waterfowl living in the same pond and the pollution did not seem to affect them. So we have to wait for a post-mortem report to ascertain the actual cause of death of such a massive number of turtles.
“The rescue team has recovered 26 turtles from the pond but we expect more than 100 have died,” Kumar said.
Local villagers claimed that more than 500 turtles were living in the pond until some time ago, but not a single live turtle can be spotted now.
The turtle carcasses will be presented in a court on Wednesday after which they will be sent to the Indian Veterinary Research Institute of Bareilly to ascertain the cause of death.