A significant discovery has been made in Tamil Nadu’s Cauvery river, where a healthy breeding population of 31 Leith’s soft-shell turtles, a critically endangered species, has been spotted. Protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, the Leith’s soft-shell turtle is a large freshwater species endemic to peninsular India, with sporadic sightings previously recorded in various rivers across the region.
The finding comes as a result of a pilot study conducted by a team of researchers aiming to estimate the population of these elusive turtles in the wild in Tamil Nadu. The study, presented at the Advanced Institute for Wildlife Conservation’s annual research conference, highlighted the decline in sightings of soft-shell turtles due to various factors such as poaching, habitat fragmentation, and hydropower projects.
The researchers conducted visual encounter surveys over a period from October 2022 to September 2023, confirming the presence of the turtles through sightings while surfacing for breathing, basking on rocks, and spoor marks. With distinctive physical characteristics and a diet comprising mosquito larvae, crabs, molluscs, and fish, these turtles play a crucial role in the ecosystem, emphasizing the importance of further studies to understand their behavior and address existing threats to their survival.
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