Fighting Ghost Nets & Saving Turtles

PROTECTING SEA TURTLES AND THEIR HABITATS IN THE INDIAN OCEAN

Turtle Emergency Maldives +960 955 2205

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Sea Turtle Emergency

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Volunteer Programs Maldives

Marine Turtle Rescue Centre Maldives

The ORP Marine Turtle Rescue Centre provides veterinarian care and rehabilitation to injured marine turtles rescued across the Maldives.

With injuries too severe for immediate release, many of the turtles would almost certainly not survive without treatment.

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The Olive Ridley Project protects sea turtles and their habitats in the Indian Ocean through rescue and rehabilitation of injured sea turtles, research and education, removal of ghost gear from the ocean, and by working to reduce and reuse ghost gear.

Meet Our Turtle Patients

Ghost Gear Research & Sea Turtle Monitoring

Removing Ghost Gear From The Ocean

Reuse Of Ghost Gear & Obsolete Fishing Nets

Education & Community Outreach

Resources & Publications

Ghost nets are fishing nets that have been lost, abandoned, or discarded at sea.

Every year they are responsible for killing millions of marine animals.

WHAT ARE GHOST NETS?

Sea Turtles Of The Indian Ocean

Five of the seven remaining species of sea turtles can be found in the Indian Ocean: Green, Hawksbill, Olive Ridley, Loggerhead and Leatherback.

Sea Turtles Of The Indian Ocean

Turtle Photo-ID – Tracking Turtles Through Images

Maldives Sea Turtle Gallery

Olive ridley turtles are rarely found nesting in the Maldives, yet they are the turtle species most frequently found entangled in ghost gear here.

Since 2011, ORP has recorded 812 entangled turtles:

Olive ridleys made up 89% of all entangled turtles reported.

The Story So Far

1,400+ ghost nets and ghost gear fragments removed from the Indian ocean

812 entangled turtles reported:

57.5% juveniles, 19% females, 3.5% males and 20% unknown
89% olive ridleys

101 injured turtles treated at the Marine Turtle Rescue Centre:

77% olive ridleys
68% victims of ghost net, plastic, or marine debris entanglement
49 turtles successfully released

3,587+ sea turtles identified

23,089+ sea turtle sightings documented

The Olive Ridley Project, Registered Charity No 1165905 in England & Wales, was founded in 2013 in response to the large amounts of entangled Olive ridley sea turtles found in the Maldives, where this turtle species is particularly rare. Most encounters with this vulnerable sea turtle here are under stressful conditions; entangled in discarded fishing nets, also known as ghost nets, or floating injured on the surface.

ORP is on a mission to protect sea turtles and their habitats in the Indian Ocean. We do this through rescue and rehabilitation of injured sea turtles, research and education, and by actively removing ghost nets from the ocean and working on ways to reuse and reduce ghost gear.

Our community of volunteers and citizen scientists, environmentalists and Marine Biologists around the Indian Ocean are invaluable to ORP. Their contributions have so far been phenomenal.

In February 2017 we opened our Marine Turtle Rescue Centre in partnership with Coco Collection in Baa Atoll, Maldives. The first fully-equipped marine turtle rescue centre in Maldives has laboratory and surgical facilities as well as a full-time resident turtle veterinarian and can accommodate up to eight turtle patients at the time.