Turtle Survival Alliance India and Help Earth have signed the pact with Assam’s Hayagriva Madhava Temple Committee for the long-term conservation of the rare freshwater black softshell turtle or the Nilssonia nigricans.
- Until sightings along the Brahmaputra’s drainage in Assam, the black softshell turtle was thought to be “extinct in the wild” and confined only to ponds of temples in northeastern India and Bangladesh.
- The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) had in 2021 listed the turtle as “critically endangered”.
- But this species does not enjoy legal protection under the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972, although it has traditionally been hunted for its meat and cartilage, traded in regional and international markets.
- Various temple ponds in Assam such as that of the Hayagriva Madhava Temple harbour various threatened species of turtles.
- Since the turtles are conserved in these ponds only based on religious grounds, many biological requirements for building a sustainable wild population have since long been overlooked.
(Source: The Hindu)
