Rescue of a green sea turtle caught in a midwater trawl along Palk Bay, Southeast coast of India

An exploratory fish trawl survey was conducted on 4th March 2021 along the Mallipattinam coast of Palk Bay, Tamil Nadu, on the southeast coast of India. Midwater trawling was carried out between the coordinates of 10.25° N, 79.53° E and 10.28° N, 79.64° E, 5 nautical miles offshore and in waters 7m deep. When hauling the trawl net, we noticed that a single green turtle (Chelonia mydas) was accidentally caught in the trawl catch (Figure 1). The neck of the turtle was entangled in an abandoned gillnet. The turtle was removed carefully from the codend of the trawl net and cut free from the entangling gillnet without any further apparent stress and injury. The turtle was carefully examined but no sign of injury or malformation were found. Morphometric measurements were taken with a flexible tape measure (Figure 2) and the weight estimated by hand (Table 1). The tail did not extend beyond the carapace so, at this size, the turtle cannot be conclusively identified as male or female. The turtle was released back into the sea with the help of crew members (Figure 3)