Thousands of baby olive ridley sea turtles are trapped in abandoned fishing nets overwhelming efforts of rescuers to save them on an Indian beach. <br /><br />A video filmed on May 12 by journalist, Bismay Pradhan, shows several of these poor animals fatally trapped in plastic wires at Podampetta beach in Ganjam district in eastern India.<br /><br />Local residents said a huge number of baby turtles had perished though there was no count of the victims. Many felt the local forest officials had not taken the problem seriously. <br /><br />Pradhan said: "I have seen thousands of turtle babies trapped in fishing nets both on the shore and in the sea.” <br /><br />“I am upset by the attitude of local forest officials. They should have deployed more personnel to free the babies from the nets," he added. <br /><br />Honorary Wildlife Warden, Subhendu Mallik, said: “Ironically many of these nets were used by forest department officials to fence off parts of the beach to keep predators like dogs and jackals away.”<br /><br />“They should never have used these nets as they always posed a risk of entrapping the babies” he added. <br /><br />Thousands of endangered Olive Ridley turtles visit Indian shores to lay eggs every year.
