First record of Olive Ridley Sea Turtle Lepidochelys olivacea (Eschscholtz, 1829) nesting in the United Arab Emirates

Herpetology Notes, volume 14: 353-356 (2021) (published online on 14 February 2021)

    First record of Olive Ridley Sea Turtle Lepidochelys olivacea
      (Eschscholtz, 1829) nesting in the United Arab Emirates

                                     Fadi Yaghmour1,* and Clara J. Rodríguez-Zárate2

  Five of the seven extant species of sea turtles occur in     In recent years, less frequent arribadas have been reported
the waters of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), including        at large nesting sites like Gahirmatha, suggesting a
Hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata; IUCN Red List               potential population decline (Behera and Kaiser, 2020).
category Critically Endangered), Green (Chelonia mydas;        In the Arabian region, olive ridleys are less common and
Vulnerable), Loggerhead (Caretta caretta; Critically           documented as nesting primarily in Oman and Pakistan.
Endangered), Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea;              Nesting activity in Pakistan has fallen from 25–120 nests
Vulnerable), and Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea;            per year in 1982–84 (Cornelius et al., 2007) to two nests
Vulnerable) (Abreu-Grobois and Plotkin, 2008; Mortimer         per year in 1996–97 (Asrar, 1999). A small yet stable
and Donnelly, 2008; Wallace et al., 2013; Casale, 2015;        nesting population exists on the southern tip of Masirah
Mancini et al., 2019). The former three species are            Island in Oman, where it is estimated that 150–400
relatively common in the UAE, with green sea turtles the       females nest every year (Ross and Barwani, 1982; Rees
most abundant and hawksbills the predominant nesting           et al., 2012; AlSinaidi, 2014). An increasing body of
species. On the other hand, leatherback and olive ridley       evidence indicates that high levels of mortality may be
sea turtles are considered rare visitors (Baldwin and          a result of the impact from fisheries’ bycatch and “ghost
Gardner, 2005; Yaghmour, 2019).                                fishing” (turtles caught and drowned by entanglement
  Globally, L. olivacea has a circumtropical distribution,     in discarded fishing gear), suggesting that interaction
occupying waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian          with fisheries represents a high risk to sea turtles across
Oceans, and it is considered the most abundant of all          the region (Abdulqader et al., 2017; Yaghmour et al.,
sea turtle species. Nonetheless, the West Indian Ocean         2018a,b; Yaghmour, 2020). Recent evidence suggests that
Population Management Unit of this species is recognised       the nesting activity of L. olivacea also extends to Eritrea
as the world’s most endangered subpopulation (Wallace          (Mebrahtu, 2013) and Iran (Kami, 1997; Tollab et al.,
et al., 2010). In the Arabian Gulf, olive ridleys have         2015). Here, we present the first record of an olive ridley
been reported in the waters of Iran (Tollab et al., 2015),     nesting in the UAE.
Bahrain (Abdulqader and Miller, 2012), and Kuwait                On 2 May 2020 at 07:51 h, a guest of Kingfisher
(Bishop et al., 2007). In the UAE, their presence has been     Lodge, Khor Kalba Beach (ca. 25.0179°N, 56.3700°E;
documented along both the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of             Fig. 1A–C) observed a sea turtle hatchling crawling
Oman coasts (Miller et al., 2004; Baldwin and Gardner,         towards the ocean during a morning walk. Photographs
2005; Rees et al., 2012; Yaghmour, 2019).                      were taken and the hatchling remained unharassed as it
  Major nesting rookeries in the northern Indian Ocean         made its way to the water. The observation was reported
concentrate on arribada sites located along the east coast     to the Environment and Protected Areas Authority.
of India, especially along the coast of Odisha, where          Unfortunately, due to guest occupancy of the hotel,
massive nesting events are observed (> 100,000 turtles         investigation of the site was delayed until 4 May, when
annually; Kar and Bhaskar, 1982; Shanker et al., 2004).        the area was inspected for the presence of a nest.
                                                                 Several tracks (Fig. 1D, E) were observed on the
                                                               middle and upper part of the beach that seemed to
                                                               converge around a particular area. An emergence crater
1
  Al Hefaiyah Mountain Conservation Centre, Environment
   and Protected Areas Authority, Kalba Sharjah, United Arab   can usually be located by following hatchling tracks back
   Emirates.                                                   onto the beach from the water’s edge. In addition, soft
2
  Sharjah Desert Park, Environment and Protected Areas         sand on the surface of the nest can identify the channel
   Authority, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.                   through which hatchlings travelled to the surface.
*
  Corresponding author. E-mail: fadi.mohd@epaa.shj.ae          However, no evidence of the nest or related soft sand
© 2021 by Herpetology Notes. Open Access by CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.   around an emergence crater was detected. This could

354                                                                              Fadi Yaghmour & Clara J. Rodríguez-Zárate

Figure 1. (A) Location of the Olive Ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) nesting site at Kalba Beach on the east coast of the
United Arab Emirates. The position of Kalba Beach is indicated by the white square. (B) Satellite close-up of the stretch on Kalba
Beach marked in (A), with potential olive ridley nesting locations (blue circles) and the point of encounter with an olive ridley
hatchling (red circle). (C) Profile view of Kalba Beach to show the potential olive ridley nesting habitat, backed by low-lying and
dispersed vegetation. (D) Tracks of olive ridley hatchlings, overlapping in the middle section of the beach. (E) Close-up of an
olive ridley hatchling track. Notice the alternate marks left by the forelimbs and the central line left by the tail. Map Images taken
from Google Earth.

have resulted from the time that elapsed between the                 seven lateral scutes (Fig. 2A), two pairs of prefrontal
hatching event and the time of inspection, which may                 scutes, a horny beak (Fig. 2B), a single claw on each
have reduced the possibility of nest detection as the                fore-flipper (Fig. 2C), and a precentral scute that touches
sand dried out and fresh tracks and other evidence of an             the anterior central scute and the two anterior lateral
emergence crater disappeared. Furthermore, the presence              scutes (Fig. 2D).
of lights on the beach may have disoriented emerging                   This report represents the first record of olive ridley sea
hatchlings and led to their meandering, resulting in a               turtle nesting in the UAE. Sea turtle nesting activity in
wider, not unidirectional dispersal along the beach before           the UAE is mainly restricted to the Arabian Gulf coast,
they reached the sea. It is well recognised that artificial          where hawksbill turtles are the primary nesting species.
lighting affects hatchlings, who aim for the ocean                   Along the Gulf of Oman coast of the UAE, sea turtle
horizon as the brightest area on a dark night, by making             nesting is not common and only two recent records are
them crawl in the opposite direction of the sea (Longcore            known: a single green sea turtle nest in 2014 and a single
and Rich, 2004). As an ecolodge, the number of cabins                hawksbill nest in 2015, both from Khor Kalba beach
and levels of artificial lighting at Kingfisher Lodge is             (Hebbelmann et al., 2009). The nesting event reported
low, but we cannot discard the possibility that there may            here is the third registered sea turtle nest from the Gulf
have been an effect that reduced our opportunity to detect           of Oman coast of the UAE.
the nest. No dead hatchlings were observed. Using the                  Sporadic nesting outside known nesting ranges is not
tourist’s photographs we were able to determine that the             unusual in sea turtles, particularly olive ridleys, which
hatchlings were olive ridleys with dark pigmentation,                are considered a nomadic species with a more flexible

First Record of Lepidochelys olivacea Nesting in the United Arab Emirates                                                            355

Figure 2. Olive ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) species diagnosis. (A) Olive Ridley sea turtle hatchling showing a carapace
with seven lateral scutes. (B) Head view, showing four prefrontal scutes and a horny beak. (C) There is one claw on each forelimb. (D)
A precentral scute (red) touches the anterior central scute (green) and both anterior lateral scutes (blue). Photos by Christopher Shorten.

level of philopatry to nesting areas compared to other                 such as that described here highlight the requirement
sea turtle species (Plotkin, 2010), a trait that may help              of continued research and conservation monitoring in
facilitate the colonization of new and suitable nesting                the UAE to better protect and understand the biology of
habitats. Satellite tracking information of post-nesting               these endangered species in the Arabian region.
olive ridleys from Masirah Island, Oman, suggested
that some turtles move to forage along the Arabian Gulf                Acknowledgments. We express our sincere gratitude to His
                                                                       Highness Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme
coast of Iran avoiding the summer cooling caused by the
                                                                       Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, for his support. The
southwest monsoon and the west Arabian sea upwelling                   authors would also like to acknowledge the support of Her
(Rees et al., 2012). Our discovery could represent one                 Excellency Hana Saif Al Suwaidi, Chairperson of the Sharjah
such female returning to nest in Masirah Island.                       Environment and Protected Areas Authority (EPAA), and Dalal
  Sea turtles are also known to navigate using                         Al Yammahi, the EPAA Kalba office manager. The authors would
magnetic fields (Lohmann et al., 2008; Putman et al.,                  like to thank Kingfisher Lodge activities manager Bopanna
2011), although the exact mechanism behind these                       Kaliyatanda Devaiah and Kingfisher Lodge guest Christopher
                                                                       Shorten for their vital cooperation in documenting this record.
navigational skills is not yet well understood. Thus,
sporadic nesting events may be, in part, the result of
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