The discovery of a dead Olive Ridley turtle in front of the West Sands Resort on Mai Khao Beach on March 17 has again raised the issue of coastal development depleting endangered turtles' natural breeding grounds.

The Phuket Marine Biologi-cal Centre (PMBC) was alerted to the discovery by the Mai Khao Marine Turtle Founda-tion. Sontaya Manawatthana of the PMBC's Marine Endange-red Species Unit reported that many species of fish and squid were found in the dead turtle's esophagus, with little in its stomach.

Dinner

"This indicates that the animal ate this prey just before its death. The species of prey we found, which are typically caught by trawler, are normally too fast for turtles to hunt down, so it is most likely that the turtle fed upon these prey while in a trawler's net.

"This turtle was an immature male, aged around 10years. Its overall condition was healthy, which makes it so unfortunate he died like this," lamented Sontaya.

His PMBC colleague, biologist Kongkiat Kittiwattana-wong fears the worst. "In the past five decades,the number of sea turtles has dropped five-fold. The Olive Ridley, the smallest and probably the most ubiquitous species of sea turtle worldwide, is at risk of extinction locally," he said.