In the 1970s, conservationist Satish Bhaskar travelled 4,000 kilometres of India’s 7,516 km coastline to mark out sea turtle habitats.
His only companions were a small transistor radio and an indefatigable spirit.
The learnings he recorded would form a blueprint from which generations of conservationists could draw an understanding of turtle behaviours.
These behaviours included – nesting patterns – nature and numbers of the eggs laid by the turtles.
Bhaskar was never daunted by the lack of company of the deep silence that the islands he travelled were often bathed in.
The most retold story of Bhaskar’s intrepidity is of when he consigned himself to the uninhabited Suheli island in Lakshadweep in 1982.
He was moored here for five months, conducting surveys on sea turtles; he left his wife and three-month-old daughter behind.
The island’s remoteness and inaccessibility made Bhaskar decide to shift to it during the monsoon season. This was the main nesting period of the green sea turtles.
Whether while on the Suheli island or as he travelled in succession along the coastline — across Kerala, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, and West Papua, Indonesia — he left an indelible mark in each place.
Sometimes, Bhaskar survived on biscuits and vitamins for days, until he was able to get himself some food from the tribal hamlets.
Sea turtle conservation is prime.
Poachers slaughter these turtles for their eggs, meat, skin, and shells and fishing nets accidentally end up destroying their habitats.
But Bhaskar’s work set a precedent for the conservation of this species.
His paper on sea turtle conservation, presented at the World Conference on the Biology and Conservation of Sea Turtles in 1979, became a landmark document in the history of sea turtle biology.
In April 2010, during the 30th Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation in Goa, the International Sea Turtle Society presented him with a Sea Turtle Champions Award for his outstanding contributions to sea turtle research through his surveys.
Bhaskar passed away in March 2023, but left behind a legacy — his very own footprints in the sand — for generations of conservationists to follow.