Interview 22: Conserving India’s Marine Turtles with Kartik Shanker, Founder of Dakshin Foundation

While India is well known for her tigers, elephants and rhinos, the country also boasts amongst the richest marine biodiversity. One of the most unique taxa found along India's coasts, are various species of marine turtles. However,  these species are heavily threatened by marine pollution, the illegal wildlife trade of their eggs, attacks by free ranging dogs and habitat loss. Additionally, like most marine species, these turtles are also threatened by climate change. Fortunately, there are some great intiatives and scientisits are working extensively to conserve these ecologically critical taxa. In Episode 22, I interview Kartik Shanker, who is one of the leading marine biologists in India. He has worked extensively researching and conserving various species of marine turtles in India. His passion for marine biology led to him to establish Dakshin Foundation, an organization working towards the conservation of India's coastal ecosystems with the involvment of local communities. He is also a faculty of the Centre for Ecological Studies at the Indian Institute of Science.Did you enjoy this podcast? Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast! You can also listen to the podcast on YouTube, Spotify, iTunes and Amazon Music. Get full access to The Think Wildlife Podcast at anishbanerjee.substack.com/subscribe