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The name Satish Bhaskar conjures up the idea of a conservationist and his umbilical link with sea turtles. Retellings of his bravado are anecdotal — in the 1970s, Bhaskar traversed 4,000 kilometres of India’s 7,516 km coastline in a bid to mark out sea turtle habitats, which would form a blueprint from which generations of conservationists could draw an understanding of turtle behaviours.

These behaviours included nesting patterns and the nature and numbers of the eggs they laid. Bhaskar’s learnings became the fulcrum around which turtle conservation began to be studied.

As he charted the course of the coastline, a small transistor radio and an indefatigable spirit served as his only companions. He was at ease among the reptiles, never daunted by the lack of company of the deep silence that the islands he travelled were often bathed in.

“I never felt alone,” Bhaskar recounted to filmmaker Taira Malaney, whose 75-minute documentary film ‘Turtle Walker’ received the ‘Conservation’ and ‘Grand Teton’ awards at the Jackson Wild Media Awards in 2024.

The documentary chronicles Bhaskar’s epic journeys as he undertook a “death-defying quest, [while] he unravelled mysteries surrounding these enigmatic ocean creatures [sea turtles] and set out to save them from extinction”.

In fact, Bhaskar’s extensive research became the touchstone for interventions around sea turtle conservation undertaken on the beaches of the Andaman Islands.

Exiled himself to solitude and turtles

The most retold story of Bhaskar’s intrepidity is of him consigning himself to the uninhabited Suheli island in Lakshadweep in 1982, where for five months he conducted surveys on sea turtles, keen to observe them at length.

The island’s remoteness and inaccessibility made Bhaskar decide to shift to it during the monsoon season, which was the main nesting period of the green sea turtles. Leaving his wife and three-month-old daughter........

© The Better India