A turtle rescued from the courtyard of a house in Howrah's Bagnan on Friday was identified as an Indian peacock softshell, an endangered species.
The owner of the house spotted something moving in his courtyard on Friday evening. He flashed a torch to see a turtle that seemed larger than the usual ones.
The family approached a local club, which in turn alerted an NGO active in the area. Members of the NGO, Howrah Jela Joutho Paribesh Mancha, rescued the turtle.
"It is an Indian peacock softshell turtle, an endangered species," said a forest official.
Chitrak Pramanik, who rescued the turtle, said it weighed around 9kg.
"After the consent of the forest department, we released the turtle into a water body in the area. Our volunteers will keep an eye on it," he said.
Turtles are routinely hunted and their meat is sold, on the sly, on the fringes of Kolkata and in the districts.
Indian peacock softshell turtle (Nilssonia hurum) is listed on the IUCN Red List as a vulnerable species and as a Schedule I animal in the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Schedule I animals are forbidden from being hunted.
This newspaper sent the pictures of the turtle to Upamanyu Chakraborty, a biologist who has been studying freshwater turtles.
He confirmed that it was a peacock softshell.
"It is found across eastern Pakistan, northern India, Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Bangladesh and southern Nepal. The population has dwindled rapidly because of illegal hunting for meat, riverine habitat destruction and water pollution," said Chakraborty.
"The Indian peacock softshell turtle has a large head, downturned snout with low and oval carapace of dark olive green to nearly black, sometimes with a yellow rim. The head and limbs are olive green; the forehead has dark reticulations and large yellow or orange patches or spots, especially behind the eyes and across the snout, that are larger than those in its sister species," says the website of the Wildlife Institute of India.
