Mass nesting of Olive Ridley turtles in Odisha goes viral linking to Prayagraj Mahakumbh

The viral video shows the mass nesting of Olive Ridley turtles in Odisha and is unrelated to the 2025 Prayagraj Mahakumbh.

Prayagraj Mahakumbh Mela concluded on 26 February 2025, following this a video of countless turtles coming from the water towards the shore has gone viral on social media. It is being claimed that turtles suddenly started appearing as soon as the Maha Kumbh Mela ended.

Let’s check the truth

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Fact Check- 

We started our investigation with a reverse image search on google and the results led us to a Twitter post by Weather Monitors featuring the same video uploaded on 22 February 2025. The caption of the post stated that it was from “Mass Turtle Nesting Underway in Odisha, India.” The post states, “Approximately 300,000 Olive Ridley turtles have arrived on the coast of Odisha for their annual mass nesting phenomenon, a remarkable spectacle of nature”.

🚨MASS TURTLE NESTING UNDERWAY IN ODISHA, INDIA

Approximately 300,000 Olive Ridley turtles have arrived on the coast of Odisha for their annual mass nesting phenomenon, a remarkable spectacle of nature. pic.twitter.com/HuB4Vml6Ic

— Weather Monitor (@WeatherMonitors) February 22, 2025

Moving forward, we found many reports regarding this phenomenon. As per NDTV reports, “The mouth of the Rushikulya River in Odisha’s Ganjam district has emerged as a major rookery for the endangered olive ridley turtles as they arrived at the coast for mass nesting. A record-breaking 6,98,718 turtles laid eggs on the beach, surpassing the record set in 2023 of 6,37,008. This was also special since the endangered marine species did not make an appearance at the beach last year.

According to reports, these endangered turtles laid eggs between February 16 and February 25 this year. During this time, the government made several arrangements to protect the turtles so that no one could disturb them.   

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We also found a banner visible in the viral video. It has ‘Government of Odisha’ and ‘Olive Ridley Sea Turtle Protection Camp, Podampeta’ written on it. We also found the same video featured in a report by The Telegraph, uploaded on their YouTube channel on 24 February 2025. 

All these evidences confirms that the viral video shows the mass nesting of Olive Ridley turtles in Odisha and it has no link to the 2025 Prayagraj Mahakumbh.

Conclusion- Fact crescendo found the claim made along with the viral video to be Misleading. The viral video shows the mass nesting of Olive Ridley turtles in Odisha and is unrelated to the 2025 Prayagraj Mahakumbh.