A recent conservation initiative is closely monitoring the return of 20 critically endangered red-crowned roofed turtles in India’s Ganga River, where the species was nearly wiped out, reports Mongabay India’s Manish Chandra Mishra. The red-crowned roofed turtle (Batagur kachuga), found only in India, Bangladesh and Nepal, was historically widespread in Ganga and its tributaries. But a 2019 assessment found that hunting, illegal trade, habitat loss and river flow changes reduced the turtle’s population by 80% over the previous 50 years. At the time of the assessment, researchers noted the only known remaining population, about 500 adult females, was in the National Chambal Sanctuary, located on Chambal River in Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) state. Chambal is part of the Ganga River system. In 2021 and 2023, however, residents of two villages in U.P. spotted some red-crowned roofed turtles and their nests in the Ganga outside of Chambal, indicating the turtles were capable of surviving in other parts of the river. So, in April 2025, conservationists and government authorities moved 20 turtles from the Garheta Turtle Conservation Centre in the National Chambal Sanctuary to two different areas in the Ganga. They released 10 turtles at the Haiderpur wetland, a Ramsar wetland of importance in U.P., while the other 10 were taken to the main Ganga River in the state’s Meerut forest division. Conservationists said they hoped that by splitting the turtles into two groups they could evaluate the best rehabilitation method, Chandra reports. The translocated turtles were carefully selected based on health, sex…This article was originally published on Mongabay