Satish Bhaskar was a curious man. From a very young age he was fascinated with the sea and the diverse marine creatures, especially turtles. When he learnt that sea turtles were being exploited in India for their eggs, shells and flesh, he understood the importance of documenting and protecting nesting turtle beaches. In the late 1970s, he decided to cover every single beach and island in India, by foot. Over 19 years, Bhaskar surveyed more than 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) of the country’s coastline and published several important reports, filling huge gaps of knowledge about sea turtle distribution. He even chose to maroon himself on an uninhabited island in Lakshadweep for months, equipped with only basic essentials and a transistor, to study turtles.

In a documentary about his life and career, titled Turtle Walker, the late conservationist described being with turtles as some of the happiest days in his life. “I am glad I did the things I did,” he said.

Produced by Emaho Films and backed by Tiger Baby, HHMI Tangled Bank Studios and Ceres, the 75-minute documentary is already winning international recognition and is set to be screened at the DC Environmental Film Festival 2025 (DCEFF 2025). Mongabay is a media partner for DCEFF 2025 and has interviewed some filmmakers as part of this collaboration.

In this interview with Mongabay India, Taira Malaney, the director of Turtle Walker talked about why she chose Satish Bhaskar as the subject of her documentary, the challenges of filming with turtles, the role of environmental films and more.

The turtle walker

A storyteller with a background in psychology, Malaney has always been intrigued by the human nature. She said she learnt Bhaskar’s story through an old news article written by herpetologist Romulus Whitaker and thought to herself, “What makes a person maroon themselves for months together on an island?” Thus was born Turtle Walker.

Making the film, however, was not all that straightforward. It took convincing the shy Bhaskar to open up about his life, emotions and adventures, on camera. In 2018, a small team would go to Bhaskar’s home to interview him, build a relationship with him and hear his stories. “He was very open to share all the scientific research in the beginning, but I knew that it was not going to form the backbone of the story. You have to get past that and to really build a character, they have to be vulnerable, right? They need to share more than just the facts. It took a little bit more time to build that trust in order to get access to his emotions of what he went through during these experiences being marooned on the islands,” Malaney said.

In the interview process Malaney was adrenalized with Bhaskar’s story. “Everything he did was actually done in a very humble way. It was purely for the joy of discovering and being in these places and learning about these creatures. There was no fame aspect to it, and there was no trying to discover something that no one had before. It was purely for the experience. And that really attracted me to him on a personal level, as a character, because it felt very authentic,” she said.

The filmmakers employed a cinematic recreation process where artist and actor Rohan Joglekar reprised the role of the young Satish Bhaskar who ventures to these islands for turtle surveys. Behind the scenes, Bhaskar would teach Joglekar how he had conducted his surveys and about the types of eggs and turtles. Joglekar would then recreate it on camera.

“I don’t think he (Bhaskar) ever imagined a film on him being made…We were very open with him about the kind of direction we wanted to take the story and how I wanted to tell it. We would share the rough cuts with him for his feedback.” It took seven years to complete the film. Bhaskar, however, could not watch the final version, as he died in 2023.

In all of Bhaskar’s adventures, the hope of seeing a turtle kept him going. He kept in touch with his wife Brenda through letters and he also wrote about the wildlife he spotted, in great detail to Whitaker and his team at the Madras Snake Park, where he had then worked as a field officer. He would describe the weight of the turtles, the number of nests, the size of turtle eggs, the shape of the turtle tracks and more. It was in the Andamans that he had spotted and documented the turtles and nests he was waiting for – the critically endangered hawksbill turtles and the vulnerable leatherback turtles. He covered the entire coast of Lakshadweep and two-thirds of the Andamans in his expeditions.

After several years, Bhaskar even returned to South Reef Island in the Andamans despite challenges in his health, to understand impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on the coast and turtle nesting patterns. He was also surprised and happy to learn that other researchers in the country are building on his work. The documentary features turtle researchers Kartik Shanker and Adhith Swaminathan’s work in the long-term turtle monitoring project in the Andaman and Nicobar islands. “We could still be seeing the turtles that Satish saw,” Swaminathan exclaimed in the documentary, while adding that Bhaskar’s detailed field notes are helping them continue the work.

Filming turtles

The aesthetically-pleasing Turtle Walker uses archival images, Bhaskar’s survey records and published studies, maps, aerial drone shots, underwater shots and interviews to narrate the story. While all these elements make the visual language gripping, to be able to see turtles, at close range, in their natural habitat is truly mesmerising. And those scenes were the most challenging parts to film for Malaney’s team. “So, we filmed predominantly in the Andaman and Nicobar. We also filmed in Lakshadweep, and a bit in Goa as well… Getting access to some places is not so easy. These islands are quite protected, which is good. In the Andamans, our filming and research partner, Dakshin Foundation, has been running a leatherback monitoring programme over there. They helped us film on West Bay where they have their research project. So, that’s where we filmed the leatherback turtles. We also filmed all along the middle and North Andaman. We worked very closely with the Dakshin Foundation (which works with several other partners) and the Forest Department,” she said.

She also detailed the process of shooting with the nocturnal sea turtles. “So, they come up to nest at night and we filmed at night. Our DoP actually used an infrared camera to film so that we don’t disturb the sea turtles; they’re very sensitive to light. So, all our night scenes are filmed using infrared cameras. And then, of course, there were some in the in the daytime. You know, we would get lucky once in a while if there was like a nest emerging in the morning, and we catch that at dawn.”

She added, “With the turtles, one of the things that we learned from the forest guards and the researchers that we worked with is that you don’t go approach the turtle until she has started nesting. Because when she started nesting, she sort of goes into a trance and is not disturbed. So, we waited for turtles to start laying the eggs, before filming them.”

Malaney has a penchant for suspenseful, dramatic scenes which comes through in the film. The timeline also shifts back and forth to the past and present, retaining the attention of the viewers.

Environmental films and hope

Turtle Walker is as much about human determination and resilience as it is about Bhaskar’s career and sea turtles. Showcasing this was important for Malaney, because she said she believes that centering humans and their relationship with the natural world and making hopeful films, can help people connect with the issue. “When I graduated from college, I felt quite helpless about climate change and the environmental disasters and endangered species. I didn’t know what I could do about it on an individual level. A lot of the films that I did see…there are the blue chip ones that show the beauty, which is amazing. It is so fascinating to learn about their behavior and everything. And that was is extreme. And then, on the other hand, you had these conservation films that took on the issues and showed you what was happening…it would be quite depressing like to watch those films in some ways.” Unconvinced with the two extremes, she decided to strike a balance in this debut feature film while discussing the challenges and the solutions in sea turtle conservation.

By including monitoring and conservation efforts by other researchers in India and positive trends in turtle nesting in the Andamans after the tsunami, Turtle Walker underscores that Bhaskar’s legacy lives on. “It’s not the end of the story, there are many chapters to be added,” Bhaskar noted in the film.

According to Malaney, when people see, that dedicated efforts can lead to an animal’s recovery, it reinforces the idea that conservation actions make a difference. “I think stories like that are important for that reason, to give hope for people to then think they can also have a role in protecting environments and ecosystems.”

Banner image:A still from Turtle Walker. Image by Umeed Mistry.

This article was first published here on Mongabay India.