Mission Beach Cassowaries
  • ABOUT CASSOWARIES
    • Cassowary ID and tracking >
      • Sightings maps
    • World Cassowary Day 2015
  • NEWS
  • Information
    • Developments
    • Thorsborne Trail NOT FOR SALE >
      • MARGARET 'T' AO 1927-2018
    • Walking tracks
    • Birding
    • Lot 66/Garrett Corridor
    • Publications
    • Mission Beach Naturally >
      • Community Identity
    • Heritage
  • Photo Gallery
    • Fauna >
      • Cassowary
      • Birds
      • Mammals
      • Reptiles
    • Flora >
      • Flowers
      • Plants and trees
      • Fungi
    • Scenic
  • Contact
    • Privacy policy

Turtles undertake voyage of a lifetime

15/5/2011

 
HELLO: Martin Cunningham filmed this close-up encounter with a green turtle while diving on the Reef.
Green turtle - photo Martin Cunningham
By Lawrie Martin and Anne Wilkinson

I will never forget my first sight, as a small child, of a live green sea turtle. It was swimming in a heated tank in Regents Park Zoo in London and its slow, graceful action as it circled and weaved in the water was quite mesmerising.

I did not realise then that I would one day be living where green turtles nested on the beaches and where the annual adventure of the tiny hatchlings paddling their way to the sea took place. New born, they run the gauntlet of natural danger with predators such as gulls and crabs lined up to take them. Despite these hazards, many make it although, since most hatchings are at night, on the more populated beaches they are also often distracted by lights. Many a beachside swimming pool owner has found baby turtles in the pool following a night time hatch.
                                                                                     

Turtle statistics are amazing, and they begin with this first journey across the sand, for if they are female it will probably be some 35 years before they touch land again – in the same place as they were hatched – to lay their eggs. If they are male they may never make landfall again. They are believed to live up to 80 years.

As turtle watcher Henry Epong of Cowley Beach described it, “They reach the water and swim out and every now and then raise their heads to look ahead to where they are going and I always think, it will be 35 years before you are here again. It is an amazing thought.”

There is so much mystery surrounding turtles.

How do they navigate huge distances, migrating through the warmer waters of the world, to find their way back to exactly the same beach where they were hatched to lay their eggs?

Why are there some good years for turtle hatchings and on other years no turtles appear?

What is happening to the sea turtles in these changing times, with global warming and increasing pollution of the oceans?

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) first identified the green turtle as endangered in 1982, and the species numbers are still falling.

One reason must be the damage to the sea grass beds fed on by the herbivorous adults. Not only cyclones and other water disturbances cause damage to these underwater meadows which locally are also grazed by dugong.

They are often badly damaged by trawling, buried or otherwise disturbed during development, and polluted by weedicide residues and other agricultural and urban runoff.

It is also well known turtles, which need air to breathe, drown in fishing nets and die from ingesting plastic bags, and added to the turtles’ maritime dangers, in some places eggs are taken by predators such as wild pigs, or simply squashed when unthinkingly driven over by 4WDs.

This season turtles began nesting on Cowley Beach in September, earlier than usual. Some nests were lost, but the first nest yielded 114 young, and about 1000 baby turtles were counted from the beach in all. Only a very few, of course, will make it through the hazards encountered over 35 years or so to come back and lay. No turtles have been seen on the beach since Cyclone Yasi.

The cyclone has also subtly rearranged the beach by taking away about a metre depth of sand from the dune, making it easier for the turtles to climb.

So if nothing changes in the meantime, next year’s turtles will not have such a challenging journey to find their nesting sites.
                                                                                        +++

With the advent of dryer weather making it easier to burn fallen trees and other green waste collected into piles or windrows following Cyclone Yasi, please spare a thought for the creatures which may be seeking refuge in them.

Give wildlife a go, literally, and burn carefully so they have a chance to escape before the fire takes hold. If the fire is being started by fuel on the perimeter, leave plenty of space so that any creatures inside can get out.

Nocturnal animals, especially, are in danger at this time as they would be sleepy and if the fire is set in the evening, this is the time when daytime creatures are settling down to rest.

Picture
 Wildwatch is provided by the Tully branch of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland: enquiries to 4066 5466 or 4066 5650. To contact the emergency 24-hour Wildcare rescue hotline, phone 4068 7272.
Phone DERM on 1300 130 372 to report concerns about cassowaries and mahogany gliders.
Lawrie Martin and Anne Wilkinson write wildlife articles which are featured each week in the Tully Times.  They have kindly given permission for them to be a regular post on this blog.



Comments are closed.
    Mission Beach Cassowaries facebook page
    Follow the lives of individual cassowaries on facebook

    Picture
    Friends of Ninney Rise
    Ninney Rise
    - the inspiring
     conservation history of Mission Beach

    Lot 66
    a Mission Beach buyback success story
     


    Picture
    Russell Constable's blog is packed full of information about Ella Bay and region

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    January 2021
    December 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    January 2020
    October 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    November 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011

    Categories

    All
    Ash
    Birds
    Boat Bay
    Bush Tucker
    Butterflies
    Cassowaries
    Cassowary Coast
    Cca
    Coquette Point
    Cowley Beach
    Crocodiles
    Cyclones
    Cyclone Yasi
    Development
    Flowers
    Flying Foxes
    Frogs
    Fungi
    Insects
    Johnstone River
    Little Terns Nesting
    Mahogany Glider
    Mangrove Dieback
    Marine
    Mission Beach
    Port Hinchinbrook
    Rainforest Fruit
    Sediment Runnoff
    Snakes
    Spiders
    Threats
    Tourism
    Tully Heads
    Turtles
    Wildwatch
    W P S Q Tully Branch


© All content on this website (except where otherwise stated) is copyright Mission Beach Cassowaries All Rights Reserved If copying or publishing  content or information from this site please credit and link to Mission Beach Cassowaries Inc. website Except where otherwise credited, all photos on this website are copyright and must have permission to reproduce