Turtle Tales

Burying a dead turtle on Coochiemudlo Island, Moreton Bay, South East Queensland.

Coochiemudlo Island is fortunate to have a dedicated and trained crew who act as first responders to rescue and deal with injured or dead turtles on and around our island.

We have protocols in place to respond to each incident and collect information that is fed into a Queensland-wide database. This is used over time to form a picture of what is happening within our greater turtle population. With each encounter, we try and determine a cause of death - key causes of injuries to turtles and solutions to follow:

Coochiemudlo Island is fortunate to have a dedicated and trained crew who act as first responders to rescue and deal with injured or dead turtles on and around our island.

We have protocols in place to respond to each incident and collect information that is fed into a Queensland-wide database. This is used over time to form a picture of what is happening within our greater turtle population. With each encounter, we try and determine a cause of death - key causes of injuries to turtles and solutions to follow:

1    The most common being boat or jetski strikes.

These cause horrific injuries that are most upsetting, even to us hardened bunch. It is no different to being on the road: speed kills. In this case, it is the turtles that suffer. If you could see what we see, I am sure that the majority of people would act differently out on the water. Slow down on the water.

2     Ensure your crab pots have ‘turtle excluders’.

Recently I had to deal with a turtle that was trapped inside a crab pot. This beautiful and otherwise healthy animal had drowned. This pot was not fitted with a turtle excluder which would have gone some way to stop it from getting inside. Excluders are not mandatory by law; however, I feel that they should be. Generally, the more expensive pots have them fitted. Please check your pots to see if you have them.

3     Please make sure that your float ropes are ‘weighted’.

This will reduce the chance of a floating rope being cut by a boat propellor and the now lost pot becoming a ‘ghost pot’ that can go on trapping and killing marine life.

4     Ensure that your pot is put in enough depth of water that it is not exposed at low tide.

We have had cases where birds of prey have become entangled and would have drowned if not rescued in time.

We all enjoy what our beautiful oceans provide, so please help our turtles when you venture into their environment.