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Did you know sea turtles don’t just nest in the Mackay region?

They also feed and mate in the waters around Mackay.

While Flatbacks are by far the most common turtles to nest on our beaches, they don’t always feed or mate in the area.

Greens are often spotted basking (resting) or mating close to shore and can sometimes get caught out with the outgoing tides. They are usually busy feeding on the seagrass beds around Mackay and often mate in the waters around here but will then take a bit of a journey to go to their preferred nesting beaches.

So while we get mostly nesting female Flatbacks on the beaches, we only get the occasional nesting Green turtle.

Different turtles can use the same area for different purposes so it’s always interesting to see what shenanigans they get up to!

These two Green turtles were spotted off Shoal Point by a concerned local who was relieved to learn they were perfectly ok but maybe just needed to work on their timing. They got a bit carried away and missed the tide going out so they had a little rest on the sand until the tide came in again.

Turtle Watch was alerted and the turtles were tagged and measured for our records, the female had an impressive 106.7cm carapace!

If you’re concerned about a turtle on the beach, please call the stranding hotline (1300 130 372) and they will determine if intervention is needed or if it’s just a turtle in need of a nap.

Remember this fabulous, determined Flatback from November who nested

across the road from the boat ramp at Shoal Point?

We are very happy to share that 55 days later, her eggs that were relocated to a more suitable location have hatched, and she had an amazing 100% success rate with 46 empty shells left behind. A few stragglers were found stuck in some roots and safely released.

What a great outcome despite the intense rain and massive high tides!

(All turtle monitoring activities are carried out under permit from the Qld Turtle Conservation Project)

This season M&DTW participated in the annual Flatback Turtle Census to collect information on the nesting and hatching turtles that call Avoid Island home. Avoid Island is a small island located off the coast of Qld between Carmila and Claireview, in the Flat Isles. It is owned and managed by Queensland Trust for Nature and is a permanent nature refuge for the animals that live there and visit. It is also one of the 3 largest Flatback rookeries in the Southern Great Barrier Reef.

While the Island’s beaches are very important for nesting turtles, the Island as a whole is an important nature refuge for countless birds, reptiles and insects. Many species of lizards, skinks and monitors call the island home, sometimes sharing the house with the human visitors! Birds are everywhere, from the kingfishers and swallows to the quails and shore birds, the island is home to many. Interestingly, it is thought that there may be no mammals on the Island with none being sighted or filmed on the various camera traps set up.

This season volunteers from Turtle Watch went over with QTFN staff for a two week period at the end of November/start of December to tag and record nesting turtles as they came ashore to lay their eggs. Despite some rainy weather that delayed the changeover of volunteers halfway through the census, it was a success with 51 nests marked and recorded on the Island. Six of these turtles were primary turtles which means they have not been seen or recorded previously on Avoid Island or any other monitored rookery (No tags or tag scars). There was one nest that hatched on Dec 1st indicating a very early nesting in October.

Most of the turtle work is done after dark leaving the daytime hours for catching up on sleep (hard in the heat!) and exploring the Island. There is a good reason it’s known as Avoid Island with rocks surrounding most of the coastline, low tide reveals many hidden dangers for boats. There are some very interesting rocks and cliffs along the North side of the Island and the view over to Red Clay Island is stunning, especially at sunrise.

After the mammoth efforts of the rain filled 2-week tagging and recording trip, a group of QTFN & Turtle watch members headed back in early February to conduct the hatching census on the marked nests and any other emerged nests that could be identified. This year we were unlucky enough to have a heatwave occurring at the same time so conditions were quite challenging but working in the
very early morning and into the evening made conditions manageable. In total the 51 marked nests plus another 26 were excavated and results of hatching recorded for the QLD Turtle Conservation Project database.

Avoid Island is a beautiful place, and despite the challenging weather conditions over the summer months, it’s invaluable for the animals that call it home and the humans that are fortunate enough to visit it and discover its many secrets.

One of the many roles of Mackay and District Turtle Watch is responding to Marine Stranding Reports and, if required, transporting turtles to the turtle hospital in the Whitsundays. On the 31st January 2021, members Ali, Jenni and Steve were involved in a callout for a stranded green turtle at Illawong Beach. In Ali’s words…

“I named her Gloria after Gloria Gaynor’s song ‘I Will Survive’, cos she’s a survivor. Her story goes like this…I got a call from a local walker that a turtle was on the beach. Someone else had already called the marine stranding hotline. I was right down the other end of the beach checking on a nest at the time. When I got to Gloria, her face was is the sand and she was quite lifeless, so I got the sand away from her face to unblock her nostrils and poured some water over her head to wash it all away.

Very soon, she moved her head a bit and opened her eyes. She has a left front flipper missing, an injury to her left back flipper (both old injuries) and is a bit malnourished. I organised some helpers and we had a bucket brigade going, wet towels and umbrellas. MDTW President Steve came and did a thorough health check then some local friends brought their car onto the beach with a trailer attached and she was lifted on to it in the harness.

Gloria was put into the enclosed tray back to be transported to the Whitsunday turtle hospital at Eco Barge CleanSeas She is responding well!”

We hope to see Gloria out of ‘hospital’ at back in the waters off Illawong Beach very soon.

To report a marine stranding, please call 1300 130 372

The Mackay & District Turtle Watch Association held the AGM on Saturday, 03 October 2020. Twelve members were in attendance along with two visitors.

Steve Fisher, who presented his second President’s Report, chaired the meeting with precision. As there were no other nominations for the positions of office bearers, the incumbent executive were unanimously elected unopposed. There was one exception however with John Weissman ,stepping down as Vice President, due to work pressure. Sally Stutsel was nominated and duly elected for this role. Welcome Sally and a big thank you to John who has been instrumental in analysing the life of project data and providing some very worthwhile statistics. This led John to initiate the Sand Temperature Monitoring Project.  The AGM took just 25 minutes, after which we held our regular meeting.

The 2020-2021 Mackay & District Turtle Watch Association leadership will be:

President: Steve Fisher

Vice President: Sally Stutsel

Treasurer: Fay Griffin

Secretary: David Bowen

President’s Report – The Year That Was.

We started the year off with refresher training with Janine Ferguson from QPWS. Janine took us through turtle life cycles and managing nests. We then went down to Lamberts Beach for practice in digging and relocating ping pong ball ‘eggs’.

By undergoing the refresher training Col Limpus from the Queensland Turtle Conservation Project (QTCP) felt more comfortable authorising M&DTW members with whom he is not personally familiar to excavate nests.

To further help with the authorisations, Sally successfully applied for an Animal Ethics Permit for M&DTW which is one step towards obtaining the plethora needed to eventually operate independent of the QTCP. Sally has also applied for a Scientific Purposes Permit and a Permit to Take Use Keep Interfere with protected wildlife and a State Marine Parks Permit. Watch this space.

Our website got a total makeover and is now up and operational. M&DTW also joined the social media world with Instagram and Facebook Pages. Thanks to David, Joely, Cass and Indus.

The arrival of COVID19 made an impact on our presentations and public engagements.  Fay still managed to have 13 public engagements with David, Joely, Lee, Lynnette and myself delivering six. One of which was when Fay had a conference call with Vision Australia. Fay described what it was like to undertake turtle monitoring, painting a picture for people who will never get the opportunity to see it for themselves.

Seven M&DTW members got to spend a week on Cockermouth Island and Penrith Island monitoring the success of nesting turtles, through funding from Reef Catchments and the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program. The Cockermouth crew were lucky enough to see three different species of turtle nest on the same beach in a week – Green, Loggerhead and Flatback. This is the first time three species have been found nesting on one beach in this region.

Some of our other key achievements include:

• Our membership is growing with 27 financial members, some as family memberships.
• Standardising our logo with a corporate logo and a display logo.
• John collated our data and produced a very informative report on nesting trends and compared them with weather events.
• Our containers for change is going gangbusters with $4300 worth of cans and bottles being donated to M&DTW.
• M&DTW were successful in a grant application through Australian Government Communities Environment Program for$2688. This is to place temperature data loggers in nests to give an early warning if sand temperature exceeds levels nests and hatchlings can survive in.
• We had 12 members volunteer with the QTCP at sites on Mon Repos and Avoid Island.
• Last season had a greatly increased nesting numbers:
  • 2019/2020 – 239 nests
  • 2018/2019 – 89 nests
  • 2017/2018 – 155 nests
  • 2016/2017 – 161 nests
  • 2015/2016 – 176 nests
  • 2014/2015 – 154 nests

• M&DTW was invited to make comments on the East Point Development project, Mackay Coast Street Lighting Review and the Seaforth foreshore development plan.
• The QLD Stranding Hotline contacted us to respond to over 30 reports involving turtles. Some were dealing with dead turtles, some were dealing with sightings of injured or sick turtles and some were responding to sick injured or stranded turtles.
• M&DTW members transported 10 turtles to the Whitsunday Turtle Rescue centre for rehabilitation. 3 died, 4 are still in care and 3 have been released back into waters off Mackay.

The Year Ahead

There is an opportunity to work on Avoid island with the Queensland Trust for Nature (QTFN) to carry on their Flatback nesting monitoring program. Sally and David are undertaking a 2 week field trip to see how this will work for future seasons involving M&DTW members

We are working towards getting more nesting turtles tagged by organising members and general public to walk beaches at night looking for nesting turtles and then trained and authorised members who can tag will respond.

Keswick Island residents are concerned about beach development on nesting beaches and we are working with Reef Catchments to develop a simplified monitoring program that non-trained volunteers can undertake. If successful this can be rolled out to beaches where we have no beach co-ordinators

Reef Catchments, through funding from the Australian Government, are also funding M&DTW to implement a temperature data logging project. This will involve the purchase of data loggers to monitor nest temperatures and facilitate intervention actions to nests at risk due to excessive beach heating.

M&DTW will also review and update its training package with the aim to create a standardised methodology for this monitoring program. David has produced a Safe Work Guidelines as the backbone for this program.

Unusual sea turtle activity has been recorded on the islands off Mackay during a local
monitoring expedition.

On a Reef Catchments funded monitoring trip, contractors, assisted by volunteers from
Mackay and District Turtle Watch and Birdlife Mackay, travelled to Cockermouth Island
National Park and discovered something unexpected – a nesting loggerhead turtle.

Loggerhead turtles are listed as endangered and are not often seen nesting this far north, although they are sometimes spotted in the water. There has only been one other reported sighting of a nesting loggerhead turtle in the region. This meant that three different species – green, flatback and loggerhead turtles – were all nesting on the same island. There are no records in our region of this happening previously, making it a very unusual sighting.

Turtle monitoring on the islands off Mackay is supported by Reef Catchments through
funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program.

Thanks to the hard work of members Jacky and Chris, we have had some great data recorded throughout the 2020 nesting season.

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Here are the meeting minutes of the 2019 Mackay and District Turtle Watch AGM, including a summary of the President’s report and new committee members.

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Mackay & District Turtle Watch volunteer, Valda, had another big season at Lamberts and North Harbour Beaches over the 2019/2020 nesting period.

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