CONSERVATION
NINGALOO TU R T L E P ROG RAM, WE S T ERN AUS T R ALI A
This turtle-track-monitoring programme is focussed on Western Australia’s Ningaloo Coast (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), with Australia’s largest fringing reef, Ningaloo Reef, just offshore. Marine turtles can be seen year-round (they nest between November and March); hatchlings can be spotted from January. During the nesting season, females drag
themselves onshore at night to lay between three and five clutches of eggs (each containing 50 to 150). Tiny hatchlings emerge roughly 11 weeks later and dash to the open ocean, where they driſt for nearly a decade feeding on plankton. It’s not until they’re around 30 years old that they make their way back to the same beach where they hatched, just in time for breeding season. A sea turtle’s natural lifespan is 50 to 100 years,
but they face threats from humans including poaching, accidental capture — known as bycatch — habitat destruction, and climate change. Heartbreakingly, World Wide Fund for Nature reports three out of seven species of sea turtle are classified as critically endangered. Track monitoring is a low-tech way to gather
nesting data over many square miles and many years and to spot threats to turtles. Trained volunteers descend on the remote beaches of North West Cape and Bungelup the morning aſter eggs have been laid and follow the distinct tracks made by loggerheads, greens and hawksbills (classed by WWF as vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered, respectively). The Ningaloo coast also occasionally hosts flatback turtles, and leatherbacks have been spotted foraging on the reef. As well as being able to identify tracks,
volunteers are trained to spot nests and false crawls (where the female have emerged but not laid eggs). They also occasionally get called out to
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nationalgeographic.com/collection
rescue turtles on the northwest coast — 345 have been rescued by the programme since 2002. As part of understanding and conserving sea
turtles, and building a culture of stewardship, the Ningaloo Turtle Program works hard to educate and engage locals and visitors: ‘let them flow’ is a rallying phrase. The programme advises never to touch hatchlings and warns that ‘carrying hatchlings to the water can disorientate them greatly and puts them at even more risk when they’re in the ocean. They need to do the crawl themselves to clear their lungs, get their muscles working and take a geomagnetic imprint of the beach, so they know to return here to nest 30 years later’. There’s a Turtle Watching Code of Conduct that’s key to any engagement — nesting turtles and hatchlings are highly sensitive to light (another problem with development on coastlines) and advice from the Ningaloo Turtle Program is to never use a torch at night on the beaches. There’s also no dogs allowed, and no driving on the beaches. Ningaloo Turtle Program acknowledges the
Baiyungu, Thalanyji and Yinigurdira people as the original custodians of the land and water they manage.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED Volunteers contributed more than 3,000 hours of work in the 2021/22 season — some were local Exmouth residents; others from across Australia and overseas. To apply from overseas, you must have a five-week period available from early December to mid-January and you must be willing to get up early to identify tracks, as well as perform some data entry tasks, clean vehicles, undertake equipment maintenance and go wild camping. If you simply want to take a guided, educational tour, the Jurabi Turtle Centre is open December to February.
ningalooturtles.org.au
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