iHerp_Australia_-_September_-_October_2018

engaged with a total of 4,665 people via both onsite

activities and offsite presentations. Skype in the

Classroom lectures were provided to students from

a wide variety of countries, including Sweden, Egypt

and Brazil, and the free ‘Turtle Tracker App’

developed by the Gnaraloo Wilderness Foundation

enabled members of the public to share the travels

of the two turtles fitted with satellite trackers. Until

2016 - 17, all of the GTCP’s outreach activities were

provided free of charge to participants. Due to

decreased funding, onsite visitors were asked for

small financial contributions in season 2017-18.

So what now? Well, quite simply (and inexplicably),

there is no funding from private or public sources for

the continuation of this work. This means that the 30

• year consecutive baseline data set of Loggerhead
  Turtle nesting in the Gnaraloo Bay Rookery survey
  area will be broken and lost. Field teams will no
  longer be able to rescue stranded turtles during the
  nesting period, and monitoring of feral predators will

cease, which means any increase in predation will

be impossible to assess and may go unnoticed.

Plus thousands of school children and members of

the public will be unenlightened about the plight of

sea turtles and the comprehensive and co-ordinated

efforts necessary for effective conservation.

And just how valuable is this work? The Loggerhead

Turtle is shackled by a prolonged generation time

(females may be at least 30 years old before they

first reproduce), low natural recruitment and total

reliance upon scattered nesting beaches. Their

fragile ecology renders the species especially

vulnerable to a suite of threats including human

consumption, commercial fishing, development,

pollution, climate change and exotic or displaced

Left: two turtles fitted with satellite trackers in
December 2017 travelled more that 4,000 kilometres to
their foraging grounds.
Above and insert: at Gnaraloo the number of turtle
nests has remained consistent despite general
declines noted elsewhere.
Images courtesy of Karen Hattingh, Gnaraloo Turtle
Conservation Program.