An Australian Wildlife Addict: March 2014

Good luck Demi - Hello K24268

It was with a heavy heart I clicked open my internet browser late in February and discovered that my first ever tracked sea turtle had stopped transmitting. What an adventure she had! From her tracks over the 189 days of transmission it appears that she spent little time (about 16 days) in NSW waters where she was released from rehabilitation, but then clearly made a bee-line to the Chesterfield reefs.

The Chesterfield archipelago is "right in the middle of precisely nowhere" as one savvy blogger put it, and a haven for seabirds... and maybe hawksbill sea turtles. After the grieving subsided I concluded that she had ended up in a pretty good place, as far from human impact as she could possible get in this puddle and the Chesterfield reefs have crept up my Bucket List. The video below shows some of the incredible life above the sea level and a fabulously squirmy scene where an eel eats a crab!

Back over on the western side of the ditch though, in the Cape Byron Marine Park, I ventured out today to do a sea turtle survey at Nguthungulli (Julian Rocks). The visibility had dropped to 10m (yes, I'm a spoilt brat), but the turtle action didn't disappoint. From the vessel my faithful buddy and I ventured along a transect along the mooring buoys seaward. I could only 'just' see the bottom but there were no turtles out there anyway. We ventured in towards the rocks and into the turtle trench where you're almost guaranteed a sighting. Sure enough I see a repeat customer making its way out of the bubbly haze. Medium-sized Green sea turtle, old barnacle scar on the fourth (posterior) costal scute, starboard side.

There was too much surge in there so we turned about and headed out to some of the rocky trenches, and there it was... the turtle everyone had been sighting but I had not seen myself, the hawksbill K24268! (I promise to find a new name, I also promise to be kind to those who accuse me of anthropomorphising). My heart nearly exploded! There they were, all three tags, a little grown over but I was able to zoom in for a confirming shot. Actually, I had to take a couple of shots because my first attempt at taking a clear shot of the tag in the 'armpit' of the right flipper was photobombed by a moon wrasse.

If one hawksbill wasn't enough excitement for the day, just over the rocky ledge on the other side of the cruising leopard sharks I ran into this beauty too. No tags it this fella though!

Schools of brightly coloured fish swarmed through the crevices flashing silvers, yellows and purples. The leopard sharks weren't sleeping on the bottom this time, they were cruising around the rocky shelfs freaking me out a little to be honest. Ha! In their place on the sandy floor were dozens of stingrays and on the rocky wall nearby a bright blue sea star was unmistakable. All in all another awesome snorkel in Byron Bay's local marine park!

Hawksbill Turtles in New South Wales, Australia

Hawksbill sea turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) are, in my humble opinion, the most beautiful sea turtle of all the species. The ocean reptiles have an intricate design of colour in their scutes (or scales you might call them) on their back which has made them a target for commercial harvesting, You see, the scutes polish up nicely and were (and still are) used to make some admittedly stunning jewellery, jewellery boxes, hair combs and the like. The product is also commonly known as 'bekko' and despite this species of sea turtle being listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List and also subject to a CITES agreement to ban trade, there are still a handful of countries still harvesting.

Now... I'm sympathetic towards the cultural economies of small island nations who wish to opt out of international conservation strategies, but I am concerned about our general lack of understanding of the Hawksbill life history all over the south-western Pacific. Slowly we are getting some picture about where they nest, even going so far as determining genetic profiles of various nesting sites, but beyond that, at this stage, any new information about their behaviour as they mature in our region needs a bit of investment to acquire.

There seems to be some long held opinions and notions about sea turtle ranges that just don't seem to fit with my observations in the wild. Take for example K24268, a Hawksbill turtle that appears to either be resident during this stage of its lifecycle, or regularly frequents the temperate reefs of the Cape Byron Marine Park. The turtle was tagged as part of an honours research project sometime around 2002 and the video below was acquired by a recreational diver showing the Hawksbill happily going about its normal foraging routine in October 2013.

Now, in the scientific world they call this 'anecdotal evidence' and argue that this one Hawksbill may just be an adventurous individual, but my gut feeling tells me differently. The excitement of this video evidence prompted me to trawl through every sighting recorded by the Byron Bay Dive Centre since 2009. Sure enough, it was also recorded in the Cape Byron Marine Park in 2009 and 2011, and is by no means the only tagged turtle to be repeatedly sighted in the area. My hypothesis is that sea turtles use the coastal waters off the northern rivers of NSW as foraging areas, nesting areas (although this appears limited at this point in history) and as a migratory pathway.

As a collaborative project between the NSW government and three licensed rehabilitation agencies, it is estimated that some 400+ turtles have been tagged and released in NSW waters. I need to find those tagged turtles and map the sightings to understand their movement. You can help! If you're diving or snorkeling in NSW and see a turtle, look for tags, get the tag numbers and send me the info!! Thank you!

With Special Thanks to the Byron Bay Dive Centre who are sponsoring this research.

Nguthungulli - Julian Rocks and the Cape Byron Marine Park

"Nguthungulli" is the indigenous name used by the Arakwal people to describe a rocky outcrop sticking out of the bay we also know as Byron. You might know the rocks better as "Julian Rocks", as they were named by Captain Cook after his niece and nephew Juan and Julia. The rocky outcrop is the heart of the Cape Byron Marine Park and one of the few protected sites left for a variety of marine wildlife, most notably the endangered Grey Nurse Shark.

The Grey Nurse Shark is a graceful and majestic creature to behold as it cruises through the rock valleys around the island, seemingly disinterested in the groups of oddly-shaped mammals with plastic fins that also cruise around at different times of the day. The wildlife out here is used to the attention and a long-upheld 'do not touch' policy has ensured everyone feels safer in the water. Many cases have been made that there has never been a shark attack on a beach where there is also shark-meshing and baited hook being used as protection measures. I put it to you that there has never been a shark attack in a marine park. Not that a Grey Nurse shark is likely to attack you, anyway. But I digress because as beautiful as these creatures are, they're not the ones I'm looking for.

The East Australian current was strong today, powering southwards from Queensland with magnificent warm, clear water with visibility so good that to mention it would surely be skyting. The current was hitting the side of the rocks head on and sweeping around the northern and southern ends of the rocks taking the weaker oddly-shaped mammals with plastic fins with it. The wildlife is diverse and prolific everywhere you look. Sting-rays, fishes of all shapes and sizes, leopard sharks nanna-napping on the seafloor and wobbegong sharks tucked away cryptically under rocks ledges, and I haven't even moved that far from from the boat yet.

But these beautiful marine creatures are not what I'm looking for here either. I'm looking for what the indigenous folk call "Bing-ing", sea turtles. Particularly Hawksbill sea turtles, but any species will do. Nguthungulli is in a very interesting part of the world, inherently biodiverse as it's influenced by both temperate and tropical climate variations. Let's say, hypothetically speaking, seas warm and we begin to notice that species more commonly seen in tropical waters become able to exploit this new extension of their habitats to the south. Given that Nguthungulli is right in that zone, monitoring it's abundance and diversity is key to our ability to protect and conserve this rich area for the future. We know now that sea turtles are resident in NSW. Take this Hawksbill turtle for example, who has popped up in sighting reports regularly since being tagged around 2002. The question is, how would we notice a change in the resident, or even migratory population if we don't know how many are there now? The fact is, we don't know how many are there now. Did I mention that Hawksbill turtles are critically endangered on a global scale? There I go again, tangentially swinging away from the story, let's get back in the water.

The East Australian Current was warm and in the deep crevice in the middle of Nguthungulli the rocky walls were lined with a type of rhodophyta (red sea-grassy stuff) that was swaying back and forth with the swell like a pack of red-heads at a Metallica concert. When I got to the end of the valley I came face to face with three teenager green sea turtles frolicking at the surface in the surgy, bubbly, white-wash. They appeared to be making extra effort to access some of the red weed that was being exposed to the air, at some times taking some risk to get there. As teenagers do I guess.

And so, the counts begin!!