End of the Season
Loggerhead hatchling on Teewah Beach in January 2023
The Green and Loggerhead turtle nesting season along the Cooloola Coast is ending.
This season, November 2022 to April 2023, the Cooloola CoastCare Turtle Care team has had to relocate several ‘at risk’ nests. At risk from either high tide inundation, 4WD traffic damage, or dune erosion from rough seas. On average there has been a 90% success hatching rate of these nests.
The team would like to thank all the regular turtle track spotters and members of the public who have reported turtle sightings over these past months.
The Turtle Care team has the ongoing responsibility of turtle strandings.
A stranded sea turtle is one that is found washed ashore or floating, alive, or dead. If it is alive, it is generally in a weakened condition and maybe sick or injured.
Sea turtles can strand at any time of the year.
They may be sick or injured due to natural causes or have human induced injuries (boat strike or entanglement in fishing gear).
Stranded sea turtles can be found in Tin Can Bay, Carlo, and Inskip.
The Turtle Care team responds to stranded turtles to collect data, document wounds and abnormalities, transport sick and injured turtles to Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital and onto rehab at SeaWorld.
Turtle tracks in and out on Inskip Beach, taken in November.
Strandings data is passed onto the Department of Environment and Science and entered onto the web-based database StrandNet. The data improves our understanding of threats to sea turtles and develops ways to assist stranded turtles.
If you see a sick, injured, entangled, stranded, or dead turtle please call the Stranding Hotline on 1300 130 372.
Your assistance is greatly appreciated and could make all the difference in protecting these threatened and endangered turtles.
Cooloola CoastCare Turtle Care
