Turtles Show Health of Coastlines
Declining Turtle Numbers Indicate Problems in Coastal Sea Areas
The frog may be the environmental indicator of the land, but University of Queensland researchers reckon when it comes to the sea, we should look to the turtle.
Dr Mark Flint, from UQ's School of Veterinary Science is investigating the Australian turtle's health, together with the doyen of turtle research, Dr Col Limpus.
His research is intended to establish basic health measurements for marine turtles for the first time in Australia.
Dr Flint spent May and June at 'turtle rodeos' at Moreton Bay and Shoalwater Bay where he worked alongside researchers from Sea World marine theme park , Australia Zoo and the Queensland Environmental Protection Authority (EPA).
Moreton Bay, a large bay on the Australian east coast just south of Brisbane, has numerous islands, internationally significant wetlands, seagrass meadows and sandy beaches, and is a protected marine park.
Shoalwater Bay is part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, 600km north-west of Brisbane . A pristine, rocky area, it is a noted dugong habitat as well as a home for turtles.
A turtle rodeo involves going out in small boats and getting alongside a turtle, leaping from the boat into the water beside the animal or even onto the turtle’s back, and holding the animal upright so it can be lassoed.
The turtle is then taken aboard the main boat for measuring, weighing, blood sampling, reproductive status and general health indicators, before being released back into the water.
Dr Flint believes turtles may be “an amazingly good indicator” of the health of our coastline.
“Their declining numbers in Moreton Bay and other key areas around the world are really telling us something is wrong,” he said.
Little Known about Marine Turtles’ Health
Part of the problem stems from not knowing enough about “what makes a turtle tick”, he said, and his research hopes to establish health measurements for marine turtles for the first time in Australia.
A general decline in turtle numbers and breeding capacity in Australian waters is similar to problems facing turtles in other parts of the world. There is evidence that the turtles’ health is affected by environmental pollution, and an increase in parasites (which may also be connected to changed environmental conditions).
For example, an American team monitoring the blood plasma of loggerhead turtles along the US East Coast recently reported consistently significant levels of perfluorinated compounds (PFCs).
PFCs are used as nonstick coatings and additives in a wide variety of goods including cookware, furniture fabrics, carpets, food packaging, fire-fighting foams and cosmetics. They are very stable, persist for a long time in the environment and are known to be toxic to the liver, reproductive organs and immune systems of laboratory mammals.
However Dr Flint said the major problem was that there was not yet a solid basis for understanding health in Australian turtles – for recognising if a turtle was suffering from some disease or trauma.
“It’s hard to look at a turtle and tell if it’s healthy or not. For instance, the heart rate doesn’t tell you much, because of the turtle’s slow metabolic rate.
“It’s not like a cat or a dog, or other vertebrates that vets are familiar with. We’re still trying to work out how to decide if a turtle is healthy.
“What we are trying to do for the first time is establish what is clinically ‘normal' for the health of a turtle,” he said.
“By getting that basis for a health assessment, we may then be able to determine the diseases affecting turtles and provide better ways of treating the sick and injured ones.”
Current health treatments for turtles were very hit and miss, he said, despite the dedicated work of many rescue operations such as Sea World, Australia Zoo and Underwater World, as well as the UQ marine research team based at Moreton Bay.
“We find many turtles that are successfully rehabilitated by vets, often die when released back into the wild and we have very little idea why,” he said.
“Hopefully our research will open up new insights and help us to help the turtles more.”
Dr Limpus, Adjunct Associate Professor in the UQ School of Veterinary Science, president of the International Sea Turtle Society and Chief Scientist with the EPA, has been researching turtles for more than 40 years is considered to be one of the world’s leading researchers into the anatomy and physiology of turtles.
He said Dr Flint’s research into turtle health would be a boon to his work.
“Without some understanding of the health of turtles, we can have difficulty in correctly identifying causes of their decline,” he said.
“We know a lot about cattle and sheep because humans have been working with them for thousands of years, but with sea turtles it really has only been the last 50 years that we have been serious about understanding their function.”
See also: Hope for Endangered Chinese Turtle
See also: Crocodiles are Marathon Swimmers
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