{"id":290240,"date":"2025-11-17T11:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T11:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/290240\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T11:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T11:02:08","slug":"endangered-green-turtle-deaths-surge-in-protected-australian-waters-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/290240\/","title":{"rendered":"Endangered green turtle deaths surge in protected Australian waters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Green turtles, which are under pressure because of climate change and urban development, are protected under federal environmental laws, and one of the species is the target of a national recovery plan for marine turtles<\/a>. The area around Deception Bay and Bribie Island is mostly protected by the Moreton Bay Marine Park.<\/p>\n

Associate Professor Kathy Townsend at the University of the Sunshine Coast said some mortality was not uncommon this time of year \u2013 if turtles did not end summer with good body condition, they could be malnourished and immunocompromised by the end of winter.<\/p>\n

However, necropsies were necessary to determine cause of death and help manage threats, she said. For example, no one knew that marine plastic was so lethal until scientists inspected the insides of dead turtles.<\/p>\n

One problem in Moreton Bay and also further north in Hervey Bay, Townsend said, was the huge amount of sediment carried by floods over the past few years, which smothered the seagrass meadows that green turtles graze upon. Dugongs also use seagrass meadows for feeding, shelter and breeding.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we go further in climate change, these big storm events are going to be happening more frequently and definitely being more severe as we go into the future,\u201d Townsend said. \u201cThis increasing storm activity includes erosion of beaches where the animals would have been laying their eggs and disruption to their food supply.\u201d<\/p>\n

Climate change also disrupted the reptiles\u2019 body temperatures and made it more likely that they would produce female eggs, she added.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Queensland Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation said in a statement that South-East Queensland was home to a healthy population of green turtles and that most turtle populations in the state were protected within marine parks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have also commenced work on a $35 million project to install specialist stormwater filtration devices across Moreton Bay to improve water quality and reduce the impact on marine life,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe prioritise rehabilitating and releasing sick and injured turtles whenever possible and recently funded $10 million to build a world-class marine hospital on the Gold Coast.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Environment Minister Murray Watt said in a statement that his department was monitoring the situation and working with the Queensland government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Green turtles, which are under pressure because of climate change and urban development, are protected under federal environmental…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-290240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}