Tucked away in north east Victoria, about 15 kilometres from Wodonga, a restored wetland is fast becoming a haven for native birds, frogs and in particular, turtles.<\/p>\n
Ryan’s Lagoon sits within a 165 hectare nature reserve, that’s under the care of the traditional owners from the Duduroa Dhargal Aboriginal Corporation.<\/p>\n
It is where researcher Dr Ligia Pizzatto and volunteer Sharleen Sharp can be found, trekking in gumboots with a carton of eggs and a clipboard.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ligia Pizzatto is trying to protect turtle nests by baiting them with chemically treated chicken eggs to make foxes sick.\u00a0 (ABC Rural: Annie Brown)<\/p>\n
“We’re trying to find different ways to protect turtles from fox predation,” Dr Pizzato said.<\/p>\n
The project uses taste aversion conditioning to deter foxes from eating turtle eggs.<\/p>\n
“Basically, we’re teaching foxes that eating turtle eggs will make them vomit,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s an agricultural chemical that is already used to stop birds from eating grains.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The chicken eggs are injected with chemicals to make the foxes sick. (ABC Rural: Annie Brown)<\/p>\n
The researchers inject chicken eggs with the non-lethal chemical and bury them in known turtle nests.<\/p>\n
Once a week they come back to see if the foxes have taken them and bury new ones.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Checking the nests is no walk in the park.<\/p>\n
On one of their treks, they spot two venomous snakes, flies swarm on their backs and the waist high grasses trigger hay fever.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A red-bellied black snake at Ryan’s Lagoon.\u00a0 (ABC Rural: Annie Brown)<\/p>\n
But despite the discomfort, they are excited to see that the foxes are learning to leave the eggs alone.<\/p>\n
Juvenile turtles struggling<\/p>\n
Dr Pizzatto said freshwater turtles are in decline in the Murray Darling Basin and the population is ageing.<\/p>\n
“Foxes are very efficient \u2014 once the eggs have been laid, they can find them in just a few hours,” Dr Pizzatto said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Foxes eat turtle eggs. (Supplied: Ligia Pizzatto)<\/p>\n
“In our region they are taking up to 90 per cent of the nests, so it really gives no chance for the population to recover.”<\/p>\n
“We used to have many more turtles,” she said.<\/p>\n
Dr Pizzatto is a biologist based at LaTrobe University and she based her study on data from Spain, where a similar method was used to protect ground-dwelling birds from foxes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ligia Pizzatto says she’s excited to see that the fox conditioning is working. (ABC Rural: Annie Brown\u00a0)<\/p>\n
Her results so far have been promising, and some of the monitored sites are showing a significant drop in turtle egg losses.<\/p>\n
“Lethal control is not efficient enough to protect nests because a single fox will still find all the nests of the season, so we need alternative methods.” Dr Pizzatto said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But she said lethal control was still needed to tackle foxes predating native animals.<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately there’s no silver bullet, but different methods can be used in conjunction to give these animals the protection they need,” she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Juvenile turtles are extremely vulnerable to predators.\u00a0 (Supplied: Ligia Pizzatto)<\/p>\n
Red European foxes were introduced to Australia in the mid 1800s, and still remain a significant problem as they prey on livestock and native animals.<\/p>\n
The Victorian government runs a fox bounty program, offering $14 per scalp.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fox scalps are covered in glitter so they cannot be re-submitted.\u00a0 (ABC Rural: Annie Brown)<\/p>\n
Since the bounty started in 2011, Agriculture Victoria has received more than 1.2 million fox scalps.<\/p>\n
Volunteer power<\/p>\n
Dr Pizzatto’s research involves weekly monitoring of eight wetland sites so she relies on the help of dedicated volunteers.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sharleen Sharp, who spends hours at Ryan’s Lagoon helping turtles, checks the cameras. (ABC Rural: Annie Brown)<\/p>\n
Sharleen Sharp started the community group Turtles Albury Wodonga in 2018, when she saw turtles were being killed along the Hume Highway.<\/p>\n
“We just try to help turtles in anyway,” Ms Sharp said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We rehabilitate them, do school talks and community awareness.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Foxes are one of the biggest predators for turtles.\u00a0 (ABC Rural: Annie Brown)<\/p>\n
When it rains, she also goes to the Lagoon to find turtle nests.<\/p>\n
“The best way to find the nest is to follow turtles around in the rain, otherwise it’s too hard to find. They cover it pretty well,” Ms Sharp said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Raining nights, I can be out here for up to five hours.”Restoring habitat<\/p>\n
The turtle is an important totem animal for the Duduroa Dhargal people.<\/p>\n
If you look at Ryan’s Lagoon from above, you can see the outline of a big turtle planted into the land.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Uncle Allan Murray says he wants to protect turtles and other local species. (ABC Rural: Annie Brown)<\/p>\n
Uncle Allan Murray is a traditional owner and manages Ryan’s Lagoon.<\/p>\n
In just two years, his team has transformed the area into a culturally significant wetland.<\/p>\n
“We’re trying to bring this lagoon back to life,” Mr Murray said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It was a cow paddock before we took over, although we still get a few cows in to help us manage the grass.<\/p>\n
“This area was full of thistles and all sorts of burrs.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been managing that and also put in the cultural learning scape so schools can come and visit.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ryan’s lagoon giant turtle can be seen from Google maps.\u00a0 (Supplied: Google Maps)<\/p>\n
In December 2024, 185 megalitres of Commonwealth environmental water was pumped into the lagoon from the Hume Dam to help restore the wetland.<\/p>\n
Mr Murray said the work being done by the researchers was important for collecting information.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Birdlife has increased at Ryan’s Lagoon.\u00a0 (ABC Rural: Annie Brown)<\/p>\n
“We want to re-establish and protect turtles, frogs and birds, and we want a little bit more information for future generations,” he said.<\/p>\n
Many ecologists head to Ryan’s Lagoon to conduct their research and Uncle Allan said he was happy with the partnerships they had formed.<\/p>\n
“LaTrobe are the experts in the field, and they are doing a fantastic job with the turtles,” \u00a0he said.<\/p>\n
“We’re all working together for the common cause of protecting our local species.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tucked away in north east Victoria, about 15 kilometres from Wodonga, a restored wetland is fast becoming a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[64,63,185456,1953,75077,185455,128,22655,185454],"class_list":["post-331611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-duduroa-dhargal","tag-fox","tag-murray-darling-basin","tag-ryans-lagoon","tag-science","tag-turtle","tag-turtle-attack"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331611","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=331611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}