In a first of its kind, Griffith University and Sea World Foundation have launched a Southern Queensland marine turtle health assessment study by taking to the sea to investigate the health and toxicology of the endangered turtles in our bays.
With senior researchers from Griffith, PhD candidates, Honours students, Sea World marine animal specialists and crew on board two Sea World vessels and one Griffith vessel, the unique two-day pilot study in Moreton Bay saw nine loggerhead and 22 green turtles safely retrieved, assessed and returned to the water.
Despite Sea World Head Veterinarian Dr Claire Madden giving all retrieved turtles an overall bill of good health, biological sampling that will soon be performed by Griffith University ecotoxicologists – led by Dr Jason van de Merwe and Dr Kim Finlayson – will yield further insights into the impacts of chemical pollutants on the Moreton Bay turtle populations and their blood chemistry.
“Previously there have been studies and research looking at toxicology only, and there have been some studies that looked at health only; this is the first study that we know of that combines the health and toxicology together so we can see the full picture when we’re looking at what is impacting sea turtle health,” Dr van de Merwe said.
“As the toxicology side of the team, we’ll take the samples collected from this field trip back to our lab and analyse the content of heavy metals, pesticides and herbicides and other pollutants.
“There are still a lot of unknowns as to how these chemicals impacts turtles, but previous studies have identified that these chemicals can impact health, transfer to eggs and hatchlings, and potentially interfere with natural sex ratios and survival of offspring.
“This is why it’s great to have biologists and vets working together; merging of biology and veterinary care is really important for this project to see what the issues are and where efforts should be focused to limit them in future.”
Moreton Bay is a major foraging area for sea turtles, with turtles from this location migrating to breeding and nesting areas all over Queensland, and even other countries in the Pacific. So, Moreton Bay is a globally significant location for monitoring sea turtle populations.
But, as a popular destination for recreational boat users, and with seven major rivers emptying into it – potentially carrying chemical run-off or sediment from flooding – the bay also represents a melting pot of myriad impacts on sea turtles.
“One of the challenges working with sea turtles is that they are affected by a whole range of different human activities, and they are also susceptible to a whole range of different diseases, so they really do have a few things against them,” Sea World Head Veterinarian Dr Claire Madden said.
“So being able to conduct these health assessments and get a holistic view of the health status of this population is really important for us to understand and help inform decisions to help them.
“We know a lot of contaminants get into our seagrasses so we’re very interested to understand what impacts we need to be worrying about. Collaboration with an industry partner like Sea World with a tertiary facility like Griffith University brings together two levels of expertise and ultimately enables us to do more for the animals that we are researching and makes for a really robust scientific research project.”
Dr Claire Madden
“This is our pilot study and we have grand plans to be doing this research for the next five years.”
The pilot study’s broader aim is to establish this initial turtle health assessment as a baseline, with intentions to scale it up further in northern sites on the Queensland coast, pending further funding.
Dr van de Merwe hoped these initial study results under the latest research partnership instalment between Griffith University and Sea World would provide impetus for the project to expand further.
“The goal is to assess the health and toxicology of sea turtles within Queensland from Moreton Bay all the way up to Gladstone,” he said.
“There’s a whole range of major foraging areas for sea turtles along the Queensland coast, so our goal is to replicate what we’re doing here today in Hervey Bay and Gladstone to get a regional perspective on sea turtle health.
“These sorts of pilot studies are really helpful to get our methods down pat and our systems working really well.
“It also gives us a great baseline; you need good baselines in any research so when an impact does occur – like a major flooding event this summer or next summer and flood plumes cover the seagrass and impact sea turtle health – we know what the starting point was.
“You can’t solve a problem if you don’t understand it, so our first step is to understand how bad chemical pollution is on sea turtles in Southern Queensland and then that can inform governments, for example, by telling them that this is the source that you need to look at to reduce chemicals getting into waterways so that less of them go out into these pristine waters and habitats.”
