Queensland: Hervey Bay nesting turtles

Aubrey Strydom

Dataset credit

Data provider
Aubrey Strydom
Originating data center
Satellite Tracking and Analysis Tool (STAT)
Project partner
Hervey Bay Turtle Volunteers, of the Lower Mary River Land and Catchment Care Group Inc. (LMRL&CCG Inc - Landcare).
Mary River Catchment Coordinating Committee (MRCCC - Landcare)
Fraser Coast Regional Council
Burnett Mary Regional Group for Natural Resource Management.
Queensland Parks & Wildlife, Great Sandy Marine Park.
Queensland Turtle Conservation Research Program: Aquatic Threatened Species Unit, (Department of Environment & Science).

Contacts

RoleNameOrganization 
Primary contact Aubrey Strydom Aubrey Strydom
Data entry Michael Coyne seaturtle.org

Citation

Strydom A. 2024. Queensland: Hervey Bay nesting turtles. Data downloaded from OBIS-SEAMAP (http://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/1925) on yyyy-mm-dd and originated from Satellite Tracking and Analysis Tool (STAT; http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/index.shtml?project_id=1342).

Abstract

Before it was taken from them by British colonization of Queensland in the mid 1800's, the land and waters now part of Hervey Bay were owned and used for millennia by the Butchulla Aboriginal people.

One of their enterprises included the construction and manipulation of elaborate stone walled tidal fish traps, and the harvest from these included sea turtles.

On 13th December 2019 the Butchulla people received official Australian Federal Court recognition of their Native Title Claim over land including Hervey Bay, following recognition of nearby K'gari (Fraser Island) in 2014.

Urbanized Hervey Bay - today's busy city began as a string of small holiday villages, which merged into one long foreshore township after WW2.
Little was known to the new European population of its nesting loggerhead and green turtles.
By the 1980's it was a city, and nests were being dug by dogs and foxes, and lights from the streets and houses were confusing the emerging hatchlings, drawing them inland, and they were being found dead from exhaustion in the street gutters.
The Local Councils for the last 2 decades have had a turtle friendly management program to provide a darker beach: including foreshore tree planting, installing low intensity sodium vapor and amber street lights along the foreshore roads and parks, and a fox den location and elimination program. The turtles have benefited from better Council domestic animal management, which means that now very few dogs stray from their yards.

The turtle nest monitoring program has been run since 2002 by the Lower Mary River Land and Catchment Care Group (Landcare).
Under supervision of team leaders Lesley & Don Bradley, trained at the Queensland Parks & Wildlife Service's Mon Repos Turtle Conservation Centre, volunteers check the beach in the early morning, and collect data on attempted and successful nesting.
Successful nests are relocated further up the beach if necessary, marked, protected with aluminium mesh, and then monitored regularly for the duration of their incubation period, for depredation by foxes and un-managed dogs, loss to storm tides, and interference by community members.
After emergence the nests are dug up and shell counts are made to establish hatching success percentages.

Purpose

N/A

Supplemental information

Visit STAT's project page for additional information.

References

Attributes

Overview

This section explains attributes included in the original dataset. OBIS-SEAMAP restricts the attributes available to the public to date/time, lat/lon and species names/counts only. Should you need other attributes described here, you are encouraged to contact the data provider.

Attributes described below represent those in the original dataset provided by the provider.
Only minimum required attributes are visible and downloadable online. Other attributes may be obtained upon provider's permission.

Attributes in dataset

Attribute (table column)Description
prognumProgram number
tag_idPTT ID
lcLocation class
iqQuality indicator
dir1Dir 1
nb_mesNumber of messages received
big_nb_mesdefinition not provided
best_levelBest signal strength in dB
pass_durationPass duration in seconds
nopcNumber Of Plausibility Checks successful (from 0-4)
calcul_freqCalculated frequency
altitudeAltitude used for location calculation
sensorsSensors
speciesSpecies name
project_idSTAT Project ID
lc_filterParameters to location filtering
speed_filterParameters to speed filtering
distance_filterParameters to distance filtering
topo_filterParameters to topo filtering
time_filterParameters to time filtering
angle_filterParameters to angle filtering
life_stageLife stage of the animal
genderGender of the animal
wetdryWet or dry
wetdry_filterParameters to Wet or dry filterint
obs_datetimeDate and time (local time zone)
timezone_hTime difference from UTC
OBIS-SEAMAP ID1925
Seabirds0
Marine mammals0
Sea turtles3,791
Rays and sharks0
Other species0
Non spatial0
Non species0
Total3,791
Date, Begin2018-12-20
Date, End2021-01-18
Temporal prec.111111
Latitude-25.28 - -18.92
Longitude150.51 - 152.91
Coord. prec.3 decimal digits
PlatformTag
Data typeTelemetry location
TracklinesYES (ID: 1926)
Traveled (km)7,446
Travel hours20,538
Contr. throughSatellite Tracking and Analysis Tool
Registered2018-12-25
Updated2024-02-29
StatusPublished
Sharing policy Permission required
Shared with SWOT
OBIS*
GBIF (via DOI)*
* Aggregated summary
See metadata in static HTML
See metadata in FGDC XML
See download history / statistics