Up close with turtles

Green turtles are a common sight on the Great Barrier Reef, if you're lucky. Photo / Calypso Reef imagery

In the second in a series on Queensland, Sue Baxalle has a touching marine encounter.

Tropical North Queensland: the name immediately brings to mind the Great Barrier Reef and, in the same thought, its exotic marine animals, particularly turtles.

Although there is no guarantee of seeing the elegant creatures when snorkelling or diving, one sure way of getting up close to a variety of species is a visit to the Turtle Rehabilitation Centre on Fitzroy Island, a 45-minute boat ride from Cairns.

Under the watchful eye of Jennie Gilbert, the centre's director and co-founder, 10 turtles are recuperating from illness and injury in the tanks. She explains that most of the ailing turtles are first treated at the organisation's centre in Cairns, where they can get close medical supervision. "But once they're eating and sitting on the bottom and doing turtling things, they can come over here," she says.

An exception to this is the largest turtle in the centre, Margaret. Measuring about 1.17m, she was found floating in the sea by a dive centre vessel on its way to Fitzroy Island.
Gilbert explains that when they realised something was wrong, it took eight men to lift her into the boat. They then covered her in wet towels and brought her to the centre.

Transporting Margaret back to Cairns would have been too traumatic, so they have been nursing her with antibiotics on Fitzroy.

The Fitzroy Island Centre opened in 2013. The island resort's owner had donated the site, a former prawn farm, two years earlier - it took that long to raise funds to set up.

In the early days just Gilbert and co-founder Paul Barnes cared for the turtles; now a team of 70 volunteers and university students regularly visit for training and work experience placements.

There is more to being a volunteer than feeding the turtles their squid and scratching their backs - something the green turtles, in particular, enjoy. There are tanks to siphon and scrub, filter bags to change and clean and a huge quantity of squid to defrost and backbone daily. Gilbert says anyone can volunteer, but they prefer people to be really committed than just there for a few days.

When I visited the centre, two third-year veterinary students from James Cook University were working. Ashlee Harkins was for the week and Hailee Byles was on a 10-day stint. Both were interested in marine life and enjoying the experience.

Gilbert says with Margaret's arrival three weeks earlier, it was good to have veterinary students on hand to help administering the turtle's antibiotics.

Turtle Rehabilitation Centre co-founder Jennie Gilbert with Ella. Photo / Sue Baxalle

"And it has been great training for them, they get a chance to do it and they haven't got me looking over their shoulder all the time going, 'No, you're doing that wrong'."

All of the turtles are named. Margaret was named after Australia's oldest conservationist, Margaret Deas. "On her 102nd birthday, she wanted to fundraise for the turtle and do 102 squats - she did 130!" says Gilbert.

The baby of the centre is Ruth, a hawksbill about 6 months old. It is rare to find hawksbills this young, Gilbert says, as they are usually about 50km out to sea, feeding on the algae line. "She obviously wasn't very well and came back in."

The hawksbill is endangered in Australia and critically endangered worldwide as the turtle species most sought after for its shell in jewellery and furniture.

The matriarch is an olive ridley turtle named Angie. Aged about 90, she was brought in from Cape York, suffering from floating syndrome. She won't be heading back to sea until she can successfully sink. "It's important to go all-out for the big breeding females like Angie and Margaret," says Gilbert.

In fact, all the turtles could be called "Lucky", she says, not only to have found shelter with her team, but also to have got as old as they have.

"When they're up on the beach, they're open to predation from feral pigs, goannas, dingoes and dogs digging up the nest. If they actually hatch, crabs and, birds get them on the way to the water, then in the water the fish get them."

Then there is the lack of feeding grounds with a reduction in sea grass, the risk of boat strike, entanglement in fishing lines and nets, ingestion of marine debris and algal blooms covering their feeding grounds.

"Then there is a loss of nesting beaches. When the females return 30 to 35 years later, they might come back to the beach they were born on and there's no beach left - there are hotels or residential areas have taken over."

A view from the pier at Fitzroy Island. Photo / Getty Images

At the centre, the turtles are nourished on a diet of squid and tiger prawns. Gilbert says the last six months' food bill came to A$180,000 ($186,000) - and that was before the arrival of Margaret and a similarly sized and very sick turtle currently in the Cairns unit.

"It costs us about $35,000 a year," she says. "Margaret eats $40 of squid a day."

I ask whether the funds raised by Margaret's sponsor's squats will cover the turtle's long-term care. "Probably not, but we'll tell her it will."

The centre relies on grants, Government funding and private gifts to feed its charges and cover maintenance needs - donations are always welcome.

One of the centre's sponsors is Qantas, which transports sick and injured turtles from such farflung areas as Cape York - proving turtles can fly, quips Jennie.

The Fitzroy Island Resort operates daily tours to the centre, although these groups meet only two green turtles, Ella and Squirt. The hawksbills find big groups too stressful and Angie, the old olive ridley, is too temperamental.

Ella, however, has a special connection to Gilbert. The pair spent many nights together in her lounge. "I was holding her flipper while she was on a drip. She was in a tub in my lounge room, with wet towels. So she's a bit of a mummy's girl, this one."

Ella, so named because she was struck by a boat's propeller, has been at the centre for two years and will stay until her scales are completely healed. In the meantime, she likes nothing better than a good scratch.

Squirt is 10-15 years old and was named by a school that sponsors him. He is another recuperating from starvation.

"The greens are the most personable, the friendliest of the species and they can distinguish our volunteers from other people," says Gilbert.

"But they're all beautiful."

Sue Baxalle flew to Cairns courtesy of Tourism and Events Queensland and Tourism Australia.