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That’s a wrap on the 2024 turtle nesting season!
January 2025
For five weeks over November and December, the North West Shelf Flatback Turtle Conservation Program staff and volunteers were busy monitoring beaches at Delambre Island and Thevenard Island. Around 50 volunteers contributed over 3000 hours of monitoring this season, collecting data essential for understanding long-term trends of the North West Shelf flatback turtle population.
What does the 2024 data tell us so far?
- At Delambre Island, a total of 886 turtles were monitored, with 606 individuals identified. 26.1 per cent of these turtles were “new”, coming to the island for the first time. Overall, there were 424 nests recorded in the tagging area from night monitoring and morning walks.
- At Thevenard Island, a total of 316 turtles were monitored, with 156 individuals identified. 28.2 per cent of these turtles were “new”, coming to the island for the first time. Overall, there were 211 nests recorded in the tagging area from night monitoring and morning walks.
What do we not know yet?
- Nest excavations were carried out on both islands of freshly laid nests, with eggs counted, weighed and measured before being placed back in the egg chamber and buried. Twenty additional nests were simply marked after being laid.
- In the first week of February, small teams are being sent to the islands to excavate all 30 nests now that the hatchlings have emerged. This process will identify measures called “hatchling success” (how many hatchlings successfully made it out of their egg) and “emergence success” (how many hatchlings successfully made it out of the nest).
- This data will be available in the next round of Latest Updates!
Disclaimer: The data included in this Latest Update is the property of the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions. This data is to be used only for educational purposes and not for distribution, publication or commercial use. Data may have been de-identified or excluded in the process of making it available to the public domain and is subject to change following further curation and analysis.
Photo - DBCA
