Turtles power Rocky researcher to conservation award

Meet Australia's short beaked echidna. Until recently this monotreme or egg laying mammal was only thought to eat insects. That was until a CQUniversity researcher confirmed the sneaky predator had been dipping his beak quite literally into the eggs of some of Australia's endangered freshwater turtles. The cracking discovery by CQUniversity researcher Kymberly Robinson revealed two threatened bum-breathing species, the white-throated snapping turtle and the Fitzroy River turtle, were facing grave futures due to high nest depredation. But it's the Fitzroy River turtle who has been hit the hardest by the predator. One of the interesting discoveries we've made is that echidnas are actually depredating on not just the Fitzroy River turtle eggs but the white throated snapping turtle eggs as well which are both threatened species so yeah very interesting. So the echidna has always been I guess thought of being insectivorous so only praying on things like ants and termites so this is the first time it's actually been I guess recorded and published that they eat something different to to that. In the zoological industry they actually feed echidnas egg in a slurry so to some people it hasn't really been a surprise but some of the other people that have been studying echidnas for a long time it was yeah very unsuspecting um predator. Kymberly says the vulnerability of the Fitzroy River turtle eggs may be due to their egg chambers being shallower than other species. So we found that um interestingly enough the echidna's beak probing in the substrate was a similar depth to the top egg of the Fitzroy River turtle um we also found the echidnas were more active during the springtime when the Fitzroy River turtle is nesting rather than the winter time when the white throated snapping turtle was nesting so um we're unsure if the depredation is higher for that species because of the actual beak depth and the top egg measurement we're unsure but um yes very similar very interesting. Most predators are easy to identify so if you have a fox a pig or anything like that they tend to dig the chamber out and chew on the eggs and and leave the eggshell sort of scattered on the ground um whereas the echidna we were coming across these nests that were depredated but all the eggs were sort of contained in the chamber and they just had one single puncher hole in them so it was quite unusual um in the beginning cause I was just like you know what animal is able to actually eat the contents of the eggs without removing them. Kymberly's monitoring of Fitzroy River turtle nests has shown a dramatic increase in echidna activity of nest depredation from 2.8% in 2018 to 47.4% % in 2022. With such a jump in destroyed nests you may wonder if this is natural occurrence or is it human interference at play or could it simply be that the echidnas have developed a taste of the eggs. Researchers may not have the answers quite yet but one thing is for sure the Fitzroy River turtle is worth protecting. So the Fitzroy River turtle is listed um as vulnerable both federally and state um so it means they're in a little bit of trouble or a little bit concerned that into the future the the species may totally disappear um so they're pretty special turtle they're only found in the Fitzroy catchment so that's the only place they're found in the whole entire world and um they're the only living species of their genus. So yeah very special little guys. Studying turtle nesting ecology is not for the faint-hearted it requires a person who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty at all times of the day and night and who has a deep respect for the dangers that lurk in Australian tropical waterways and Kymberly is no stranger to the turtles and the Fitzroy River system after all it's been her backyard since she was a child. Yeah sort of um fell into I guess working with freshwater turtles I've always been a big animal lover and when I was 16 I was given the opportunity to go and join um a group that was going out doing nest protection for the Fitzroy River turtle and um I guess I was sort of hooked after I went out on my first time so I've now been doing that kind of work for 17 years and it sort of led me to become pretty passionate about the species and and now I'm studying them. Kymberly hopes her study findings will help get more turtles back into the water.