WASHINGTON: Researchers will track 2,000 turtle hatchlings in South Australia’s Riverland to see why the population is rapidly declining.
The team from the University of Western Sydney said River Murray infrastructure, such as locks and water regulators, could be restricting turtle movement.
Zoologist Ricky Spencer from the Freshwater Turtle Research Facility said it would release the turtle hatchlings at Lake Bonney, in Barmera, and record their movement.
“We’re going to put little tiny transmitters on them and we’ve got these receivers that will sit out in the water and we can actually automatically record where they go,” he said.
“I’m hoping what we can do is whenever a recording does come through we can get it onto a website.”
He said river infrastructure could be part of the problem.
“It really seems from what we’re seeing so far is that these carp screens and these areas that have been good for wetting and drying, releasing water in, letting it go out, have actually stopped the movement of some of these turtles,” he said.
“So we’re actually finding some of these turtles that aren’t actually in some of these areas.”
