Green sea turtles are one of six species found in the Whitsundays. Photo / Thinkstock
Green sea turtles are one of six species found in the Whitsundays. Photo / Thinkstock
A small crew of volunteers work around the clock when an ill turtle comes their way, writes Shandelle Battersby.
Heroes come in many guises and you couldn't get much more unassuming than turtle rescuer Tracey Henry and her fellow volunteers who operate from the back of a modest swimming pool shop in the Whitsunday Islands.
Henry and co-founder Christine McNamara set up Bowen Sea Turtle Assessment and Rehabilitation (Bstar) in 2013 after they noticed lots of dead turtles on the local beaches and decided to do something about it.
The local turtle population took a huge hit from Cyclone Yasi, which struck Queensland with a wallop in 2011 and killed off a lot of the seagrass they feed on, so many were not getting enough tucker.
Queensland is home to six of the seven species of sea turtle and the Whitsundays sees mostly the green and hawksbill varieties.
All marine turtles are considered threatened, meaning the work of Bstar and the turtle hospital at Townsville aquarium, Reef HQ, a two-and-a-half hour drive from Bowen, is crucial to their survival.
The state government and community came to the party last year, helping the organisation with vet and transport costs, and Henry is hopeful this funding will continue.
Bstar does the initial assessment and caring of each turtle in association with local vets and Reef HQ. If a turtle becomes too sick, or one turtle too many comes in for treatment, off to Townsville they go. This is an epic journey in the back of Henry's 4WD, with the turtle secured on a specially made mat while covered in wet towels on tarpaulins. Henry puts her foot down and hoofs it to Townsville as quickly as she can so the turtle suffers minimal discomfort.
On the day we visit Bstar's tiny operation we meet Patience, a juvenile turtle of yet-to-be-determined gender which has something trapped in its gut - probably plastic or fishing line.
Patience is massaged by Bstar volunteer Christine McNamara. Photo / Shandelle Battersby
The back of the pool shop has two "tanks" - shallow swimming pools of about 2m-3m in diameter, one of which the rescued turtle is wallowing in, barely moving but poking its head up every now and again for air.
The demand on Bstar's services - particularly during the winter months when the water temperature drops and the turtles become ill and head for the beaches because they're too weak to keep swimming - has led to the need for two more tanks for the organisation, arriving soon.
Henry shows me photos of some of their previous charges which have suffered from injuries such as shark and crocodile bites or collisions with boats, as McNamara gently massages Patience's shell around its problem area.
The turtle was found in a lagoon by one of Bstar's customers and is a "floater", meaning it can't dive to get food. At 9.2kg and 46.6cm long it is underweight and needs medication - laxatives and enemas - to help move whatever nasty is inside it.
Henry says her team generally knows within a couple of weeks if a turtle will survive or not; they look after about 10 turtles a year and the average stay is 6-8 weeks. This is an around-the-clock job; Henry says one of the team lives with the turtles when they're at the shop.
Their success rate of getting them back into the ocean - always back at the beach where they were found - is very good, at 70 per cent.
Their first-ever patient, in 2013, was Stevie, a green turtle, about 70 years old. Underweight, Stevie had been struck by a boat propeller which had deformed her flipper.
She had to regain her strength and learn to swim again, and finally made it back to the ocean after seven months of care.
This year, Cuddles, a hawksbill, which had injuries to the surface of both eyes and no appetite, made a good recovery at Reef HQ and was returned to the ocean in just a few weeks.
As for poor old Patience, at this stage the team is just hoping they can get its gut clear so they can concentrate on feeding it up and getting it back on its flippers.
