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Turtle Awareness
What are we doing?
We raise community awareness of Bribie Island's threatened marine turtles and advocate for best-practice management of the island's nesting beaches and the surrounding Marine Park, to improve their protection.
Why are we doing it?
As part of the Sunshine Coast Rookery, Bribie Island's dunes are considered a Significant Nest Site for the Critically Endangered South Pacific population of Loggerhead Turtles; and the surrounding waters of the Moreton Bay Marine Park are important foraging habitat for Vulnerable Green turtles.
THE TURTLE NESTINGS SEASON begins when the local Accredited Voluneteers start looking for tell-tale turtle tracks on November 1st, with the first nest often found mid-November. The summer incubation period sees the first hatchlings emerge in mid-late January, with the last hatchlings leaving the beach by the end of April. An average season sees 30-40 nests laid in the dunes of the island's southern and eastern coasts.
Direct threats to nesting success on Bribie Island include:
Climate change effecting nesting habits
Bright lights on beaches detering females from coming ashore
Human-preventable disturbances of nesting females
Nest destruction and inundation due to severe weather events
Egg predation by foxes and feral pigs
Obstacles including tyre ruts on the beach slowing hatchlings' journey from nest to ocean, seeing them perish from exhaustion and dehydtation and exposing them to increased risk of predation.
THROUGHOUT THE YEAR marine turtles call the waters around Bribie Island their home.
Direct threats to marine turtle in Bribie Island's surrounding waters include:
Vessel Strike
Entanglement in recreational fishing gear: including crab pots fishing line
Plastics Ingestion
Poor water quality effecting their health and the health of their habitat.
Climate Change altering their food sources and habitats
Who is involved?
Any BIEPA member can be part of BIEPA's Turtle Awarness Project, helping build community support for turtle conservation.
Project Coordinator
Darren Jew
Turtle Monitoring Groups
BIEPA commends the tireless work of Bribie Island's accredited citizen scientists, who devote their summers to monitoring and protecting turtle nests, and providing high quality nesting data to researchers. These independant volunteers work under the umbrella of the state government's Queensland Turtle Conservation Program, which provides training, issues accrediation, and authorities for individual volunteers to work with marine turtles under Qld's Nature Conservation Act.
Bribie Island National Park Turtle Conservation volunteers monitor the northern half of Bribie Island between Welsby Lagoon and the northern tip. This group works in partnership with the TurtleCare Sunshine Coast program, and closely with National Parks rangers.
Bribie Island Turtle Trackers monitor from Welsby Lagoon, south through Woorim, and around the southern coast to Buckley's Hole Conservation Park.
How are we doing it?
BIEPA's Turtle Awareness Project creates community events and social awareness of Bribie Island's marine turtles.
BIEPA's Annual Giant Turtle Event: With information stalls, kids activities and the centrepeice Giant Turtle–a crowd-formed turtle 'sculpture' on the beach– BIEPA's Giant Turtle is an all-of-community event that celebrates the start of the nesting season in early November. See the 2024 Event video here
Turtle Education and Information is made available at pop-up stalls at public events and nest-sitting activities around Bribie Island. See the BIEPA Events page for the next activation.
Advocacy for Ocean Beach Protection
BIEPA is working hard to influence Govt policy around the management of Bribie Island's Ocean Beach. You can read BIEPA's Position Statement on the needs for better protection of Bribie Island's Ocean Beach here.
The Question of Turtle Tourism
Bribie Island’s nesting loggerhead turtles find suitable spots at random locations along the length of the island's sandy beach, from the SW corner near the Buckley’s Hole Conservation Park, around Woody Bay and Skirmish Point (the gauntlet of the Dog Off Leash Beach) through Woorim village and the flagged area, all the way up to national park beach (where they deal with tens of thousands of 4wd vehicles each season), north to near Caloundra–around 36.5 kilometres. Turtle nests are low in density, and randomly spread each season over a great distance.
Turtle tourism tends to be successful in areas which attract a high density of animals to compact beaches. For example, rookeries like Mon Repos Conservation Park near Bundaberg is around 1km long, and hosts hundreds of nests each season. The high density of nesting at Mon Repos can reliably provide a high quality, intensely managed (to avoid disturbance) visitor experience. The Bribie Island rookery is not like that, so it's not and area suitable for turtle tourism.
How can you help?
Report turtle nesting and hatchling activity: In the National Park north of Welsby Lagoon call the Turtle Care Hotline 0437 559 067 (anytime, 24/7–calls only, no text messages to that number. Along the southern coast, around Woorim village, and up into the southern part of the park, call Bribie Island Turtle Trackers on 0438 113 163.
Report Turtle Strandings: Report sick/injured/stranded turtles (alive or deceased) to the State Govt Strandings Hotline: 1300 130 372. The person taking your call will ask for the following information: location (GPS coordinates if possible) a description of what is wrong with the animal (e.g. stranded on a beach, injuries, entangled in a net, injured, deceased).
Help get action on speed limit reductions in southern Pumicestone Passage by reporting inappropriate actions on the water. See how to report here.
Chat about the threats turtles face within your extended social circles, to help make the broader community aware of the problem, and the need for better protections for Bribie Islands marine and nesting habitats.
Advocate for wildlife-friendly recreation and sustainable nature-based tourism on, and around, Bribie Island.
Contribute your spare time and skills to BIEPA Projects.
