Littering threatens marine life

Kerryn Manifold, The Sunshine Coast Daily 13 Apr 08;

Marine-life carers in south-east Queensland are looking after more injured and sick turtles than they have in the last 20 years, as human interaction with the reptiles increases.

UnderWater World general manager Julie Cullen said the number of turtles her staff looked after was expected to more than double by the end of this financial year. Ms Cullen said she expected to see about three turtles in care at any given time when she started at UnderWater World two years ago.

“Right now, we’ve got at least nine turtles,” she said. “The average over the last 18 years is about 30 to 40 turtles coming in each year.

“This (financial) year, we’ve had 80 already.”

Ms Cullen said authorities did not know what had caused the increase, but she expected litter finding its way into the ocean had played a large part.

She said turtles could become entangled in fishing nets or fishing line or swallow plastic bags, which caused “gas pockets” and blocked their digestive system.

“The gas pockets make them float,” she said.

“If they’re always floating they can’t rest and they can’t get to the bottom to feed.”

South of Brisbane, Sea World was even forced to stop taking injured turtles in September and October last year because they had no space left to treat them.

Marine sciences manager Steven McCourt said they became overwhelmed with animals.

“We had our full-house sign out for about three weeks,” Mr McCourt said.

He said he also did not know what had caused the increase, but thought human impact could be to blame.

“Whatever people take out fishing, they need to take home,” he said.

“Bait bags, old fishing line, crab pots all need to come back so we have less human impact on these turtles.”

He said more turtles could have hatched about 13 years ago than had in previous years. They were returning to breed, and so the higher numbers could be attributed to more turtles being in the water.

He said sediment run-off from increased development could smother seagrass meadows, which formed a large part of turtle diets, and warned that global warming might have an impact on future population numbers if rising waters flooded nesting sites.