GlobalWarming & ClimateChange News Desk – In short: A team of La Trobe University students researching freshwater turtle populations in the Murray-Darling Basin and beyond has discovered more than 500 turtles living at Imperial Lakes Nature Park in Broken Hill. The nature park’s eastern lake, where the turtles call home, was on the verge of drying out in January, with climate change before it was saved by record-breaking rain ABC Broken Hill Local News Reports

What’s next?

The researchers will gather more data to better estimate the population in the region and ascertain where they came from.

In the early hours of the morning, university students Amelia Corboy and Eric Brooks jump in their kayak to check on the turtle traps they placed out the night before. 

At Imperial Lakes Nature Park on the outskirts of Broken Hill, valuable data is being recorded one turtle at a time. 

Surprisingly, the population is thriving. 

These freshwater turtles are what PhD candidate Wesley Smith has travelled to far west NSW for. 

Mr Smith and his team are looking to understand how the turtle population is booming in a typically arid region of Australia and whether artificial habitats are aiding in their survival. 

“What makes these turtles unique is that they are out in very high numbers in a very arid part of Australia,”

he said.

Conducting research at the lakes on the outskirts of Broken Hill and along sites of the Murray- Darling Basin, the team hopes to get a better idea of how many there are and the different species present. 

Unexpected discovery

The research team travelled from Wodonga, north-eastern Victoria, in April after being invited by Landcare Broken Hill to collect data. 

During their time, more than 500 turtles were recorded across the two artificial lakes, including the eastern long-necked turtle, eastern short-neck turtle, also known as the Murray River turtle, and broad-shelled turtle species.

Pleasantly surprised with the findings, Mr Smith said it was particularly interesting to have found so many of the short-necked turtles, as they typically did not move over land very effectively.

“To get out here [to the Imperial lakes] they would need either outside assistance or a very large flood to move out here,” Mr Smith said.

“Or they just had to have been out here [in far west NSW] for thousands of years.”

Mr Smith said the broad-shelled and long-necked species were much more suited to overland movement, where they were able to walk between various water holes in the area.

Emma Kynaston is a Master’s student and is part of the team that travelled to Broken Hill.

Ms Kynaston’s research includes a study of eastern long-necked turtles in a wastewater treatment plant in south-eastern Australia, examining different population dynamics and the importance of these facilities as habitats. 

When the trip was being planned, Ms Kynaston said she was sceptical that they would find many turtles at all.

“I was just surprised they were out here in general,”

she said.

“I was expecting 100 or so … we got five times that.”

Lake brought back from the brink

Landcare Broken Hill put out an urgent call in January for help to purchase water for the perpetual eastern lake following a period of hot, dry conditions.

Despite surviving the federation and millennium droughts, the lake was on the verge of drying up for the first time in its 130-year history.

A national crowdfunding campaign raised more than $100,000 to buy water for the lakes and keep the wildlife alive.

“It bought us seven weeks of time before the rain came on the very last day of February,” Landcare Broken Hill president Simon Molesworth said.

Record-breaking rains of more than 200 millimetres fell across parts of far west NSW at the end of February and into March, drenching pastoral land and filling the lakes at the nature park.

Now, with the two park lakes full, Mr Molesworth said they had a leftover water fund they could hold onto for the next dry period. 

“We’ve basically set up a strategy whereby we can keep water in the lakes,” he said. 

Before the rain, one of the main concerns was the threat to wildlife. 

Mr Molesworth said he could only imagine what the turtles were doing to survive when the lake was almost dry. 

“[The turtles] must have been stacked up as though they were in an elevator … there was so little water there,”

he said.

 As the nature park springs back to life, Mr Molesworth has celebrated the success of the La Trobe research team in discovering such a large population of turtles.

“We had no idea there might be that number,” he said.

Team turtle

According to Wesley Smith, there was not a lot of research into turtles in arid areas.

With declining numbers of turtles in the Murray River, Mr Smith wants to better understand the population, particularly in the Darling and Lachlan river systems.

They’re also studying how the Menindee lakes system and its dams impact turtle movement, in addition to investigating artificial ponds and irrigation channels as possible habitats. 

While Mr Smith said the findings exceeded expectations, it would be important to follow up on the discoveries.

“This population seems to be thriving,” Mr Smith said. 

“Which certainly is a good thing, but we’ll have to dig into it a bit more.”

Mr Smith said being able to come back in a year would be an important step in understanding the sustainability of the population. 

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