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Marine Turtle by Trevor J Ierino

© Environment Australia and Trevor J Ierino

Contents

Tables

Recovery Team Membership

The list below has been compiled from the three meetings held to discuss and develop this plan. Representation at the meetings was determined by each jurisdiction, but was subject to some changes depending on the location and timing of each meeting.

Acknowledgments

Environment Australia would like to thank all members of the Recovery Team, who often laboured under difficult conditions.

Members or groups of members and colleagues from within their industries or government sectors have drafted many sections of this plan. Dr Colin Limpus prepared the biological descriptions of marine turtles and collated the information presented in the mortality tables. Peter Pender (Northern Land Council) and Bill Risk (Larrakia Nation) provided valuable insights during the Recovery Team meeting in Darwin.

Although there were no representatives from Tasmania on the Recovery Team, Rosemary Gales, Sally Bryant and Catherine Bone of the Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment – Nature Conservation Branch and Gwen Fenton, Marine Environment Section, Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment, provided the information on marine turtles in Tasmania.

Glossary

Summary

Current Species Status

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) came into force on 16 July 2000 and the list of threatened species under that Act was gazetted in August 2000. All six species of marine turtle identified in this recovery plan are included on that list. The EPBC Act identifies the need to prepare a Recovery Plan and specifies the content of that plan for threatened species listed under the Act. Despite status varying from species to species and country-to-country, global decline of marine turtle populations has been recognised by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) through the assigning of Endangered status to all species except the hawksbill and leatherback turtles, which are listed as Critically Endangered, and the flatback turtle, which is listed as data deficient. Similarly, the Convention for the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) acknowledge the decline in global populations of marine turtles by listings in their appendices. These listings on the CMS provide protection of marine turtles by nations that are parties to the conventions while CITES controls international trade in listed species.

Habitat Requirements, Threats and Limiting Factors

This plan has identified five different habitat types that marine turtles use at different stages of their lives, which are all shared by people to varying extents. These are: the natal beach; mating areas; inter-nesting habitat; feeding areas; and pelagic waters. Ideally marine turtle habitats should be free from human influences that can kill, injure or disable a turtle. Marine turtles are long-lived, slow to mature and are subject to a number of threats. If these threats persist, they will threaten the integrity of wild populations of marine turtles in Australia. The main threats are identified as:

 the bycatch of marine turtles in fisheries;
 unknown levels of harvest by indigenous Australians and unsustainable levels of harvest by people in neighbouring countries of the Asia/Pacific region;
 predation of turtle eggs by native and introduced animals;
 coastal development;
 deteriorating water quality;
 marine debris; and
 loss of habitat.

The actions in this plan aim to reduce the impact of these influences and to increase survival rates, particularly of adults and large immature turtles that will soon become part of the breeding population. Some threats will not be abated quickly but some such as prawn trawling can be resolved largely through the use of appropriate technology such as turtle excluder devices (TEDs). The process to assess otter trawling as a key threatening process added to the impetus to implement TED technology and the successful listing as a key threatening process under the EPBC Act permits the assessment of the introduction of the technology on Australian prawn fisheries over time. Populations of marine turtles that breed in Australia, migrate to feed in other jurisdictions within the Asia/Pacific region, where resident populations have declined. Genetic analysis and an understanding of the level of harvest within Australian and the Asia/Pacific region, together with a consistent approach to marine turtle management in the Asia/Pacific region would benefit what are currently considered globally significant populations.

Recovery Objectives

In the absence of detailed information about populations of marine turtles in Australia, this plan has adopted a threat- based approach. The premise is to reduce the likelihood that current threats will cause mortalities, or to modify activities to reduce the potential for future mortalities at all stages of a marine turtle’s life, and to ensure that traditional harvest of marine turtles by indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders is ecologically sustainable. The overall recovery objective is as follows.

To reduce detrimental impacts on Australian populations of marine turtles and hence promote their recovery in the wild.

Recovery activities are directed at improving the conservation status of species to the extent that they no longer need to be listed as endangered or vulnerable. In the absence of historical data, recovery goals cannot be established for populations of marine turtles. An exception is the east coast population of loggerhead turtles for which recovery objectives have been set. Monitoring programs should eventually provide information on which to make these judgements, however, a reduction in the mortality will increase the current survival rate of marine turtles across their range. Monitoring programs established in each jurisdiction will be able to identify any reductions in mortality, the effectiveness of management measures to reduce mortality and subsequent increases in populations over the medium to long term. The specific objectives are to be achieved within the five-year life of the plan. These objectives have the principal aims of reducing or managing factors that cause mortality in marine turtles, and seeking information that will assist in making judgements about the security of marine turtle populations in Australia. The specific objectives are as follow.

A. To reduce the mortality of marine turtles and, where appropriate, increase natural survivorship, including through developing management strategies with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities for the sustainable use of marine turtles.
B. To develop programs and protocols to monitor marine turtle populations in Australia, assess the size and status of those populations,the causes of their mortality and address information gaps.
C. To manage factors that affect marine turtle nesting.
D. To identify and protect habitats that are critical for the survival of marine turtles.
E. To communicate the results of recovery actions and involve and educate stakeholders.
F. To support and maintain existing agreements and develop new collaborative programs with neighbouring countries for the conservation of shared turtle populations.

Actions and Recovery Criteria

To fulfil these objectives, actions are designed to identify and reduce threats to marine turtles, determine levels of mortality and reduce that mortality. The need to make informed decisions based on the best available information is acknowledged as a principal activity of this plan. A table showing the relevant actions and recovery criteria are shown within the text describing each threat.

The Recovery Team noted the continued decline of the eastern Australian population of the loggerhead turtle and identified the need for its conservation to be implicit in all actions.

The recovery of marine turtles will take time. The assessment of the actions against the criteria for success is essential for the successful recovery of the species of marine turtles identified in this plan.

Estimated Cost of Recovery

The estimated costs are $5.64m over a five-year period. The priority of each action, the feasibility and the estimated cost for each action is identified.

Biodiversity Benefits

The benefits to biodiversity of the actions identified in this plan will include:

 the bycatch of other large marine vertebrates will be reduced with the introduction of turtle excluder devices;
 the effective management of bycatch in fisheries will benefit other marine species;
 the protection of marine turtle habitat will benefit seagrass and shallow continental shelf communities, and those species found on the natal beaches;
 the identification and targeting of sources of marine debris will benefit other marine vertebrates; and
 the control of pests that prey on marine turtle eggs will also reduce predation pressure on other target species within the terrestrial communities on the natal beaches.

Part 1. Introduction

There are currently six species of marine turtle recognised in Australia, all of which are on the lists of threatened species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). As a consequence of these listings, a recovery plan must be prepared that identifies the objectives, criteria and actions for the recovery of each species.

Data sets identifying long-term trends in marine turtle populations are few. Much of the biological information in this plan has been generated by the Queensland Environment Protection Agency’s Queensland Turtle Research Project and to a lesser extent the Western Australian Marine Turtle Project and data from the Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory.

There is no doubt that a range of impacts potentially threatens marine turtles across their distribution. However, because of a scarcity of long-term data, the impact at the species and population level of many of these potential threats is difficult to determine. This plan aims to reduce known threats, rather than focusing on the recovery of populations, and should reduce the mortality from human induced sources and thus improve the long-term chances for recovery in the wild.

The management of marine turtles is difficult because of their complex ecology. The size and status of these populations is difficult to quantify because:

 most of their lives are spent in the marine environment;
 hatchlings disperse throughout entire oceans;
 individuals follow their own migratory path;
 they are highly migratory, crossing Commonwealth, State, Northern Territory and international boundaries;
 only the females return to their natal beach, where they lay several clutches of eggs, and not all females nest each year;
 they are long-lived and slow to mature;
 they occupy different habitats at different stages of their life; and
 they are subject to a wide range of impacts at different stages of their life.

Limpus and Reimer (1994) identified a 50–80 per cent decline in nesting loggerhead turtles in Queensland between the mid 1970s and 1990. The Recovery Team identified this decline as an issue of importance prompting the following guiding statement.

In view of the apparent drastic decline of loggerhead turtles in Australia, the lead conservation and fisheries management agencies in each jurisdiction will make every effort, care and precaution to reduce loggerhead mortality to almost zero.

This plan identifies the steps necessary to reduce threats and thus begin the national recovery of all the listed marine turtles. Many of the impacts on marine turtles are common across the species and jurisdictions. It is intended that as far as possible the Commonwealth, States and the Northern Territory should address them collectively. The information contained in this recovery plan is based on the best information available at the time of drafting. The management and research actions have been developed accordingly. Relevant information that becomes available after publication of this plan will be incorporated in the review process that will follow implementation of the plan.

Background

Marine turtles arose from an ancient lineage of terrestrial reptiles, developing paddle-like limbs as they adapted to life in the oceans. As a consequence of this lineage, marine turtle females must return to land periodically to lay their eggs in beach foreshores. When hatchlings emerge from their nests they orient to the low light of the horizon and head towards it unless distracted by other lights. Once in the water they will swim at 90° to the wave fronts until clear of the inshore waters. Generally hatchling turtles disappear into oceanic currents and gyres where they will stay until large enough to move out into developmental habitats. There they continue to feed and grow within waters that may well be in another nation’s jurisdiction. The exceptions are the flatback turtle, which spends most of its life within the continental waters of Australia, and the leatherback turtle, which spends most of its life in the open ocean.

A marine turtle may take up to 30–50 years to mature. Adults do not breed every year. In a breeding year they migrate over long distances between feeding and nesting grounds and nest a number of times. During the nesting season a female will not normally feed until after the final clutch is laid and she begins the return migration to the feeding grounds. These life history characteristics make marine turtles vulnerable to a range of influences that can affect the integrity of their populations and populations in the wild. A detailed description of each species’ ecology in Australia can be found in http://www.ea.gov.au/coasts/species/turtles/index.html

Historically, only indigenous Australians took Australian marine turtles and their eggs, but post World War II Australia established itself industrially, and the economy grew. Marine turtles, particularly the hawksbill and green turtles, were subject to unsustainable harvests for soup, meat or shell until 1971. Increased exploitation of other commercial fish species also resulted in increased bycatch of species including marine turtles. The expanding

Australian population and economy has also exposed marine turtles to increasing mortality through marine debris, boat strike in waters popular for recreational boating, habitat loss, predation of eggs by feral animals, noise, oil pollution, and the continuing harvest in Australia.

Marine turtles’ life history traits mean that any high annual take of animals will result in a significant population decline, and historically, they are thought to have undergone a steady and significant decline in Australian waters. This plan seeks to promote cooperative activities within sectors of the community that can reduce impacts on marine turtles and enhance the survival of marine turtles in the wild.

Technical Summary of the Biology of Marine Turtles in Australia

There are two extant families of marine turtles, Cheloniidae and Dermochelyidae, and both occur in Australian waters and breed on Australian beaches. Both families share some common morphological features and life history traits.

They live almost their entire lives in the marine environment but must surface to breathe. In common with all extant turtles they have no teeth, their beaks being covered by keratinised sheathes. They have an acute sense of smell but not of taste. They have well-developed eyes with colour vision. Hearing is restricted to very low frequencies.

Females come ashore and lay spherical eggs with flexible calcareous shells containing an embryo developed to the gastrula stage. For successful incubation the eggs must be buried in ventilated, low salinity, high humidity nest sites that are not subjected to flooding or erosion and have a temperature range of 25–33°C. Sex of hatchlings is determined by the temperature of the nest during the middle third of development. Incubation period is a function of nest temperature. There is no parental care of eggs or young. Hatchlings do not feed for the first few days of life but live off the remains of internalised yolk sacs.

Family Cheloniidae

Five of six currently recognised species of cheloniid turtles occur in Australia: Caretta caretta (loggerhead turtle), Chelonia mydas (green turtle), Eretmochelys imbricata (hawksbill turtle), Lepidochelys olivacea (olive ridley turtle) and Natator depressus (flatback turtle). The genus Natator is restricted to the tropical areas of the continental shelf of Australia, southern Irian Jaya and southern Papua New Guinea. The remaining genera have a worldwide distribution in tropical and temperate seas.

Family Dermochelyidae

The family Dermochelyidae is represented by a single extant species, Dermochelys coriacea (leatherback turtle). The genus has a global distribution in tropical and temperate seas.

Status of Marine Turtles in Australia

In Australia the hard-shelled marine turtles are largely found in the tropical and subtropical waters of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. The leatherback is regularly found in the waters of temperate Australia. All species are protected under State/Territory and Commonwealth legislation (Table 1), however some of these jurisdictions allow the taking of turtles for licensed scientific research, educational pursuits and for traditional subsistence use by people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent.

Table 1. Commonwealth, State and Northern Territory legislation that protects marine turtles or identifies their status as needing particular conservation action

The six species of marine turtle found in Australian waters are listed as threatened species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Part 13, Division 1 provides for the listing of species that are considered to be extinct, extinct in the wild, critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable or conservation dependent. The status of each marine turtle species is given in Table 2.

Table 2. Status of marine turtles under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

Sub-populations of most species are recognised, and genetic analysis indicates that these populations can be recognised as distinct geographic units and may ultimately need be managed on that basis. Moritz et.al. (1998a & b) provide a summary of this knowledge to date and the major breeding populations are identified in Table 3. Given that the breeding behaviour of marine turtles dictates that the females return to their natal beach or another beach in the area to lay their eggs, should a sub-population become extinct over time, it is unlikely that turtles would use those nesting beaches in the future.

Table 3. Major Australian marine turtle breeding populations identified in Moritz et.al. 1998b.

International Status of Marine Turtles

The status of marine turtles varies from country to country and depends largely on whether they are given the opportunity to recover after any decline. Marine turtles are considered to be declining globally, despite successful conservation efforts in many countries, including Australia. The IUCN in applying its Red List Categories (IUCN, 2002) determined the status of marine turtles globally. Table 4 lists the status categories. Marine turtles’ vulnerability is also recognised by their listing under international agreements such as the Convention for the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS, also known as the Bonn Convention) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Table 4. Status of marine turtles under the CMS, CITES and IUCN

* See IUCN Internet site: http://www.redlist.org/

Existing Conservation and Management Measures

Commonwealth

The Commonwealth acts in a number of ways to protect turtles, both as a manager of reserves and a manager of fisheries as well through conservation programs. The Commonwealth provides programs to fund actions for listed threatened species that are the subject of recovery or threat abatement plans. Commonwealth legislation prohibits the export of marine turtles or products derived from them.

One means of protecting wildlife and their habitats has been the declaration of protected area regimes and Australia is a global leader in this field. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) is one of the world's most extensive protected areas, protecting significant amounts of marine turtle habitat. The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is included on the World Heritage List with marine turtles identified in the nomination as one of its natural attributes. Internationally significant populations of green, hawksbill, loggerhead and flatback turtles occur on the GBR. A large number of islands and their adjacent waters are closed to visitation seasonally under management plans or permit conditions restricting access for the purposes of seabird and turtle protection. The Commonwealth also monitors nesting marine turtles and hatching success in the Coral Sea National Nature Reserves, on Field Island in Kakadu National Park and at Ashmore Reef National Nature Reserve.

Hunting by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities living adjacent to the GBRMP may be undertaken only through a permit as prescribed under park zoning plans. Permits have in the past been granted on a community basis or, in the absence of an identified community organisation, to individuals. There is currently a modelling assessment of the southern GBR population of green turtles to determine if an ongoing harvest is sustainable.

Trawlers operating in the GBRMP incidentally catch marine turtles – the main species being loggerhead, green and flatback turtles (Robins 1995). The bycatch of turtles was part of the justification used to list otter trawling as a key threatening process under the EPBC Act. Approximately 49.6 per cent of the GBRMP is closed to trawling and within the GBRMP the use of TEDs is compulsory. This requirement has been extended throughout the East Coast Otter Trawl Fishery. There is also a requirement for fishers to report all interactions with marine turtles.

The Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) manages a number of fisheries where there are interactions with marine turtles, notably the Northern Prawn Fishery (NPF). In addition to the compulsory use of TEDs from April 2000 there are area closures in the NPF that provide some measure of protection to turtles. Most areas of inshore seagrass habitat in the Gulf of Carpentaria are permanently closed to trawling. These inshore areas are frequently the feeding grounds of turtle species including the green turtle. Seasonal closures in the NPF may also offer protection to turtles as they coincide with nesting periods for some species. The NPF is seasonally closed from 1 December to 30 March and again from 16 June to 31 July.

Western Australia

Under the Western Australian Wildlife Conservation Act 1950 the loggerhead and leatherback turtle are listed as threatened species. All other turtles are protected as native fauna. Provision is made in this Act for the take by indigenous people. The Western Australian Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) is involved in marine turtle conservation and the Western Australian Marine Turtle Program has been operational since 1985.

Most significant rookeries are on island nature reserves but there is a need to develop protocols for the management and use of these sites. A wildlife management program is currently being prepared for marine turtles in Western Australian waters. Research and monitoring activities include:

 long-term monitoring of most major rookeries;
 migration studies;
 estimates of inshore numbers at feeding grounds;
 management of oil field lighting and seismic activities to minimise impact on marine turtles;
 diseases in marine turtles (the petroleum industry has provided support);
 development of interaction with indigenous groups in monitoring programs; and
 salvage of leatherback and other turtles entangled in crayfish pot floatlines in summer.

No reliable figures are available on the bycatch of marine turtles from Western Australian trawl fisheries. Fisheries WA have developed a program and timeframe for the implementation of the Western Australian Policy on Fisheries Bycatch. Development of action plans for the Shark Bay Trawl Fisheries and the Pilbara Trawl Fishery has commenced. Marine turtle bycatch will be addressed with these action plans.

The development of bycatch action plans takes account of potential bycatch issues by separating fisheries into three groups on the basis of the nature and degree of significance of bycatch issues.

 Priority A includes all trawl fisheries. This group has been given priority due to the comparatively nonselective nature of this gear type. Fisheries specific bycatch action plans for these will be completed by end of 2001. It is anticipated that the use of TEDs will become compulsory in all prawn trawl fisheries within one year of the completion of the bycatch action plans.



 Priority B consists of net and trap fisheries with potentially significant bycatch issues, which may or may not occur in sensitive or socially important environments. These fisheries are to be addressed over two years commencing in early 2002.
 Priority C fisheries have been identified as having only minor bycatch issues. Bycatch issues in these fisheries will be addressed through the Fisheries Environmental Management Review (FEMR) process currently being undertaken by Fisheries WA.

Northern Territory

The Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 2000 lists marine turtles as protected wildlife. The Northern Territory Government also has a ‘Conservation through the sustainable use of wildlife’ policy, and on behalf of Aboriginal landholders and others has encouraged research into the production of marine turtles through ranching and captive breeding. The commercial export of products derived from turtles is currently prohibited by the EPBC Act.

This Act gives effect to the listing of turtles on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES). The Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory (PWCNT):

 has carried out aerial and ground surveys to determine where the high use breeding areas are for marine turtles;
 is identifying and mapping marine habitats;
 has examined habitat use by marine turtles around Coburg Peninsula and monitored and tagged flatback turtles on Greenhill Island between 1995and 1997;
 is monitoring nesting by turtles at Coburg Peninsula and Casuarina Beach in Darwin;
 is working with Dhimurru Land Management Aboriginal Corporation particularly on the ghost netting of juvenile turtles on Cape Arnhem;
 is working with the Northern Land Council to increase cooperation between coastal communities and PWCNT;
 has recently reviewed the status of all turtle species in NT waters with loggerhead classified as endangered and leather back turtles classified as vulnerable; and
 in conjunction with relevant stakeholders, is investigating options for ranching and captive breeding of hawksbill turtles.

The Northern Territory Department of Business, Industry and Resource Development (NTDBIRD) has collaboratively been involved in quantifying marine turtle/fisheries interactions and trialling TEDs and BRDs.

Queensland

Queensland legislation prohibits the taking of marine turtles for commercial purposes. The Queensland Nature Conservation Act 1992 provides protection for marine turtles, listing them as endangered and vulnerable species. Most significant rookeries for all species in eastern Queensland have been declared protected habitat under this Act. State marine parks such as Woongarra Marine Park and the Moreton Bay Marine Park contribute significantly to turtle conservation. Table 5 identifies the proportion of nesting habitat protected in Queensland (Limpus in litt.).

Table 5. Proportion of marine turtle nesting habitat protected in Queensland

Queensland Environment Protection Agency (QEPA) has a well-developed monitoring program for marine turtles with some data sets dating from the late 1960s.

The major elements of the QEPA marine turtle research, monitoring and management program are:

 monitoring
– tagging census, and
– stranding database;
 research
– demographic studies at nesting beaches and feeding areas,
– population genetics studies,
– migration studies,
– incubation/embryological research,
– El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) regulation of green turtle breeding rate,
– nutritional studies,
– health studies, and
– population modelling;
 management
– fox baiting to improve loggerhead breeding success, and



– environmental education programs.

Otter trawling in the Queensland East Coast Trawl Fishery (ECTF) has a level of marine turtle bycatch and is also captured by the compulsion of the successful key threatening process nomination under the EPBC Act to deal with that bycatch. A management plan for the ECTF now requires TEDs throughout the fishery. In the deepwater net area TEDs will be required by 31 December 2001. Legislative closures (both permanent and seasonal) provide limited protection for nesting and/or feeding ground turtle populations including shallow inshore seagrass areas.

In the trawl fisheries of northern Australia, there are selected area closures that coincidentally provide a measure of turtle conservation. Many of the area closures are associated with inshore, shallow-water seagrass beds that are frequently the feeding grounds of some turtle species. In the Torres Strait, trawling is permanently prohibited in the area west of Warrior Reef. Seasonal closures are applied to northern Australian trawl fisheries for a variety of reasons, however, many of the closures coincide with nesting times of some turtle species. This provides some level of conservation to nesting turtles. On the Queensland east coast, trawling is prohibited north of 22ºS between 15 December and 1 March and south of 22ºS between 20 September and 1 November. There are also a number of closures specifically implemented to reduce trawl activity in known turtle nesting areas such as a closure at the northern tip of Fraser Island to protected nesting loggerhead turtles.

Code of Fishing Ethics: The Capture of Marine Turtles

The ECTF developed a code of fishing ethics in regard to the capture of marine turtles and to minimise the impact of trawling on marine turtle populations. The major elements of the code are to:

 refrain from trawling within two to three nautical miles of ‘major’ turtle nesting beaches during the nesting season;
 limit tows to less than 90 minutes in areas of high turtle numbers;
 apply resuscitation procedures where appropriate, and return live turtles to the water as soon as possible;
 forward information on tagged or marked turtles to the Southern Fisheries Centre;
 participate in research programs monitoring the incidental capture of turtles in trawl nets; and
 participate in research programs trialling bycatch reduction devices.

New South Wales

Within New South Wales all marine turtles are protected under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974. In addition, the loggerhead turtle is listed as endangered and green and leatherback turtles are listed as vulnerable under the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995. Nominations have also been made to list the hawksbill and flatback turtles as threatened under this Act. There are resident groups of hawksbill, loggerhead and green turtles in the waters of northern New South Wales. Regular reports of green turtles in Jervis Bay and in some other more southerly estuaries suggest that some individuals may make regular visits to these southern locations. Resident populations appear to have established in some other estuaries particularly near warm water outfalls. A study is underway in Lake Macquarie on the New South Wales Central Coast to assess the apparently resident populations of several turtle species in the vicinity of warm water outfalls from a power generation facility. A number of loggerhead and flatback turtle strandings have also been reported in the states.

The New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has developed the Marine Fauna Management Database that will enable collection of information on dead, sick or injured turtles found along the New South Wales coast. The New South Wales data will complement the database maintained by Queensland and facilitate information exchange. The New South Wales NPWS has also established a tagging program in New South Wales which enables the collection of information on marine turtles rehabilitated and released following stranding. In addition, guidelines for the rescue, rehabilitation and release of marine turtles have been prepared.

Tasmania

The Tasmanian Threatened Species Protection Act 1995 lists the loggerhead turtle as endangered and the green, leatherback and hawksbill turtles as vulnerable. Under that Act any of the four listed species found in Tasmanian waters cannot be killed, injured, caught, damaged, destroyed or collected except under permit. Current research and monitoring activities include gathering and collating information, when available on:

 assessment of marine turtle mortality related to the rock lobster fishery;
 assessment of marine turtle distribution at sea (particularly leatherbacks) from information provided by fishers; and
 assessment of the feasibility of tracking entangled turtles after release to determine survivorship and migratory paths.

Victoria

Four species of marine turtle are known to occur in Victorian waters. Three of these occur only as rare vagrants, outside their usual range: loggerhead, green and olive ridley turtles. The leatherback turtle is a regular though rare visitor to Bass Strait. It is mostly a pelagic species and, away from its breeding grounds, is rarely found inshore. Thus, there are no breeding areas or important feeding grounds for marine turtles under Victorian jurisdiction.

In May 2002, the leatherback turtle was listed as a threatened species under the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988.

Benefits to Nontarget Species

Implementation of this plan will benefit a range of species. For example:

– increased marine turtle numbers will benefit sharks that prey upon them;
– the use of TEDs may benefit sharks and rays taken in otter trawling that would otherwise be killed or injured;
– fishers using TEDs will benefit from the absence of large animals in their nets that crush prawns and endanger deckhands;
– protection of benthic habitats will benefit other animals living in those ecological communities such as dugong that share the same habitat as turtles;
– protection of nesting habitat where terrestrial species will benefit from a land management protection regime; and
– actions in Australian jurisdiction will benefit marine turtles that feed in Australia and migrate to other nations to breed.

Affected Parties

Section 270(2)(g) of the EPBC Act indicates the need to identify organisations likely to be affected by the actions proposed in this plan. A list of affected parties can be found at Appendix 1. The list is not exhaustive and includes organisations represented on the Recovery Team.

Evaluation and Review

Section 270(2)(g) of the EPBC Act states that those who will evaluate the performance of the plan need to be identified. The Recovery Team will carry out an annual evaluation and a report of that review will be forwarded to the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC).

A review of the plan will be undertaken within five years. The Recovery Team with the possible involvement of independent consultants will carry out the evaluation. The output will be an assessment of the performance of the plan that will be sent to the Minister for the Environment for his/her review (Section 279(2)).

Social and Economic Impacts of the Plan

The decline in marine turtles, if not addressed, will result in economic and social costs. For example:

– The loss of turtles reduces the available bush food for some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities creating an economic cost related to the provision of alternative food supplies and the loss of the culture and values associated with turtles;
– The decline of nesting will reduce economic opportunities in the nature-based tourism industry (for example Mon Repos, Queensland);
– The decline of turtles represents a loss to those in the community who believe that biodiversity has an intrinsic value;

One of the purposes of the plan is to avoid or minimise these costs. Implementation of the plan will have the following economic or social costs:

– The use of TEDs imposes a small economic cost on fishers. In many cases TEDs have already been fitted but will be offset by more efficient fishing and the promotion of more sustainable fisheries through habitat protection.
– Protection of habitat means that there are costs incurred for its management. Healthier ecosystems, tourism and more sustainable fisheries offset these costs.

Part 2. Objectives, Recovery Actions and Criteria

Introduction

The content of recovery plans is specified in Section 270 of the EPBC Act, which requires that a plan state:

 objectives;
 actions to achieve the objectives; and
 criteria against which the success of the actions are measured.

The Recovery Plan Guidelines (Environment Australia 2000) specify the need for an overall objective and specific objectives. The overall objective is expected to be achieved in the longer term and not within the five-year life of the plan whereas the specific objectives must be achievable within this time. The means for achieving these objectives must also be consistent with the Objects of the Act (Section 3), which include the principles of ecologically sustainable development (Appendix 6), and the efficient and effective use of resources.

Lead agencies are referred to throughout this part as the managers of many actions in the tables that follow. Lead Agencies are those agencies that have primary responsibility for the management and conservation of marine turtles in their jurisdiction. Those agencies are Environment Australia (EA), Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA), Queensland Environment Protection Agency (QEPA), Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory (PWCNT), and the Department of Conservation and Land Management, Western Australia (CALM).

Recovery Plan Objective

The overall objective is as follows.

To reduce detrimental impacts on Australian populations of marine turtles and hence promote their recovery in the wild.

Measuring recovery against population data has been identified as problematic, as quantitative historical data are not available to set recovery targets for all populations or populations. The Recovery Plan therefore adopts a threat-based approach to manage sources of marine turtle mortality. There is sufficient information to identify a decline of 50 – 80 per cent over 10-15 years in the eastern Australian loggerhead population (Limpus and Reimer 1994). Limpus (1995) has found that in the 1976 and 1977 nesting seasons approximately 3500 loggerhead females nested on the Queensland coast, whereas 300 nested in 1997. From this information a recovery objective for this population has been developed.

The recovery of Australian marine turtle populations may take decades and can best be achieved through the reduction of current levels of mortality throughout the range of the populations. Long-term monitoring programs will provide the information to identify the specific recovery goals for each species and population.

Specific Objectives

The specific objectives are as follow.

A. To reduce the mortality of marine turtles and, where appropriate, increase natural survivorship, including through developing management strategies with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities for the sustainable use of marine turtles;
B. To develop programs and protocols to monitor marine turtle populations in Australia, assess the size and status of those populations, the causes of their mortality and address information gaps;
C. To manage factors that affect marine turtle nesting;
D. To identify and protect habitats that are critical for the survival of marine turtles;
E. To communicate the results of recovery actions and involve and educate stakeholders; and
F. To support and maintain existing agreements and develop new collaborative programs with neighbouring countries for the conservation of shared turtle populations.

The prescribed management (M) and research (R) actions to achieve the specific objectives are listed below. The action tables include the criteria for measuring the success of the actions and the achievement of the specific objectives.

Recovery Actions

Specific Objective A.

1. Bycatch of Marine Turtles in Fisheries

As a case study in marine turtle bycatch mitigation, prawn trawling offers some insights into the documentation of bycatch and the trialling and implementation of measures to resolve the issue. Five species of turtle have been recorded as bycatch in prawn trawls in the Northern Prawn Fishery (Poiner and Harris 1994, Poiner and Harris 1996), and East Coast Otter Trawl Fishery (ECOTF) (Robins 1995; Robins and Mayer, 1998). Estimates of the number caught and drowned in the NPF for 1989 and 1990 and estimated average annual catch in the ECOTF is given in Table 6. Flatback turtles made up the majority of the turtle catch (59 per cent) in the NPF (Poiner and Harris 1996) and loggerheads made up the majority of the turtle catch (50 per cent) in the ECOTF (Robins 1995). It is also notable that in the ECOTF, 80 per cent of turtle captures are derived from three components of the fishery: Moreton Bay (52.9 per cent), tiger prawn (15.6 per cent) and the banana prawn (11.4 per cent).

There are no data available on the mortality from otter trawls in Western Australia but data from the Western Australian Marine Turtle Program (WAMTP) shows that most species are caught (Prince 1998).

Table 6. Numbers of turtles estimated to have been caught and drowned in the Northern Prawn Fishery in 1989 and 1990 (Poiner and Harris 1996) and East Coast Otter Trawl Fishery (Robins 1995)

In 1999 the Endangered Species Scientific Subcommittee (ESSS) recommended that the incidental catch (bycatch) of marine turtles during coastal otter trawl fishing operations in Australian waters north of 28ºS be added as a key threatening process on schedule 3 of the ESP Act (ESSS 1999). The ESSS advised that otter trawl fishing operations were adversely affecting two listed marine turtle species and could cause another species to become endangered.

However, a drafting error in the ESP Act did not allow the listing of a threat that occurs in both State and Commonwealth waters. The EPBC Act has overcome that deficiency and following consideration by the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC), 'Incidental catch (bycatch) of Sea Turtle during coastal otter-trawling operations within Australian waters north of 28 degrees South' was listed as a key threatening process, effective 4 April 2001. The committee determined that a threat abatement plan was not necessary given actions already underway.

Fisheries known or thought to have a potential impact on marine turtles are identified in Table 7.

The actions (Table 8) necessary to address turtle bycatch comprise two elements:

 to reduce mortality or risk of mortality in fisheries where bycatch has been identified as a problem (for example NPF and ECOTF); and
 to determine the levels of mortality, if any, in other fisheries (such as long-line, scallop, lobster and gillnet fisheries throughout Australia).

A consistent approach to threat management for marine turtles is needed across the various fisheries. turtle excluder devices (TEDs) were made compulsory in the NPF from 16 April 2000, to reduce mortalities to 5 per cent of levels identified in 1989-90 (Poiner and Harris 1996). A program of monitoring has also been developed to ensure compliance. Similarly, TEDs became compulsory in the East Coast Trawl Fishery on 1 January 2001 with the exception of the deepwater trawl where they will be compulsory from 31 December 2001. The management plan proposes that the catch and mortality of marine turtles will be reduced to 5 per cent of levels identified in 1991-92.

The significant challenge remains to reduce the bycatch of marine turtles across the range of the distribution of species and jurisdictions. For example, much remains unknown about the bycatch of marine turtles in Western Australia and Torres Strait. A two-year program for the trial of TEDs in Shark Bay, Western Australia, is being undertaken and the results will assist in the setting of bycatch reduction targets for Shark Bay Fisheries. Similarly, levels of marine turtle bycatch are not known for gill net fisheries that operate within the range of marine turtles.

The National Policy on Fisheries Bycatch (AFFA 1999) has the objective to ensure that bycatch species and populations are maintained in fisheries managed by the States and the Northern Territory. The Commonwealth Policy on Fisheries Bycatch, (AFFA 2000) has a similar objective and seeks to apply requirements to Commonwealth fisheries managers.

Current Species Status

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) came into force on 16 July 2000 and the list of threatened species under that Act was gazetted in August 2000. All six species of marine turtle identified in this recovery plan are included on that list. The EPBC Act identifies the need to prepare a Recovery Plan and specifies the content of that plan for threatened species listed under the Act. Despite status varying from species to species and country-to-country, global decline of marine turtle populations has been recognised by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) through the assigning of Endangered status to all species except the hawksbill and leatherback turtles, which are listed as Critically Endangered, and the flatback turtle, which is listed as data deficient. Similarly, the Convention for the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) acknowledge the decline in global populations of marine turtles by listings in their appendices. These listings on the CMS provide protection of marine turtles by nations that are parties to the conventions while CITES controls international trade in listed species.

Habitat Requirements, Threats and Limiting Factors

This plan has identified five different habitat types that marine turtles use at different stages of their lives, which are all shared by people to varying extents. These are: the natal beach; mating areas; inter-nesting habitat; feeding areas; and pelagic waters. Ideally marine turtle habitats should be free from human influences that can kill, injure or disable a turtle. Marine turtles are long-lived, slow to mature and are subject to a number of threats. If these threats persist, they will threaten the integrity of wild populations of marine turtles in Australia. The main threats are identified as:

 the bycatch of marine turtles in fisheries;
 unknown levels of harvest by indigenous Australians and unsustainable levels of harvest by people in neighbouring countries of the Asia/Pacific region;
 predation of turtle eggs by native and introduced animals;
 coastal development;
 deteriorating water quality;
 marine debris; and
 loss of habitat.

The actions in this plan aim to reduce the impact of these influences and to increase survival rates, particularly of adults and large immature turtles that will soon become part of the breeding population. Some threats will not be abated quickly but some such as prawn trawling can be resolved largely through the use of appropriate technology such as turtle excluder devices (TEDs). The process to assess otter trawling as a key threatening process added to the impetus to implement TED technology and the successful listing as a key threatening process under the EPBC Act permits the assessment of the introduction of the technology on Australian prawn fisheries over time. Populations of marine turtles that breed in Australia, migrate to feed in other jurisdictions within the Asia/Pacific region, where resident populations have declined. Genetic analysis and an understanding of the level of harvest within Australian and the Asia/Pacific region, together with a consistent approach to marine turtle management in the Asia/Pacific region would benefit what are currently considered globally significant populations.

Recovery Objectives

In the absence of detailed information about populations of marine turtles in Australia, this plan has adopted a threat- based approach. The premise is to reduce the likelihood that current threats will cause mortalities, or to modify activities to reduce the potential for future mortalities at all stages of a marine turtle’s life, and to ensure that traditional harvest of marine turtles by indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders is ecologically sustainable. The overall recovery objective is as follows.

To reduce detrimental impacts on Australian populations of marine turtles and hence promote their recovery in the wild.

Recovery activities are directed at improving the conservation status of species to the extent that they no longer need to be listed as endangered or vulnerable. In the absence of historical data, recovery goals cannot be established for populations of marine turtles. An exception is the east coast population of loggerhead turtles for which recovery objectives have been set. Monitoring programs should eventually provide information on which to make these judgements, however, a reduction in the mortality will increase the current survival rate of marine turtles across their range. Monitoring programs established in each jurisdiction will be able to identify any reductions in mortality, the effectiveness of management measures to reduce mortality and subsequent increases in populations over the medium to long term. The specific objectives are to be achieved within the five-year life of the plan. These objectives have the principal aims of reducing or managing factors that cause mortality in marine turtles, and seeking information that will assist in making judgements about the security of marine turtle populations in Australia. The specific objectives are as follow.

A. To reduce the mortality of marine turtles and, where appropriate, increase natural survivorship, including through developing management strategies with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities for the sustainable use of marine turtles.
B. To develop programs and protocols to monitor marine turtle populations in Australia, assess the size and status of those populations,the causes of their mortality and address information gaps.
C. To manage factors that affect marine turtle nesting.
D. To identify and protect habitats that are critical for the survival of marine turtles.
E. To communicate the results of recovery actions and involve and educate stakeholders.
F. To support and maintain existing agreements and develop new collaborative programs with neighbouring countries for the conservation of shared turtle populations.

Actions and Recovery Criteria

To fulfil these objectives, actions are designed to identify and reduce threats to marine turtles, determine levels of mortality and reduce that mortality. The need to make informed decisions based on the best available information is acknowledged as a principal activity of this plan. A table showing the relevant actions and recovery criteria are shown within the text describing each threat.

The Recovery Team noted the continued decline of the eastern Australian population of the loggerhead turtle and identified the need for its conservation to be implicit in all actions.

The recovery of marine turtles will take time. The assessment of the actions against the criteria for success is essential for the successful recovery of the species of marine turtles identified in this plan.

Estimated Cost of Recovery

The estimated costs are $5.64m over a five-year period. The priority of each action, the feasibility and the estimated cost for each action is identified.

Biodiversity Benefits

The benefits to biodiversity of the actions identified in this plan will include:

 the bycatch of other large marine vertebrates will be reduced with the introduction of turtle excluder devices;
 the effective management of bycatch in fisheries will benefit other marine species;
 the protection of marine turtle habitat will benefit seagrass and shallow continental shelf communities, and those species found on the natal beaches;
 the identification and targeting of sources of marine debris will benefit other marine vertebrates; and
 the control of pests that prey on marine turtle eggs will also reduce predation pressure on other target species within the terrestrial communities on the natal beaches.

Part 1. Introduction

There are currently six species of marine turtle recognised in Australia, all of which are on the lists of threatened species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). As a consequence of these listings, a recovery plan must be prepared that identifies the objectives, criteria and actions for the recovery of each species.

Data sets identifying long-term trends in marine turtle populations are few. Much of the biological information in this plan has been generated by the Queensland Environment Protection Agency’s Queensland Turtle Research Project and to a lesser extent the Western Australian Marine Turtle Project and data from the Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory.

There is no doubt that a range of impacts potentially threatens marine turtles across their distribution. However, because of a scarcity of long-term data, the impact at the species and population level of many of these potential threats is difficult to determine. This plan aims to reduce known threats, rather than focusing on the recovery of populations, and should reduce the mortality from human induced sources and thus improve the long-term chances for recovery in the wild.

The management of marine turtles is difficult because of their complex ecology. The size and status of these populations is difficult to quantify because:

 most of their lives are spent in the marine environment;
 hatchlings disperse throughout entire oceans;
 individuals follow their own migratory path;
 they are highly migratory, crossing Commonwealth, State, Northern Territory and international boundaries;
 only the females return to their natal beach, where they lay several clutches of eggs, and not all females nest each year;
 they are long-lived and slow to mature;
 they occupy different habitats at different stages of their life; and
 they are subject to a wide range of impacts at different stages of their life.

Limpus and Reimer (1994) identified a 50–80 per cent decline in nesting loggerhead turtles in Queensland between the mid 1970s and 1990. The Recovery Team identified this decline as an issue of importance prompting the following guiding statement.

In view of the apparent drastic decline of loggerhead turtles in Australia, the lead conservation and fisheries management agencies in each jurisdiction will make every effort, care and precaution to reduce loggerhead mortality to almost zero.

This plan identifies the steps necessary to reduce threats and thus begin the national recovery of all the listed marine turtles. Many of the impacts on marine turtles are common across the species and jurisdictions. It is intended that as far as possible the Commonwealth, States and the Northern Territory should address them collectively. The information contained in this recovery plan is based on the best information available at the time of drafting. The management and research actions have been developed accordingly. Relevant information that becomes available after publication of this plan will be incorporated in the review process that will follow implementation of the plan.

Background

Marine turtles arose from an ancient lineage of terrestrial reptiles, developing paddle-like limbs as they adapted to life in the oceans. As a consequence of this lineage, marine turtle females must return to land periodically to lay their eggs in beach foreshores. When hatchlings emerge from their nests they orient to the low light of the horizon and head towards it unless distracted by other lights. Once in the water they will swim at 90° to the wave fronts until clear of the inshore waters. Generally hatchling turtles disappear into oceanic currents and gyres where they will stay until large enough to move out into developmental habitats. There they continue to feed and grow within waters that may well be in another nation’s jurisdiction. The exceptions are the flatback turtle, which spends most of its life within the continental waters of Australia, and the leatherback turtle, which spends most of its life in the open ocean.

A marine turtle may take up to 30–50 years to mature. Adults do not breed every year. In a breeding year they migrate over long distances between feeding and nesting grounds and nest a number of times. During the nesting season a female will not normally feed until after the final clutch is laid and she begins the return migration to the feeding grounds. These life history characteristics make marine turtles vulnerable to a range of influences that can affect the integrity of their populations and populations in the wild. A detailed description of each species’ ecology in Australia can be found in http://www.ea.gov.au/coasts/species/turtles/index.html

Historically, only indigenous Australians took Australian marine turtles and their eggs, but post World War II Australia established itself industrially, and the economy grew. Marine turtles, particularly the hawksbill and green turtles, were subject to unsustainable harvests for soup, meat or shell until 1971. Increased exploitation of other commercial fish species also resulted in increased bycatch of species including marine turtles. The expanding

Australian population and economy has also exposed marine turtles to increasing mortality through marine debris, boat strike in waters popular for recreational boating, habitat loss, predation of eggs by feral animals, noise, oil pollution, and the continuing harvest in Australia.

Marine turtles’ life history traits mean that any high annual take of animals will result in a significant population decline, and historically, they are thought to have undergone a steady and significant decline in Australian waters. This plan seeks to promote cooperative activities within sectors of the community that can reduce impacts on marine turtles and enhance the survival of marine turtles in the wild.

Technical Summary of the Biology of Marine Turtles in Australia

There are two extant families of marine turtles, Cheloniidae and Dermochelyidae, and both occur in Australian waters and breed on Australian beaches. Both families share some common morphological features and life history traits.

They live almost their entire lives in the marine environment but must surface to breathe. In common with all extant turtles they have no teeth, their beaks being covered by keratinised sheathes. They have an acute sense of smell but not of taste. They have well-developed eyes with colour vision. Hearing is restricted to very low frequencies.

Females come ashore and lay spherical eggs with flexible calcareous shells containing an embryo developed to the gastrula stage. For successful incubation the eggs must be buried in ventilated, low salinity, high humidity nest sites that are not subjected to flooding or erosion and have a temperature range of 25–33°C. Sex of hatchlings is determined by the temperature of the nest during the middle third of development. Incubation period is a function of nest temperature. There is no parental care of eggs or young. Hatchlings do not feed for the first few days of life but live off the remains of internalised yolk sacs.

Family Cheloniidae

Five of six currently recognised species of cheloniid turtles occur in Australia: Caretta caretta (loggerhead turtle), Chelonia mydas (green turtle), Eretmochelys imbricata (hawksbill turtle), Lepidochelys olivacea (olive ridley turtle) and Natator depressus (flatback turtle). The genus Natator is restricted to the tropical areas of the continental shelf of Australia, southern Irian Jaya and southern Papua New Guinea. The remaining genera have a worldwide distribution in tropical and temperate seas.

Family Dermochelyidae

The family Dermochelyidae is represented by a single extant species, Dermochelys coriacea (leatherback turtle). The genus has a global distribution in tropical and temperate seas.

Status of Marine Turtles in Australia

In Australia the hard-shelled marine turtles are largely found in the tropical and subtropical waters of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. The leatherback is regularly found in the waters of temperate Australia. All species are protected under State/Territory and Commonwealth legislation (Table 1), however some of these jurisdictions allow the taking of turtles for licensed scientific research, educational pursuits and for traditional subsistence use by people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent.

Table 1. Commonwealth, State and Northern Territory legislation that protects marine turtles or identifies their status as needing particular conservation action

The six species of marine turtle found in Australian waters are listed as threatened species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Part 13, Division 1 provides for the listing of species that are considered to be extinct, extinct in the wild, critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable or conservation dependent. The status of each marine turtle species is given in Table 2.

Table 2. Status of marine turtles under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

Sub-populations of most species are recognised, and genetic analysis indicates that these populations can be recognised as distinct geographic units and may ultimately need be managed on that basis. Moritz et.al. (1998a & b) provide a summary of this knowledge to date and the major breeding populations are identified in Table 3. Given that the breeding behaviour of marine turtles dictates that the females return to their natal beach or another beach in the area to lay their eggs, should a sub-population become extinct over time, it is unlikely that turtles would use those nesting beaches in the future.

Table 3. Major Australian marine turtle breeding populations identified in Moritz et.al. 1998b.

International Status of Marine Turtles

The status of marine turtles varies from country to country and depends largely on whether they are given the opportunity to recover after any decline. Marine turtles are considered to be declining globally, despite successful conservation efforts in many countries, including Australia. The IUCN in applying its Red List Categories (IUCN, 2002) determined the status of marine turtles globally. Table 4 lists the status categories. Marine turtles’ vulnerability is also recognised by their listing under international agreements such as the Convention for the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS, also known as the Bonn Convention) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Table 4. Status of marine turtles under the CMS, CITES and IUCN

* See IUCN Internet site: http://www.redlist.org/

Summary

Current Species Status

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) came into force on 16 July 2000 and the list of threatened species under that Act was gazetted in August 2000. All six species of marine turtle identified in this recovery plan are included on that list. The EPBC Act identifies the need to prepare a Recovery Plan and specifies the content of that plan for threatened species listed under the Act. Despite status varying from species to species and country-to-country, global decline of marine turtle populations has been recognised by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) through the assigning of Endangered status to all species except the hawksbill and leatherback turtles, which are listed as Critically Endangered, and the flatback turtle, which is listed as data deficient. Similarly, the Convention for the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) acknowledge the decline in global populations of marine turtles by listings in their appendices. These listings on the CMS provide protection of marine turtles by nations that are parties to the conventions while CITES controls international trade in listed species.

Habitat Requirements, Threats and Limiting Factors

This plan has identified five different habitat types that marine turtles use at different stages of their lives, which are all shared by people to varying extents. These are: the natal beach; mating areas; inter-nesting habitat; feeding areas; and pelagic waters. Ideally marine turtle habitats should be free from human influences that can kill, injure or disable a turtle. Marine turtles are long-lived, slow to mature and are subject to a number of threats. If these threats persist, they will threaten the integrity of wild populations of marine turtles in Australia. The main threats are identified as:

 the bycatch of marine turtles in fisheries;
 unknown levels of harvest by indigenous Australians and unsustainable levels of harvest by people in neighbouring countries of the Asia/Pacific region;
 predation of turtle eggs by native and introduced animals;
 coastal development;
 deteriorating water quality;
 marine debris; and
 loss of habitat.

The actions in this plan aim to reduce the impact of these influences and to increase survival rates, particularly of adults and large immature turtles that will soon become part of the breeding population. Some threats will not be abated quickly but some such as prawn trawling can be resolved largely through the use of appropriate technology such as turtle excluder devices (TEDs). The process to assess otter trawling as a key threatening process added to the impetus to implement TED technology and the successful listing as a key threatening process under the EPBC Act permits the assessment of the introduction of the technology on Australian prawn fisheries over time. Populations of marine turtles that breed in Australia, migrate to feed in other jurisdictions within the Asia/Pacific region, where resident populations have declined. Genetic analysis and an understanding of the level of harvest within Australian and the Asia/Pacific region, together with a consistent approach to marine turtle management in the Asia/Pacific region would benefit what are currently considered globally significant populations.

Recovery Objectives

In the absence of detailed information about populations of marine turtles in Australia, this plan has adopted a threat- based approach. The premise is to reduce the likelihood that current threats will cause mortalities, or to modify activities to reduce the potential for future mortalities at all stages of a marine turtle’s life, and to ensure that traditional harvest of marine turtles by indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders is ecologically sustainable. The overall recovery objective is as follows.

To reduce detrimental impacts on Australian populations of marine turtles and hence promote their recovery in the wild.

Recovery activities are directed at improving the conservation status of species to the extent that they no longer need to be listed as endangered or vulnerable. In the absence of historical data, recovery goals cannot be established for populations of marine turtles. An exception is the east coast population of loggerhead turtles for which recovery objectives have been set. Monitoring programs should eventually provide information on which to make these judgements, however, a reduction in the mortality will increase the current survival rate of marine turtles across their range. Monitoring programs established in each jurisdiction will be able to identify any reductions in mortality, the effectiveness of management measures to reduce mortality and subsequent increases in populations over the medium to long term. The specific objectives are to be achieved within the five-year life of the plan. These objectives have the principal aims of reducing or managing factors that cause mortality in marine turtles, and seeking information that will assist in making judgements about the security of marine turtle populations in Australia. The specific objectives are as follow.

A. To reduce the mortality of marine turtles and, where appropriate, increase natural survivorship, including through developing management strategies with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities for the sustainable use of marine turtles.
B. To develop programs and protocols to monitor marine turtle populations in Australia, assess the size and status of those populations,the causes of their mortality and address information gaps.
C. To manage factors that affect marine turtle nesting.
D. To identify and protect habitats that are critical for the survival of marine turtles.
E. To communicate the results of recovery actions and involve and educate stakeholders.
F. To support and maintain existing agreements and develop new collaborative programs with neighbouring countries for the conservation of shared turtle populations.

Actions and Recovery Criteria

To fulfil these objectives, actions are designed to identify and reduce threats to marine turtles, determine levels of mortality and reduce that mortality. The need to make informed decisions based on the best available information is acknowledged as a principal activity of this plan. A table showing the relevant actions and recovery criteria are shown within the text describing each threat.

The Recovery Team noted the continued decline of the eastern Australian population of the loggerhead turtle and identified the need for its conservation to be implicit in all actions.

The recovery of marine turtles will take time. The assessment of the actions against the criteria for success is essential for the successful recovery of the species of marine turtles identified in this plan.

Estimated Cost of Recovery

The estimated costs are $5.64m over a five-year period. The priority of each action, the feasibility and the estimated cost for each action is identified.

Biodiversity Benefits

The benefits to biodiversity of the actions identified in this plan will include:

 the bycatch of other large marine vertebrates will be reduced with the introduction of turtle excluder devices;
 the effective management of bycatch in fisheries will benefit other marine species;
 the protection of marine turtle habitat will benefit seagrass and shallow continental shelf communities, and those species found on the natal beaches;
 the identification and targeting of sources of marine debris will benefit other marine vertebrates; and
 the control of pests that prey on marine turtle eggs will also reduce predation pressure on other target species within the terrestrial communities on the natal beaches.

Part 1. Introduction

There are currently six species of marine turtle recognised in Australia, all of which are on the lists of threatened species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). As a consequence of these listings, a recovery plan must be prepared that identifies the objectives, criteria and actions for the recovery of each species.

Data sets identifying long-term trends in marine turtle populations are few. Much of the biological information in this plan has been generated by the Queensland Environment Protection Agency’s Queensland Turtle Research Project and to a lesser extent the Western Australian Marine Turtle Project and data from the Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory.

There is no doubt that a range of impacts potentially threatens marine turtles across their distribution. However, because of a scarcity of long-term data, the impact at the species and population level of many of these potential threats is difficult to determine. This plan aims to reduce known threats, rather than focusing on the recovery of populations, and should reduce the mortality from human induced sources and thus improve the long-term chances for recovery in the wild.

The management of marine turtles is difficult because of their complex ecology. The size and status of these populations is difficult to quantify because:

 most of their lives are spent in the marine environment;
 hatchlings disperse throughout entire oceans;
 individuals follow their own migratory path;
 they are highly migratory, crossing Commonwealth, State, Northern Territory and international boundaries;
 only the females return to their natal beach, where they lay several clutches of eggs, and not all females nest each year;
 they are long-lived and slow to mature;
 they occupy different habitats at different stages of their life; and
 they are subject to a wide range of impacts at different stages of their life.

Limpus and Reimer (1994) identified a 50–80 per cent decline in nesting loggerhead turtles in Queensland between the mid 1970s and 1990. The Recovery Team identified this decline as an issue of importance prompting the following guiding statement.

In view of the apparent drastic decline of loggerhead turtles in Australia, the lead conservation and fisheries management agencies in each jurisdiction will make every effort, care and precaution to reduce loggerhead mortality to almost zero.

This plan identifies the steps necessary to reduce threats and thus begin the national recovery of all the listed marine turtles. Many of the impacts on marine turtles are common across the species and jurisdictions. It is intended that as far as possible the Commonwealth, States and the Northern Territory should address them collectively. The information contained in this recovery plan is based on the best information available at the time of drafting. The management and research actions have been developed accordingly. Relevant information that becomes available after publication of this plan will be incorporated in the review process that will follow implementation of the plan.

Background

Marine turtles arose from an ancient lineage of terrestrial reptiles, developing paddle-like limbs as they adapted to life in the oceans. As a consequence of this lineage, marine turtle females must return to land periodically to lay their eggs in beach foreshores. When hatchlings emerge from their nests they orient to the low light of the horizon and head towards it unless distracted by other lights. Once in the water they will swim at 90° to the wave fronts until clear of the inshore waters. Generally hatchling turtles disappear into oceanic currents and gyres where they will stay until large enough to move out into developmental habitats. There they continue to feed and grow within waters that may well be in another nation’s jurisdiction. The exceptions are the flatback turtle, which spends most of its life within the continental waters of Australia, and the leatherback turtle, which spends most of its life in the open ocean.

A marine turtle may take up to 30–50 years to mature. Adults do not breed every year. In a breeding year they migrate over long distances between feeding and nesting grounds and nest a number of times. During the nesting season a female will not normally feed until after the final clutch is laid and she begins the return migration to the feeding grounds. These life history characteristics make marine turtles vulnerable to a range of influences that can affect the integrity of their populations and populations in the wild. A detailed description of each species’ ecology in Australia can be found in http://www.ea.gov.au/coasts/species/turtles/index.html

Historically, only indigenous Australians took Australian marine turtles and their eggs, but post World War II Australia established itself industrially, and the economy grew. Marine turtles, particularly the hawksbill and green turtles, were subject to unsustainable harvests for soup, meat or shell until 1971. Increased exploitation of other commercial fish species also resulted in increased bycatch of species including marine turtles. The expanding

Australian population and economy has also exposed marine turtles to increasing mortality through marine debris, boat strike in waters popular for recreational boating, habitat loss, predation of eggs by feral animals, noise, oil pollution, and the continuing harvest in Australia.

Marine turtles’ life history traits mean that any high annual take of animals will result in a significant population decline, and historically, they are thought to have undergone a steady and significant decline in Australian waters. This plan seeks to promote cooperative activities within sectors of the community that can reduce impacts on marine turtles and enhance the survival of marine turtles in the wild.

Technical Summary of the Biology of Marine Turtles in Australia

There are two extant families of marine turtles, Cheloniidae and Dermochelyidae, and both occur in Australian waters and breed on Australian beaches. Both families share some common morphological features and life history traits.

They live almost their entire lives in the marine environment but must surface to breathe. In common with all extant turtles they have no teeth, their beaks being covered by keratinised sheathes. They have an acute sense of smell but not of taste. They have well-developed eyes with colour vision. Hearing is restricted to very low frequencies.

Females come ashore and lay spherical eggs with flexible calcareous shells containing an embryo developed to the gastrula stage. For successful incubation the eggs must be buried in ventilated, low salinity, high humidity nest sites that are not subjected to flooding or erosion and have a temperature range of 25–33°C. Sex of hatchlings is determined by the temperature of the nest during the middle third of development. Incubation period is a function of nest temperature. There is no parental care of eggs or young. Hatchlings do not feed for the first few days of life but live off the remains of internalised yolk sacs.

Family Cheloniidae

Five of six currently recognised species of cheloniid turtles occur in Australia: Caretta caretta (loggerhead turtle), Chelonia mydas (green turtle), Eretmochelys imbricata (hawksbill turtle), Lepidochelys olivacea (olive ridley turtle) and Natator depressus (flatback turtle). The genus Natator is restricted to the tropical areas of the continental shelf of Australia, southern Irian Jaya and southern Papua New Guinea. The remaining genera have a worldwide distribution in tropical and temperate seas.

Family Dermochelyidae

The family Dermochelyidae is represented by a single extant species, Dermochelys coriacea (leatherback turtle). The genus has a global distribution in tropical and temperate seas.

Status of Marine Turtles in Australia

In Australia the hard-shelled marine turtles are largely found in the tropical and subtropical waters of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. The leatherback is regularly found in the waters of temperate Australia. All species are protected under State/Territory and Commonwealth legislation (Table 1), however some of these jurisdictions allow the taking of turtles for licensed scientific research, educational pursuits and for traditional subsistence use by people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent.

Table 1. Commonwealth, State and Northern Territory legislation that protects marine turtles or identifies their status as needing particular conservation action

The six species of marine turtle found in Australian waters are listed as threatened species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Part 13, Division 1 provides for the listing of species that are considered to be extinct, extinct in the wild, critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable or conservation dependent. The status of each marine turtle species is given in Table 2.

Table 2. Status of marine turtles under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

Sub-populations of most species are recognised, and genetic analysis indicates that these populations can be recognised as distinct geographic units and may ultimately need be managed on that basis. Moritz et.al. (1998a & b) provide a summary of this knowledge to date and the major breeding populations are identified in Table 3. Given that the breeding behaviour of marine turtles dictates that the females return to their natal beach or another beach in the area to lay their eggs, should a sub-population become extinct over time, it is unlikely that turtles would use those nesting beaches in the future.

Table 3. Major Australian marine turtle breeding populations identified in Moritz et.al. 1998b.

International Status of Marine Turtles

The status of marine turtles varies from country to country and depends largely on whether they are given the opportunity to recover after any decline. Marine turtles are considered to be declining globally, despite successful conservation efforts in many countries, including Australia. The IUCN in applying its Red List Categories (IUCN, 2002) determined the status of marine turtles globally. Table 4 lists the status categories. Marine turtles’ vulnerability is also recognised by their listing under international agreements such as the Convention for the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS, also known as the Bonn Convention) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Table 4. Status of marine turtles under the CMS, CITES and IUCN

* See IUCN Internet site: http://www.redlist.org/

Existing Conservation and Management Measures

Commonwealth

The Commonwealth acts in a number of ways to protect turtles, both as a manager of reserves and a manager of fisheries as well through conservation programs. The Commonwealth provides programs to fund actions for listed threatened species that are the subject of recovery or threat abatement plans. Commonwealth legislation prohibits the export of marine turtles or products derived from them.

One means of protecting wildlife and their habitats has been the declaration of protected area regimes and Australia is a global leader in this field. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) is one of the world's most extensive protected areas, protecting significant amounts of marine turtle habitat. The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is included on the World Heritage List with marine turtles identified in the nomination as one of its natural attributes. Internationally significant populations of green, hawksbill, loggerhead and flatback turtles occur on the GBR. A large number of islands and their adjacent waters are closed to visitation seasonally under management plans or permit conditions restricting access for the purposes of seabird and turtle protection. The Commonwealth also monitors nesting marine turtles and hatching success in the Coral Sea National Nature Reserves, on Field Island in Kakadu National Park and at Ashmore Reef National Nature Reserve.

Hunting by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities living adjacent to the GBRMP may be undertaken only through a permit as prescribed under park zoning plans. Permits have in the past been granted on a community basis or, in the absence of an identified community organisation, to individuals. There is currently a modelling assessment of the southern GBR population of green turtles to determine if an ongoing harvest is sustainable.

Trawlers operating in the GBRMP incidentally catch marine turtles – the main species being loggerhead, green and flatback turtles (Robins 1995). The bycatch of turtles was part of the justification used to list otter trawling as a key threatening process under the EPBC Act. Approximately 49.6 per cent of the GBRMP is closed to trawling and within the GBRMP the use of TEDs is compulsory. This requirement has been extended throughout the East Coast Otter Trawl Fishery. There is also a requirement for fishers to report all interactions with marine turtles.

The Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) manages a number of fisheries where there are interactions with marine turtles, notably the Northern Prawn Fishery (NPF). In addition to the compulsory use of TEDs from April 2000 there are area closures in the NPF that provide some measure of protection to turtles. Most areas of inshore seagrass habitat in the Gulf of Carpentaria are permanently closed to trawling. These inshore areas are frequently the feeding grounds of turtle species including the green turtle. Seasonal closures in the NPF may also offer protection to turtles as they coincide with nesting periods for some species. The NPF is seasonally closed from 1 December to 30 March and again from 16 June to 31 July.

Western Australia

Under the Western Australian Wildlife Conservation Act 1950 the loggerhead and leatherback turtle are listed as threatened species. All other turtles are protected as native fauna. Provision is made in this Act for the take by indigenous people. The Western Australian Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) is involved in marine turtle conservation and the Western Australian Marine Turtle Program has been operational since 1985.

Most significant rookeries are on island nature reserves but there is a need to develop protocols for the management and use of these sites. A wildlife management program is currently being prepared for marine turtles in Western Australian waters. Research and monitoring activities include:

 long-term monitoring of most major rookeries;
 migration studies;
 estimates of inshore numbers at feeding grounds;
 management of oil field lighting and seismic activities to minimise impact on marine turtles;
 diseases in marine turtles (the petroleum industry has provided support);
 development of interaction with indigenous groups in monitoring programs; and
 salvage of leatherback and other turtles entangled in crayfish pot floatlines in summer.

No reliable figures are available on the bycatch of marine turtles from Western Australian trawl fisheries. Fisheries WA have developed a program and timeframe for the implementation of the Western Australian Policy on Fisheries Bycatch. Development of action plans for the Shark Bay Trawl Fisheries and the Pilbara Trawl Fishery has commenced. Marine turtle bycatch will be addressed with these action plans.

The development of bycatch action plans takes account of potential bycatch issues by separating fisheries into three groups on the basis of the nature and degree of significance of bycatch issues.

 Priority A includes all trawl fisheries. This group has been given priority due to the comparatively nonselective nature of this gear type. Fisheries specific bycatch action plans for these will be completed by end of 2001. It is anticipated that the use of TEDs will become compulsory in all prawn trawl fisheries within one year of the completion of the bycatch action plans.



 Priority B consists of net and trap fisheries with potentially significant bycatch issues, which may or may not occur in sensitive or socially important environments. These fisheries are to be addressed over two years commencing in early 2002.
 Priority C fisheries have been identified as having only minor bycatch issues. Bycatch issues in these fisheries will be addressed through the Fisheries Environmental Management Review (FEMR) process currently being undertaken by Fisheries WA.

Northern Territory

The Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 2000 lists marine turtles as protected wildlife. The Northern Territory Government also has a ‘Conservation through the sustainable use of wildlife’ policy, and on behalf of Aboriginal landholders and others has encouraged research into the production of marine turtles through ranching and captive breeding. The commercial export of products derived from turtles is currently prohibited by the EPBC Act.

This Act gives effect to the listing of turtles on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES). The Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory (PWCNT):

 has carried out aerial and ground surveys to determine where the high use breeding areas are for marine turtles;
 is identifying and mapping marine habitats;
 has examined habitat use by marine turtles around Coburg Peninsula and monitored and tagged flatback turtles on Greenhill Island between 1995and 1997;
 is monitoring nesting by turtles at Coburg Peninsula and Casuarina Beach in Darwin;
 is working with Dhimurru Land Management Aboriginal Corporation particularly on the ghost netting of juvenile turtles on Cape Arnhem;
 is working with the Northern Land Council to increase cooperation between coastal communities and PWCNT;
 has recently reviewed the status of all turtle species in NT waters with loggerhead classified as endangered and leather back turtles classified as vulnerable; and
 in conjunction with relevant stakeholders, is investigating options for ranching and captive breeding of hawksbill turtles.

The Northern Territory Department of Business, Industry and Resource Development (NTDBIRD) has collaboratively been involved in quantifying marine turtle/fisheries interactions and trialling TEDs and BRDs.

Queensland

Queensland legislation prohibits the taking of marine turtles for commercial purposes. The Queensland Nature Conservation Act 1992 provides protection for marine turtles, listing them as endangered and vulnerable species. Most significant rookeries for all species in eastern Queensland have been declared protected habitat under this Act. State marine parks such as Woongarra Marine Park and the Moreton Bay Marine Park contribute significantly to turtle conservation. Table 5 identifies the proportion of nesting habitat protected in Queensland (Limpus in litt.).

Table 5. Proportion of marine turtle nesting habitat protected in Queensland

Queensland Environment Protection Agency (QEPA) has a well-developed monitoring program for marine turtles with some data sets dating from the late 1960s.

The major elements of the QEPA marine turtle research, monitoring and management program are:

 monitoring
– tagging census, and
– stranding database;
 research
– demographic studies at nesting beaches and feeding areas,
– population genetics studies,
– migration studies,
– incubation/embryological research,
– El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) regulation of green turtle breeding rate,
– nutritional studies,
– health studies, and
– population modelling;
 management
– fox baiting to improve loggerhead breeding success, and



– environmental education programs.

Otter trawling in the Queensland East Coast Trawl Fishery (ECTF) has a level of marine turtle bycatch and is also captured by the compulsion of the successful key threatening process nomination under the EPBC Act to deal with that bycatch. A management plan for the ECTF now requires TEDs throughout the fishery. In the deepwater net area TEDs will be required by 31 December 2001. Legislative closures (both permanent and seasonal) provide limited protection for nesting and/or feeding ground turtle populations including shallow inshore seagrass areas.

In the trawl fisheries of northern Australia, there are selected area closures that coincidentally provide a measure of turtle conservation. Many of the area closures are associated with inshore, shallow-water seagrass beds that are frequently the feeding grounds of some turtle species. In the Torres Strait, trawling is permanently prohibited in the area west of Warrior Reef. Seasonal closures are applied to northern Australian trawl fisheries for a variety of reasons, however, many of the closures coincide with nesting times of some turtle species. This provides some level of conservation to nesting turtles. On the Queensland east coast, trawling is prohibited north of 22ºS between 15 December and 1 March and south of 22ºS between 20 September and 1 November. There are also a number of closures specifically implemented to reduce trawl activity in known turtle nesting areas such as a closure at the northern tip of Fraser Island to protected nesting loggerhead turtles.

Code of Fishing Ethics: The Capture of Marine Turtles

The ECTF developed a code of fishing ethics in regard to the capture of marine turtles and to minimise the impact of trawling on marine turtle populations. The major elements of the code are to:

 refrain from trawling within two to three nautical miles of ‘major’ turtle nesting beaches during the nesting season;
 limit tows to less than 90 minutes in areas of high turtle numbers;
 apply resuscitation procedures where appropriate, and return live turtles to the water as soon as possible;
 forward information on tagged or marked turtles to the Southern Fisheries Centre;
 participate in research programs monitoring the incidental capture of turtles in trawl nets; and
 participate in research programs trialling bycatch reduction devices.

New South Wales

Within New South Wales all marine turtles are protected under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974. In addition, the loggerhead turtle is listed as endangered and green and leatherback turtles are listed as vulnerable under the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995. Nominations have also been made to list the hawksbill and flatback turtles as threatened under this Act. There are resident groups of hawksbill, loggerhead and green turtles in the waters of northern New South Wales. Regular reports of green turtles in Jervis Bay and in some other more southerly estuaries suggest that some individuals may make regular visits to these southern locations. Resident populations appear to have established in some other estuaries particularly near warm water outfalls. A study is underway in Lake Macquarie on the New South Wales Central Coast to assess the apparently resident populations of several turtle species in the vicinity of warm water outfalls from a power generation facility. A number of loggerhead and flatback turtle strandings have also been reported in the states.

The New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has developed the Marine Fauna Management Database that will enable collection of information on dead, sick or injured turtles found along the New South Wales coast. The New South Wales data will complement the database maintained by Queensland and facilitate information exchange. The New South Wales NPWS has also established a tagging program in New South Wales which enables the collection of information on marine turtles rehabilitated and released following stranding. In addition, guidelines for the rescue, rehabilitation and release of marine turtles have been prepared.

Tasmania

The Tasmanian Threatened Species Protection Act 1995 lists the loggerhead turtle as endangered and the green, leatherback and hawksbill turtles as vulnerable. Under that Act any of the four listed species found in Tasmanian waters cannot be killed, injured, caught, damaged, destroyed or collected except under permit. Current research and monitoring activities include gathering and collating information, when available on:

 assessment of marine turtle mortality related to the rock lobster fishery;
 assessment of marine turtle distribution at sea (particularly leatherbacks) from information provided by fishers; and
 assessment of the feasibility of tracking entangled turtles after release to determine survivorship and migratory paths.

Victoria

Four species of marine turtle are known to occur in Victorian waters. Three of these occur only as rare vagrants, outside their usual range: loggerhead, green and olive ridley turtles. The leatherback turtle is a regular though rare visitor to Bass Strait. It is mostly a pelagic species and, away from its breeding grounds, is rarely found inshore. Thus, there are no breeding areas or important feeding grounds for marine turtles under Victorian jurisdiction.

In May 2002, the leatherback turtle was listed as a threatened species under the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988.

Benefits to Nontarget Species

Implementation of this plan will benefit a range of species. For example:

– increased marine turtle numbers will benefit sharks that prey upon them;
– the use of TEDs may benefit sharks and rays taken in otter trawling that would otherwise be killed or injured;
– fishers using TEDs will benefit from the absence of large animals in their nets that crush prawns and endanger deckhands;
– protection of benthic habitats will benefit other animals living in those ecological communities such as dugong that share the same habitat as turtles;
– protection of nesting habitat where terrestrial species will benefit from a land management protection regime; and
– actions in Australian jurisdiction will benefit marine turtles that feed in Australia and migrate to other nations to breed.

Affected Parties

Section 270(2)(g) of the EPBC Act indicates the need to identify organisations likely to be affected by the actions proposed in this plan. A list of affected parties can be found at Appendix 1. The list is not exhaustive and includes organisations represented on the Recovery Team.

Evaluation and Review

Section 270(2)(g) of the EPBC Act states that those who will evaluate the performance of the plan need to be identified. The Recovery Team will carry out an annual evaluation and a report of that review will be forwarded to the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC).

A review of the plan will be undertaken within five years. The Recovery Team with the possible involvement of independent consultants will carry out the evaluation. The output will be an assessment of the performance of the plan that will be sent to the Minister for the Environment for his/her review (Section 279(2)).

Social and Economic Impacts of the Plan

The decline in marine turtles, if not addressed, will result in economic and social costs. For example:

– The loss of turtles reduces the available bush food for some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities creating an economic cost related to the provision of alternative food supplies and the loss of the culture and values associated with turtles;
– The decline of nesting will reduce economic opportunities in the nature-based tourism industry (for example Mon Repos, Queensland);
– The decline of turtles represents a loss to those in the community who believe that biodiversity has an intrinsic value;

One of the purposes of the plan is to avoid or minimise these costs. Implementation of the plan will have the following economic or social costs:

– The use of TEDs imposes a small economic cost on fishers. In many cases TEDs have already been fitted but will be offset by more efficient fishing and the promotion of more sustainable fisheries through habitat protection.
– Protection of habitat means that there are costs incurred for its management. Healthier ecosystems, tourism and more sustainable fisheries offset these costs.

Part 2. Objectives, Recovery Actions and Criteria

Introduction

The content of recovery plans is specified in Section 270 of the EPBC Act, which requires that a plan state:

 objectives;
 actions to achieve the objectives; and
 criteria against which the success of the actions are measured.

The Recovery Plan Guidelines (Environment Australia 2000) specify the need for an overall objective and specific objectives. The overall objective is expected to be achieved in the longer term and not within the five-year life of the plan whereas the specific objectives must be achievable within this time. The means for achieving these objectives must also be consistent with the Objects of the Act (Section 3), which include the principles of ecologically sustainable development (Appendix 6), and the efficient and effective use of resources.

Lead agencies are referred to throughout this part as the managers of many actions in the tables that follow. Lead Agencies are those agencies that have primary responsibility for the management and conservation of marine turtles in their jurisdiction. Those agencies are Environment Australia (EA), Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA), Queensland Environment Protection Agency (QEPA), Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory (PWCNT), and the Department of Conservation and Land Management, Western Australia (CALM).

Recovery Plan Objective

The overall objective is as follows.

To reduce detrimental impacts on Australian populations of marine turtles and hence promote their recovery in the wild.

Measuring recovery against population data has been identified as problematic, as quantitative historical data are not available to set recovery targets for all populations or populations. The Recovery Plan therefore adopts a threat-based approach to manage sources of marine turtle mortality. There is sufficient information to identify a decline of 50 – 80 per cent over 10-15 years in the eastern Australian loggerhead population (Limpus and Reimer 1994). Limpus (1995) has found that in the 1976 and 1977 nesting seasons approximately 3500 loggerhead females nested on the Queensland coast, whereas 300 nested in 1997. From this information a recovery objective for this population has been developed.

The recovery of Australian marine turtle populations may take decades and can best be achieved through the reduction of current levels of mortality throughout the range of the populations. Long-term monitoring programs will provide the information to identify the specific recovery goals for each species and population.

Specific Objectives

The specific objectives are as follow.

A. To reduce the mortality of marine turtles and, where appropriate, increase natural survivorship, including through developing management strategies with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities for the sustainable use of marine turtles;
B. To develop programs and protocols to monitor marine turtle populations in Australia, assess the size and status of those populations, the causes of their mortality and address information gaps;
C. To manage factors that affect marine turtle nesting;
D. To identify and protect habitats that are critical for the survival of marine turtles;
E. To communicate the results of recovery actions and involve and educate stakeholders; and
F. To support and maintain existing agreements and develop new collaborative programs with neighbouring countries for the conservation of shared turtle populations.

The prescribed management (M) and research (R) actions to achieve the specific objectives are listed below. The action tables include the criteria for measuring the success of the actions and the achievement of the specific objectives.

Recovery Actions

Specific Objective A.

1. Bycatch of Marine Turtles in Fisheries

As a case study in marine turtle bycatch mitigation, prawn trawling offers some insights into the documentation of bycatch and the trialling and implementation of measures to resolve the issue. Five species of turtle have been recorded as bycatch in prawn trawls in the Northern Prawn Fishery (Poiner and Harris 1994, Poiner and Harris 1996), and East Coast Otter Trawl Fishery (ECOTF) (Robins 1995; Robins and Mayer, 1998). Estimates of the number caught and drowned in the NPF for 1989 and 1990 and estimated average annual catch in the ECOTF is given in Table 6. Flatback turtles made up the majority of the turtle catch (59 per cent) in the NPF (Poiner and Harris 1996) and loggerheads made up the majority of the turtle catch (50 per cent) in the ECOTF (Robins 1995). It is also notable that in the ECOTF, 80 per cent of turtle captures are derived from three components of the fishery: Moreton Bay (52.9 per cent), tiger prawn (15.6 per cent) and the banana prawn (11.4 per cent).

There are no data available on the mortality from otter trawls in Western Australia but data from the Western Australian Marine Turtle Program (WAMTP) shows that most species are caught (Prince 1998).

Table 6. Numbers of turtles estimated to have been caught and drowned in the Northern Prawn Fishery in 1989 and 1990 (Poiner and Harris 1996) and East Coast Otter Trawl Fishery (Robins 1995)

In 1999 the Endangered Species Scientific Subcommittee (ESSS) recommended that the incidental catch (bycatch) of marine turtles during coastal otter trawl fishing operations in Australian waters north of 28ºS be added as a key threatening process on schedule 3 of the ESP Act (ESSS 1999). The ESSS advised that otter trawl fishing operations were adversely affecting two listed marine turtle species and could cause another species to become endangered.

However, a drafting error in the ESP Act did not allow the listing of a threat that occurs in both State and Commonwealth waters. The EPBC Act has overcome that deficiency and following consideration by the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC), 'Incidental catch (bycatch) of Sea Turtle during coastal otter-trawling operations within Australian waters north of 28 degrees South' was listed as a key threatening process, effective 4 April 2001. The committee determined that a threat abatement plan was not necessary given actions already underway.

Fisheries known or thought to have a potential impact on marine turtles are identified in Table 7.

The actions (Table 8) necessary to address turtle bycatch comprise two elements:

 to reduce mortality or risk of mortality in fisheries where bycatch has been identified as a problem (for example NPF and ECOTF); and
 to determine the levels of mortality, if any, in other fisheries (such as long-line, scallop, lobster and gillnet fisheries throughout Australia).

A consistent approach to threat management for marine turtles is needed across the various fisheries. turtle excluder devices (TEDs) were made compulsory in the NPF from 16 April 2000, to reduce mortalities to 5 per cent of levels identified in 1989-90 (Poiner and Harris 1996). A program of monitoring has also been developed to ensure compliance. Similarly, TEDs became compulsory in the East Coast Trawl Fishery on 1 January 2001 with the exception of the deepwater trawl where they will be compulsory from 31 December 2001. The management plan proposes that the catch and mortality of marine turtles will be reduced to 5 per cent of levels identified in 1991-92.

The significant challenge remains to reduce the bycatch of marine turtles across the range of the distribution of species and jurisdictions. For example, much remains unknown about the bycatch of marine turtles in Western Australia and Torres Strait. A two-year program for the trial of TEDs in Shark Bay, Western Australia, is being undertaken and the results will assist in the setting of bycatch reduction targets for Shark Bay Fisheries. Similarly, levels of marine turtle bycatch are not known for gill net fisheries that operate within the range of marine turtles.

The National Policy on Fisheries Bycatch (AFFA 1999) has the objective to ensure that bycatch species and populations are maintained in fisheries managed by the States and the Northern Territory. The Commonwealth Policy on Fisheries Bycatch, (AFFA 2000) has a similar objective and seeks to apply requirements to Commonwealth fisheries managers.