Murray Turtle Team: Murray River Turtle Team Newsltter

Newsletter 2- October 2015

Welcome to the 2nd Newsletter of the Murray River Turtle Team. With turtle nesting season nearly upon us, this newsletter focuses on fox management strategies to minimise nest predation rates. As most of you are aware, 95% of turtle nests are destroyed each and every year. As you will see, Murray River turtle populations are on a downward spiral to extinction if we don't get smart with fox management. Our project is investigating a range of strategies to minimise the impacts of foxes.

This Newsletter also revisits the highly successful Murray River Turtle Forum held at Calperum Station in June. There are also a range of discussion papers and reports available.

November is Turtle Month, If you have any upcoming field days or public events, please email us ASAP and we can provide you with posters and pamphlets to handout and we may even be able to attend the event. We can also help you with some potential press releases to promote your partnership with the project. Turtle Month received considerable press last year and is a fantastic opportunity to promote local activities.

Our next Newsletter at the beginning of next year will have a greater focus on engagement, indigenous summer scholarship activities and turtle dispersal and movement.

	Murray River Turtle Forum 2015 The first Murray River Turtle Forum was held at Calperum Station on Thursday and Friday, June 11th and 12th 2015. Thirty one delegates attended the two day event and a range of topics were discussed, including the role of Citizen Science programs in management; regional causes for the decline of turtles in the Murray River and the focus of the project moving forward.	Read More Here
	Following the forum, our Post-Doc, James van Dyke produced a scientific discussion paper for activities going forward into the next field season. Please download and email Van if you have any comments. We view this as a working document and will update it regularly. j.vandyke@westernsydney.edu.au	Download Here
	To 'Out-Fox a Fox', We Need to Get Functional! Following on from Van's last point in the discussion paper, we have produced this discussion piece, which may change the way we think about fox management. This blog focuses on Murray River Turtle species and how the impacts of foxes sent some species on a downward spiral to extinction, while paradoxically, possibly enhanced the survival of another species. Although there is a heavy use of population modelling and ecological theory, the moral of the story is that we need to get smarter with our predator (fox) management and that simply focusing on killing foxes will not be effective for any species. We have to admit they are too good for us and the only effective way to manage them is to try and be as cunning as them- We need to 'Out-Fox the Fox'. The last section of this discussion paper looks at the current project activities to Out-Fox the Fox. This discussion paper is being prepared for submission to one of the world's leading Ecology journals- so please do not share this at the moment. The idea of putting it into a blog now, is to get feedback and your opinion.	Read More Here
	Lake Bonney Headstarting Reports Two undergraduate projects were completed this month. The first project was looking at the impact of shell deformities on swimming abilities of hatchling turtles, while the 2nd project was looking at the impact of our marking system on the swimming abilities of a subset of the 2000 hatchlings we released into Lake Bonney in February. You can download both reports. Thanks to Rachael Bennett and Heather Cameron for their efforts this year.	Download Report 1 Download Report 2
	Turtle Month is Almost Here We will be promoting Turtle Month and TurtleSAT heavily through the media and field days. TurtleSAT has been improved to now allow a '0' nest option. This will allow management agencies and people who are regularly around wetlands to record where no nesting activity occurs. This is vital for understanding where to concentrate resources. We also have a new bulk upload spredsheet for TurtleSAT. This will allow people who can't use the APP or website in the field to enter the data through Microsoft Excel. This is particularly important for management agencies that may use a range of different data collecting devices (eg. GPS). The link to the spredasheet template is on the TurtleSAT website http://turtlesat.org.au

	Farming Poo and Turtles: Why Not? Effluent wasterwater facilities may be a fantastic resource for restocking many of our endangered species, from aquatic snails to hatchling turtles. We are proposing to establish a Biodiversity Network using wastewater and effluent facilities throughout Australia and we need your help. Download the proposal and if you think your agency could partner with us for another ARC Linkage grant proposal next year, or please feel free to forward it to potential partners in your area (eg. local councils). This could revolutionise the way we create local infrastructure and manage biodiversity.	Download Proposal
	Turtles in the Foodweb Kristen Petrov is in the last week of her honours candidature. Next newsletter will have a link to the publications that result from it, but you can download a brief summary of what she has found.... It is pretty interesting. A bit like the secret feeding lives of turtles. Kristen’s honours thesis aimed to test the impacts of agriculturally-derived nutrients and altered water regulation on turtle foodwebs and dietary overlap in the Gunbower, VIC region of the Murray River.	Download Summary Download Thesis

The Team

Investigators and Students

§ Dr Ricky Spencer- Project Leader and Coordinator. Specifically leading fox mitigation strategies and TurtleSAT. http://rspencer9.wix.com/wildlab

§ Prof. Mike Thompson- Chief Investigator. Primarily focusing on ‘all things South Australia’-Engagement, education and community. http://sydney.edu.au/science/people/mike.thompson.php

§ Prof. Arthur Georges- Chief Investigator. Primary focus on the molecular ecology aspects of the project. http://iae.canberra.edu.au/html/staff/georges/georges-about.php

§ Dr Bruce Chessman- Chief Investigator. Population ecology of upper reaches of the Murray. Bruce has been studying his populations near Yarrawonga for almost 40 years.https://au.linkedin.com/pub/bruce-chessman/35/40b/817

§ Dr James Van Dyke- Post-doc. Coordinator of field work activities and will focus on projects associated with population status and ecosystem function.http://rspencer9.wix.com/wildlab#!james-van-dyke-van/cc4u

§ Ms Katie Howard- PhD student. Population status and impacts of environmental flows. Primarily upper Murray. http://rspencer9.wix.com/wildlab#!katie-howard/c156d

§ Ms Kristen Petrov- Honours Student- Ecosystem Function of turtles. Primarily upper Murray.http://rspencer9.wix.com/wildlab#!kristen-petrov/c1hqh

§ Ms Iris Bleach- Field Research Assistant-http://rspencer9.wix.com/wildlab#!iris-bleach/cejy