Celebrate National Science Week, August 12 to 20, with a trip to Wodonga’s Belvoir Park Lake where you can become a citizen scientist.
New signs have been installed around the lake’s walking track to encourage visitors to report turtle sightings using a mobile phone app.
The Belvoir Park Lake Turtle Tour is an initiative by the 1 Million Turtles Community Conservation Program and Wodonga Council.
La Trobe University Associate Professor James Van Dyke, who is head of the 1 million Turtles program, is encouraging people to get involved and take the turtle tour.
“Come down and have a look and see if you can spot some turtles,” Associate Professor Van Dyke said.
“You might see some heads poking out right now but they probably won’t be seen on logs until it gets warmer, around 20 degrees.”
The 1 Million Turtles program is the largest initiative of its kind undertaken across Australia that aims to train members of the community to report freshwater turtle sightings using the TurtleSAT mobile phone app and website.
The program is a collaboration with Western Sydney University and the University of New England – plus several partners across the nation, including Wodonga Council and North East Water.
Five signs have been installed around Belvoir Lake and include information on nesting, basking and the species which can be found in Victoria such as the eastern long-neck, murray short-neck and broad-shelled turtles.
“These turtles are threatened by predators like foxes, and carp destroying underwater vegetation,” Associate Professor Van Dyke said.
“Getting people involved in reporting where the turtles are and what they are doing helps raise awareness and train people about what they can do on their own to help conservation.”
Associate Professor Van Dyke said while the mapping of turtles using TurtleSAT was not new – it has existed for more than 10 years – they were now looking to see what happens now that signs are in place.
“We have a baseline of data but now that we have these signs in pace, do we get a flood of records being added to that data base because then we know this is something we could do in a lot of other places as well,” he said.
“Turtles would be in all other public wetlands across Victoria and NSW and we don’t know anything about how animals use these kinds of wetlands.
“The more we can learn about that, the better we can manage them.”
Kim Radnell from Wodonga Council’s Outdoor Operations team said Belvoir Park is an ideal location for freshwater turtles, with plenty of rocks, logs and the recent installation of “hotels” – cube-shaped timber structures filled with vegetation.
She said council received an Integrated Water Management Grant from the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action for the ecological improvement of the Belvoir Park wetlands.
The funds were used to install fish “hotels” in conjunction with some turtle logs and the installation of the turtle signs.
In some exciting news, the 1 Million Turtles program has been named a finalist for the prestigious 2023 Department of Industry, Science and Resources Eureka Prize for Innovation in Citizen Science.
“It’s an exciting time,” Associate professor Van Dyke said of the nomination.
The winners will be announced on August 23.
