Introduction

Along the sheltered shores of Moreton Bay, you will find a coastal ecosystem made up of a mosaic of saltmarsh, mangroves, seagrass and intertidal flats. Mangroves, saltmarsh and seagrasses are conspicuous by their vegetation and colour. On the other hand, the intertidal flats are devoid of vegetative structure, but don’t be fooled, they are a productive part of our bay.

On the landward or western side of the bay, the intertidal flats are characterised by soft mud (fine sediment) particularly where the wave action is low whereas sandflats, which contain coarse-grained sediments and are far more common on the islands of the eastern side of Moreton Bay. Depending on the landform and exposure to wave and currents you will often see local variations of sediment from fine mud areas to banks of sand flats. The soft sediment is loaded with invertebrates including molluscs, worms and crustaceans.

A selection of mollusc (gastropod) invertebrates located...

Image: Downloading the data from a satellite tag of Green Turtle T40221. (Courtesy of DES)

Although there has been a great deal of research on all the turtle species little has been known about our local Green Turtles that visit Moreton Bay. That was until researcher and turtle expert, Col Limpus provided some in-depth data around one individual Green Turtle T40221, including nesting and foraging data. Thanks to GPS tracking and monitoring efforts from Col and his volunteers we can now give you an outline of T40221’s nesting and foraging activities over a period of last 30 years.

Nesting data

“T40221”, a female Green Turtle, was first tagged at Mon Repos as a nesting turtle in 1989. Her carapace (shell) length was 103 cm and during that season she came ashore and laid a clutch of eggs on 6 occasions. She returned to the site on many occasions right up until this breeding season, 2020/2021. In this case T40221, demonstrated the capacity to lay many clutches over a...