Diane Oxenford, who is among many other things, a passionate advocate and champion of all things turtles, kindly shared these photos with The Bribie Islander. She says she has been kept really busy now that Bribie is in the middle of the turtle nesting and now hatching season. “We just had a clutch run last night.
So was on the beach digging and counting the nest at 5.00 the next morning. The mother loggerhead laid (4th January 2019) a total of 149 eggs and 147 hatched successfully (98.66% success rate). That is an amazing success rate – which Bribie is noted for,” Diane said. “Ït’s the reason we lobby so hard to protect the health and integrity of our dunes (not just to protect the real estate!).
And…… the nest was in the middle of an access path to the beach….. It would have been trampled over. Luckily it is not one of the most popular access routes. Shows how resilient this species can be and probably why marine turtles survived the dinosaur era. I often wonder if they will survive our era.”
Diane says they found one sleepy hatchling still in the nest. Here are photos of him and his tracks heading towards the sea after they released him.