WSU plans to tackle national ‘turtle crisis’

Scientists at Western Sydney University are calling for “citizen scientists” to use an online mapping programme to record sightings of Australia’s threatened freshwater turtles.

TurtleSAT is an interactive website that enables people to log records and photographs of turtles, including evidence of threats such as fox predation, roadkill, water pollution, drought and disease.

The project is led by WSU zoologist Ricky Spencer, who has spent more than 15 years researching turtle populations in the Murray river. The Murray is Australia’s longest river, at just over 2,500 kilometres, and forms the state border between New South Wales and Victoria.