Loggerhead turtles - posted Thurs. 2nd March

Mon Repos beach is in the Woongarra Marine Park, about 15km NE of Bundaberg. From November to March the beach is closed to public access nightly and the rangers there conduct turtle-watching tours - admission by ticket. At the moment it's the middle of the hatching season and every night lots of baby turtles succeed in pushing their way up through the sand (having hatched a few days before) and then dash to the sea, trying to avoid predators on the way. The conditions have to be just right - any lights on the shore distract them and draw them towards the light, away from the ocean.

Did you know that:

* The sex of baby turtles is determined by the temperature of the sand. Under a certain temperature the turtles all hatch out as male; over a certain temperature they hatch as female.

* Turtles from different gene pools do not inter-breed, even though they are the same species.

* Only 1 in 1000 hatchlings makes it to maturity.

* Female turtles only begin to breed at age 30; they return to breed in a site within 2,500 km of where they were hatched.

* Turtles hatchlings are threatened by foxes (amongst other more obvious predators such as crabs and birds) before they can reach the ocean; there is a programme to poison foxes in Woongarra Marine Park - 1,000s of live baits. Foxes were imported into Australia by the Brits (who else) for sport in the 18th century.

* Turtle hatchlings in N Queensland are also under threat from feral pigs (bred from those released into the wild by settlers); colonies (herds?) of wild pigs as big as 60 strong have been reported.

And ...

* I bought a ticket to go turtle-watching tonight

* Tonight - for the second time in 15 years - the turtle watching was cancelled due to weather conditions on the beach!

It has been raining heavily all day (until about 30 minutes ago). The winds got really strong at around 7.00 p.m. (while we were all gathered at the Mon Repos centre, waiting for the tour to start) and the ranger called the tour off, saying that there were high waves sweeping up the beach and a wall of sand also blowing up the beach, about 5 feet high.

I'll try again tomorrow, while I still have the car.