My name is Jacob Bowtell, and I'm the sea turtle supervisor
at the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital.
So at the moment a lot of the sea turtles that we're treating
have a shell disease, which is essentially a bacterial infection that's causing
a lot of the tissue on the top layer of the carapace to die away.
Now these turtles aren't small, they're not what we're used to seeing.
These turtles can weigh roughly up to a hundred kilos plus.
We've also got a very special patient in care at the moment called Dumpling.
So Dumpling had an amputation of her flipper,
she had a crab pot rope wrapped around it so tightly that the flipper died away.
So not only do we have turtles that are dealing with the shell disease,
we've also got turtles that are suffering from a lot of marine pollutants as well.
With this shell disease that these turtles are getting,
it's resulted in over five turtles roughly a week that we're admitting.
It means at the moment we're actually one of the
busier sea turtle rehabs in the state.
Previously our average was only 70 to 80 sea turtles a year.
This year we've seen over 130 sea turtles already.
We're on track to see 260 So this is massive for us.
(Steve Irwin) Crikey. Breaks my heart to see dead turtles.
Absolutely heart wrenching.
They're classified as an endangered species,
and we're not exactly sure of all
the reasons that are causing turtle deaths.
There's all sorts of scientific research.
They get hit by boats.
They're getting hammered by pollution.
They eat plastic bags. It's shocking. Awful.
If us as a human race could just do every little thing
within our power to ensure that these endangered species survive,
then it's going to be a bonus until we work out
all of the reasons that cause this.
(Jacob) Sea turtles in the wild are even critically endangered,
such as the Hawksbill turtle.
From the moment that they hatch, they face a lot of issues.
They're dealing with marine pollutants.
They're dealing with boats.
And those are just human related issues.
They've got natural predators in the wild as well.
That basically means that they need all the help they can get.
So the recent flooding events of this year
have had a huge impact on the local green sea turtle population.
Up north, a lot of their food source - seagrass beds,
has died away because of that flooding.
This has resulted in a lot of turtles beaching themselves, becoming emaciated.
So they've got a tough battle ahead of them for the rest of the year.
Climate change plays a huge role
on how these green sea turtles and other species are surviving.
It's quite a large unknown for the future.
We're already seeing impacts for nesting of turtles.
So climate change is having an impact on the sand temperatures of the sea turtles.
When there's warmer sands,
there's more chance that there's going to be females hatching.
And when there's cooler sand temperatures, there's more chance
that there's going to be males hatching.
So this creates an imbalance in the genders of the populations
for each species of sea turtle.
(Steve) The wildlife law states that we can't help the hatchlings.
It's illegal.
(Jacob) There's only about one in 1000
that make it to breeding size, roughly 25 to 30 years old.
We're seeing sea level rise and higher
tidal surges taking out nests as well.
There may even potentially be higher cyclone rates coming down the coast
and causing some damage to this too.
Not to mention the flooding events that we've had recently.
This could all just be a more of a common occurrence.
So we're going to do all we can to try and help these guys out into the future,
with climate change being such an unknown.
Australia Zoo Wildlife Warriors has been assisting sea turtles for over 15 years now -
- whether it be rescuing them in the wild or rehabilitating them here.
It can cost a lot of money to get these back into the wild,
but it is worth it.
When you look at a large breeding female,
you only need to release one for it to be a successful
contribution back into their population.
If you're wondering how you can go
about helping these guys out, it's the little things that make a difference.
If you just happened to see some rubbish on the beach, some fishing line or rope,
if you could just pick it up and pop it in the bin
because even if it is on the beach, there's a chance it can still end
up back out in the ocean.
If you would like to donate, you can always look at the
Wildlife Warriors website as well, because all that money will go
directly towards getting these turtles back out into the wild.