JACK RANDALL: I'm working with a research team
off the coast of Australia catching
endangered green turtles so we can
learn if they're adapting to the changing ocean conditions.
Oh, we've got one.
JACK RANDALL (VOICEOVER): The turtles
are a perfect barometer to measure the general health
of the reef in this area.
IAN BELL: Ready.
JACK RANDALL (VOICEOVER): But so far I
haven't been able to catch one.
IAN BELL: Go.
Got him by the hind flipper.
I thought you had it.
JACK RANDALL (VOICEOVER): I was barely
able to grab the hind flipper, but then it slipped
right through my fingers.
It feels really strange to do it,
but you've actually got to dive in front of the turtle
and then it will swim into your hands.
JACK RANDALL: All right.
Let's try again then.
Another one-- massive.
It actually is hard to catch these turtles.
They're going super quick.
When it gets to point it's slowish,
I'm going to jump to the right.
IAN BELL: And ready.
JACK RANDALL (VOICEOVER): Third time's the charm.
But not quite.
IAN BELL: He's missed it.
I can't believe I missed it.
I just got the edge.
It's very slippery.
IAN BELL: You want to take him, Bobby?
Doing this day in, day out is big work, but awesome stuff.
Oh!
Near miss.
IAN BELL: Two, three.
There we go.
JACK RANDALL: I had a hand on my turtle,
but didn't manage to get it.
Next time, I'm pretty sure I'm going to get
that turtle out of the water.
It's hard, really hard.
My back is hurting.
I need a massage.
Have you got a message or something like that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They come as part of the-- um--
[interposing voices]
--part of the turtle research team.
JACK RANDALL (VOICEOVER): Once this new turtle was unloaded,
measured, and released, Ian and I walked the shallows
so he can show me how the struggling
reef is also affecting the turtles' primary food source.
See, this is what the turtles are feeding on in here.
This is the seagrass right here.
Yeah.
You can see how straight it is on the top?
Yeah.
Yeah, that might have been snipped by a turtle
as it was going through.
JACK RANDALL: Wow.
JACK RANDALL (VOICEOVER): And to grow as large as the turtles
we've been seeing, they have to eat a lot of that seagrass.
IAN BELL: It's just like a cow.
They've got to eat-- you know, they
spend all day basically eating during the daylight hours.
But a cyclone came through, and it basically
took out 98% of the seagrass from Cooktown
to the tip of Cape York.
JACK RANDALL (VOICEOVER): A healthy reef
would protect the seagrass from all that destruction.
JACK RANDALL: How did that affect the turtles?
IAN BELL: One year we had 1,800 starving
turtles washed ashore just because of the loss
of seagrass.
Wow.
IAN BELL: What we found was that the little turtles without much
fat reserves were the ones that starved first
and ended up washing ashore.
And then after about a year, we were
starting to see some really, really, really skinny adults.
And they were starting to strand, come ashore.
So it's really the young ones, the next generation
that is the big. Issue
Yep.
Wow.
JACK RANDALL (VOICEOVER): So if the reef is dying
and the seagrass has been destroyed,
it would definitely affect younger turtles first.
We need to find out if they're adapting.
JACK RANDALL: Twice a day, the tide
goes up and down, up and down.
So right now, this is low tide.
JACK RANDALL (VOICEOVER): This lets us see a whole new variety
of sea creatures on the reef flats,
including the younger sea turtles who leave their shelter
and come out to look for food when the water's
too shallow for predators.
Now the idea here is that we form a human chain.
Any turtle that comes along, we need to jump on it quickly.
It's a much harder tactic because we
haven't got the speed that we have in the speed boat.
There's one there, Jack.
It's right there.
Jack!
I'm on it!
Got him!
Woohoo!
Look at that.
It's a little baby, a green turtle, the first one.
These things move through the water
so quickly, just glide through seamlessly.
Wow, look at you.
So it would have been caught before.
You could see there was a new tag there,
and it's got a little bit of pink paint on its shell.
Because it's been captured already,
we're going to release him back to where I found him.
Off you go.
Ooh!