Marine Education Society of Australasia
 
Home | About MESA | Contact MESA | Seaweek | Site Resources | Marine Links | International News | MESA History
  Seaweek 2007: Marine Bycatch Matters - MESA    
Live webcasts | eCard Competition | Seaweek events | Photo Gallery | Information sheets | Teaching Units | Useful links | SW07 Home


Live Webcasts

The wonders of marine turtles and how fishers work to prevent their bycatch - presentation by Dr Col Limpus (Queensland Environment Protection Agency) Register
   

Dr Col Limpus, Senior Principal Conservation Officer with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, is one of the world’s leading experts on marine turtles. His great interest in the creatures began when he was just a boy who loved studying turtle nests on the beaches near Bundaberg in Queensland. For Col this has meant a lifetime of research into these incredible animals.

In the early 1970’s he marked over 100,000 loggerhead turtle hatchlings and has been waiting ever since for some of them to return as adults and lay their own eggs. Amazingly some have returned, nearly 30 years later. Col has been championing measures aimed at protecting turtles and his contributions to turtle conservation were recognised with the award of the Public Service Medal in 1993. His assistance on the protection of marine turtles has been requested internationally and he has advised countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.


Dr Colin Limpus, volunteers and Sea World staff determine
the maturity, weight and size of the turtles
   

Col will talk about the amazing life of marine turtles, how important our Australian populations are, the sort of research he conducts, including "turtle rodeos" and the ways in which turtles and fisheries interact.  He will discuss how the introduction of Turtle Excluder Devices in tropical prawn trawl fisheries has helped turtles, the role of circle hooks in oceanic longline fisheries and what else needs to be done.

    

Funding for this project has been provided by the Australian Government through the Natural Heritage Trust.
   Contact Web Manager © MESA 1999 - 2008
0.00098 secs   
  BriTer Solutions   SpiderByte Web Design Top