Aussie Ark and Australian Reptile Park reveal significant conservation win

Conservation organisation Aussie Ark and sister organisation the Australian Reptile Park have revealed a significant conservation win with the successful egg laying of their critically endangered Manning River Turtles.

Aussie Ark’s Conservation Ark facility is located on the grounds of the Australian Reptile Park in Somersby on the Central Coast, and hosts the largest captive breeding program of this turtle species in the world.

Four Manning River Turtle females were confirmed as ‘gravid’ (egg bearing) approximately one month ago, after breeding was witnessed and announced in May.

Aussie Ark has been breeding and rewilding the species since the Black Summer fires of 2019 when the organisation famously saved animals and retrieved wild eggs, which would have otherwise perished in the extreme drought and fire conditions.

Last year the organisation returned ten of this cohort back into the Manning River, which was a world-first wild release of the species.

That was an exciting milestone for Conservation Ark…but egg-laying trumps it!

Conservation Manager Hayley Shute and Operations Manager Billy Collett have managed the turtle program since its inception and were ‘shaking with excitement’ as they discovered the Manning River turtle eggs.

Shute shared “there is so much work and expertise leading to this moment; specialist food, water monitoring, and the construction of favoured nest sites. We’ve been checking our females day and night, and over the past week the high humidity, rain and heat has been perfect turtle laying weather. And they did it! We did it! It’s amazing!”

Collett enthused “It’s so exciting, I just can’t describe it. I’m so proud of the team, and I cannot wait for the day when I take one of these babies back into the wild and release them. This is full circle conservation; it doesn’t get any better than this!”

The first Manning River Turtle female to lay produced twelve precious eggs. To safeguard them, Shute and Collett transferred them into an incubator in Conservation Ark where temperature and humidity can be kept stable for maximum hatching success.

The eggs will hatch in approximately two months, and the youngsters will be cared for in Conservation Ark for a year…before release into their wild aquatic home.

As its name suggests, this native reptilian species is endemic to the Manning River of NSW. Climate change challenges aside, the greatest threat to the species is feral predation with foxes and pigs decimating their nest sites. The numbers have plummeted causing them to be critically endangered, and intervention like this is the only thing between them and extinction.

To assist Aussie Ark in their vital work with the Manning River turtle Give the Gift of Wildlife this Christmas and donate today at aussieark.org.au. 

Images. Credit: Aussie Ark