Freshwater turtles in Australia have a tough start in life. Before they even hatch, most never make it out of the egg. Predators tear through nests at such high rates that very few hatchlings ever reach the river, which is a serious problem for long-term population survival.
Enter the Fitzroy River turtle (Rheodytes leukops), an endangered species found only in the Fitzroy Catchment in Central Queensland, and although its only classed as Vulnerable by the IUCN Redlist, it’s not been assessed in 30 years! It was only formally described in 1980, and it is the sole surviving member of its genus. It is also, helpfully for WAWA purposes, known as the “bum-breathing turtle”. Yes, really. It can absorb oxygen by pumping water in and out of its cloaca, which is about as on-brand for a weird and wonderful animal as it gets (you can read some super-sciency stuff about how it works here).
These turtles are specialists. They spend their time scraping periphyton, a mix of algae and sponges, off submerged logs and vegetation, along with picking off small invertebrates. They are also slow to grow up, taking around 15 years to reach maturity. Females lay one or two clutches per season, averaging about 18 eggs each. That is not a high-output strategy, so when nests fail, the population feels it.
And nests do fail. A lot.
This is exactly the kind of work we set out to support through the WAWA Small Grant Programme. We fund small, practical interventions for species that tend to get overlooked, the weird, the niche, and the ones quietly slipping through the cracks. The Fitzroy River turtle ticks every one of those boxes.
One of our grant recipients, Turtles of CQ Ltd, is a small, highly driven team working directly on the ground in Central Queensland. This is not a large, super-well-funded operation. It is a hands-on conservation effort, largely run through personal commitment, volunteer time, and a lot of persistence. They are the ones out there in the heat, walking riverbanks, finding nests, and giving these turtles a fighting chance.
During the nesting season, from September to December, the team at Turtles of CQ Ltd surveys around 12 km of the Fitzroy River, locating nests and protecting them from predators. Without intervention, almost all eggs are destroyed before they get a chance to incubate and hatch. Their work is simple in concept but critical in impact, get more hatchlings into the river, or watch the population continue to age without replacement.
Their approach is straightforward and effective. Nesting banks are monitored continuously through the season, and when intact nests are found, they are carefully relocated into protective cages along the riverbank. These cages keep predators out but allow hatchlings to emerge naturally and make their way to the water.
They also manage the nesting habitat itself. Fencing is used to exclude livestock, which would otherwise trample nesting areas, and sites are maintained to remain suitable for nesting. It is not glamorous work, but it is exactly the kind of targeted, repeatable intervention that drives real outcomes. Since 2019, their efforts have helped more than 7,000 hatchlings reach the river.
Part of the problem is that Fitzroy River turtles are creatures of habit. They return to traditional nesting banks, often clustering nests in the same areas. That makes life very easy for anything that enjoys a turtle egg snack. In Australia, that list is long and not particularly friendly. Foxes, pigs, dingoes, goannas and rakali will all happily dig up a clutch.
Through the WAWA Small Grant, we supported this project by funding a simple but critical upgrade, a solar-powered electric fencing system to protect one of the key nesting banks. It is the kind of intervention that is easy to overlook, but without it, nests are lost to trampling and predators before they even stand a chance.
That funding is a small piece of a much bigger effort, but it directly strengthens the work Turtles of CQ Ltd are already leading. They identified the need, designed the solution, and implemented it. We just helped make it happen.
But recently, things got weirder.
A new predator entered the scene, and it was not one anyone was expecting. The short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus), best known as a shy, ant-eating monotreme, has been caught red-handed, or red-snouted, feeding on turtle eggs.
Unlike the usual smash-and-grab predators that leave a crime scene of scattered shell fragments, echidnas are surprisingly neat. Nests were being found intact, eggs still in place, each with a single puncture hole and the contents neatly consumed. Think less explosion, more surgical extraction.
Eventually, the mystery was solved through direct observation, an echidna was caught in the act feeding on a clutch of critically endangered white-throated snapping turtle eggs. Camera traps and field signs backed this up, confirming that this was not a one-off behaviour.
Echidnas have an excellent sense of smell and tend to return to reliable food sources. As turtle nesting peaks, so does echidna activity. And the impact has escalated quickly. Depredation of Fitzroy River turtle nests by echidnas increased from just 2.8 percent in 2018 to 47.4 percent in 2022. That is not a minor addition to the predator list, it is a major shift.
Why this is happening is still unclear. It may be a learned behaviour spreading through the population, or a response to changing environmental conditions. Either way, it is now a significant conservation challenge.
These findings, part of a long-term monitoring effort, have been formally published in the CSIRO Australian Journal of Zoology, highlighting just how dynamic and, at times, bizarre conservation can be.
These amazing conservation efforts are thanks to Turtles of CQ Ltd. They are the ones delivering results, building knowledge, and adapting to challenges like the now not-so-innocent echidna. We are proud to support them, but they are the story.
If you want to support conservation that is practical, grounded, and genuinely making a difference for species like this, they are exactly the kind of organisation to follow and back, and exactly the kind of organisation that we at WAWA are always looking to support. So, consider donating directly to to Turtles of CQ Ltd, or to WAWA if you want to help other important projects working with weird animals.
For us, this is exactly why projects like this matter. You can plan for foxes and pigs. You do not always plan for an echidna quietly turning into a specialist egg thief.
And yet, here we are.
[Title photo taken by Kymberly Robinson, Turtles of CQ Ltd.]