Help to save Cape York Sea Turtles

Join a group of volunteer travellers on a Cape York Turtle Rescue camp in the Aboriginal community of Mapoon on Cape York Peninsula Queensland Australia. Help indigenous residents and researchers to protect the turtles and other marine life from ghost nets and feral pigs.

Ghost nets are commercial fishing nets which have been lost or abandoned through reckless fishing practices. In the case of Australia's Cape York Peninsula, hundreds of ghost nets drift in every year from the Arafura Sea between Australia and Indonesia.

Olive Ridley turtle remains in ghost net washed up on Flinders Beach Mapoon

The nets drift through the Gulf Of Carpentaria, where they either become snagged on underwater reefs or wash up onto the beaches of the Western Cape - usually with the skeletal remains of marine life that has become entangled in the net along the way. Nets in this region can be up to 100 metres long by 10 metres deep and they trap turtles, dugongs, dolphins, sea snakes, fish and other marine life.

There are hundreds of ghost nets along the beaches of the Western Cape and it is important to remove them before they are washed back out to sea on subsequent high tides to cause more deaths to turtles and other marine life in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Those female turtles that have avoided the ghost nets and other threats to their safety on the long journey back to their birth beach, face a further threat to the survival of their offspring, in the form of feral pig predation of their nests.

How can you help?

The beaches of the Western Cape are Aboriginal lands. The community of Mapoon, which is located around 80 kms north of Weipa, has established a beachside base camp for the purpose of managing turtle conservation. The camp is located at the mouth of Janie Creek which flows into the Gulf of Carpentaria. The camp operates during the dry season in the tropics which is from July to October.

Rangers and participants prepare ghost net for removal

You can help by participating in one of these camps. Each camp is conducted over six days. You will work alongside the Mapoon Aboriginal owners and researchers as they measure and tag nesting Flat Back and Olive Ridley turtles, fit feral pig exclusion devices to the nesting sites and remove nets from the beach with the aid of purpose equipped 4WD vehicles.

This is also an opportunity for you to visit one of Australia's most remote regions and see it through the eyes of the indigenous people who call it home - while participating in a very worthwhile activity.

As well as the important work involved in working with the rangers and researchers there is time to enjoy other activites such as fishing. This area is one of the best fishing locations in Australia and anglers from all over the world come to fish in these waters. They are teeming with Barramundi as well as over 30 other species caught with fly, lure or bait.