The Cairns Turtle Rehabilitation Centre is now based on Fitzroy Island on the Great Barrier Reef, around an hours boat trip from Cairns. Daily tours of the centre are available by booking at the resorts reception desk for those staying on the island, or from the general store next to Roxy’s bar on the way to Nudey Beach (off the ferry & turn right) for day visitors. The Fitzroy Island Resort sponsor the rehab centre, and our guide, a volunteer at the rehab centre, confirmed that every cent of the tour price (just $11.50 when we visited) went towards the running of the centre. It’s kind of a bit rude to go the island without going. If you run out of time and you can’t go, then please give them the $11.50 anyway.
Sometimes you visit somewhere that changes how you think. The Cairns Turtle Rehabilitation centre was one of those places for me. More of that later.
If you caught ‘Australia With Julia Bradbury’ on ITV in the UK then this is the turtle rehab centre that she went to in the series.
The centre is a series of large round tanks, each of them home to turtles that have been rescued with a variety of issues – sadly many of them as a result of us humans. Some are in such a bad way that they are kept away from onlookers to aid their recovery so not subject to the tour, and we quickly learnt about issues such as floating turtle syndrome.
Floating Turtle Syndrome
This was a common issue with turtles at the Cairns turtle rehabilitation centre. It’s caused by turtles ingesting plastic – this upsets their system and causes wind – which is then trapped inside the turtles shell so they float. When the turtle is floating they can not dive to chase food and they can die. The centre was treating several turtles with this condition which is a lengthy process to allow nature to deal with the plastic whilst keeping them fed whilst they are floating on the surface.
The animal pictured at the top of this post was in for different reasons. It was bought in with horrific injuries from two perfectly round holes in the top of its shell. Our guide was not keen to point the finger but it was clear that the injuries were consistent with a spear gun attack.
The tour takes around an hour and is a perfect companion to taking a walk to the summit of the island for amazing views of the coral sea and Great Barrier Reef.
More details on their work are available at http://www.cairnsturtlerehab.org.au
Back to thinking then..you can’t help but to walk away from somewhere like this without realising that the actions we all take, sometimes on the other side of the planet, have such a direct impact on incredible animals and their habitats. These animals are eating plastic. You hear people saying ‘they’ need to address the problem – well, ‘they’ is you and me.