Turtle Conservancy News and Program Updates
The TC has welcomed some very unique Australian turtles to our living collection. Last week we received a pair of Mary River Turtles from Oklahoma City Zoo. This endangered species is the only member of its genus and is found—as the name suggests—exclusively in the Mary River of South East Queensland...
Last month we highlighted how Australia's catastrophic drought and wildfires were pushing the Manning River Turtle further towards extinction and how our new partner organization, Aussie Ark, was not going to let that happen…
Over three million hectares of land have been devastated by unprecedented wildfires in Australia, and along with it, a staggering amount of critical habitat for endemic species has been destroyed. In June of this year, we announced a new partnership with Aussie Ark, who had begun monitoring the Manning River Sawshelled Turtle (Myuchelys purvisi)—a species estimated to have only 500-1000 individuals…
On the northern coast of New South Wales, the Manning River Sawshelled Turtle paddles secretively amongst the platypuses. The species is so rarely seen it was declared “Endangered” by the Australian government in 2017. It is one of the regions three endemic turtles, along with the Bellinger River Snapping Turtle and Bell's Sawshelled Turtle, all of which are Endangered and which are found nowhere else on Earth...
