Aboriginal Harvest of Snake-necked Turtles

A major goal of the Corporation is to achieve economic independence and self-determination through the sustainable economic development of its land and sea resources. The Community Rangers have the following vision statement: Our people from the Bawinanga Homelands will keep our land, law, culture and people strong by using traditional and non-traditional ways to Care for Country. The Land and the Culture (and its related Traditional Knowledge) are the greatest assets that the people of this region have so the Corporation believes that managing and utilising both of these is the most appropriate method of creating meaningful long term employment opportunities. The major focus of their employment program is economically, culturally and socially appropriate commercial use of wildlife.

The Aboriginal people of north-west Arnhem Land use freshwater turtles as a significant source of protein. They have accumulated a wealth of knowledge of wildlife and how it can be exploited on a subsistence basis. The Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation is keen to see this knowledge put to use in developing local industries that contribute to economic self-sufficiency while at the same time maintaining and reinforcing links to traditional Aboriginal culture. The harvest of adults and eggs of the northern long-necked turtle (Chelodina rugosa) is seen to provide such an opportunity.

Specifically, we have examined the impact of current Aboriginal harvest on turtle populations by comparing the population dynamics of harvested populations with those of populations subject to little or no harvest pressure.

We have also developed a model of the population dynamics of the species to assess the resilience of turtle populations to mortality of eggs and adults, taking into account any density-dependent interactions with growth rate, age/size at maturity, fecundity and population structure.

We used the model to predict the impact of egg and adult harvests of varying intensity, and to estimate the degree to which this impact can be offset by head-starting and release of captive-reared turtles.

Incubation experiments and captive rearing experiments have been conducted to determine the optimal conditions for incubation of eggs and rearing of hatchlings, fundamental research of importance to Bawinanga.

Publications arising from the project to date are listed below.

For further information, download our Research Flyer.

Fordham, D., Georges, A. and Brook, B.W. (2007). Demographic response of snake-necked turtles correlates with indigenous harvest and feral pig predation in tropical northern Australia. Journal of Animal Ecology 76:1231-1243. [Download PDF]

Fordham, D., Georges, A. and Corey, B. (2006). Compensation for inundation-induced embryonic diapause in a freshwater turtle: Achieving predictability in the face of environmental stochasticity. Functional Ecology 20:670-677. [Download PDF]