News Archive

The battle to save one of the planet's most endangered freshwater turtles began at UWA more than 50 years ago with the first PhD research on a creature on the brink of extinction.

Today, the ongoing monitoring of wild and captive-bred turtles is one of the world's longest-running studies of a freshwater turtle - and a new generation of UWA scientists and students are working to give the diminutive turtle a secure future.

When Andrew Burbidge opted to study the little known Western Swamp Tortoise for his PhD at UWA in the 1960s, he already knew the intriguing story behind the discovery of one of the planet's most endangered turtles.

On a misty morning in the 1950s, in Upper Swan, a boy spied a turtle - small enough to hold in the palm of your hand - crossing a road from one of the nearby ephemeral swamps. The swamp teemed with aquatic life in winter only to dry to parched clay through Perth's long hot summer.

The boy presented the diminutive turtle to a young neighbour, a keen naturalist, who presented it to scientists at the Perth Naturalists Club's Wildlife Show with the query: "What's this?"

Scientific brows furrowed. There was considerable debate. Celebrated naturalist (and UWA graduate) Dr Vincent Serventy speculated it could be an escaped pet while the WA Museum's then director, Ludwig Glauert, declared it could be new to science, and later confirmed this view by describing a new species. (In WA, there being no land-dwelling true tortoises, freshwater turtles are often called tortoises.)

Interest stirred across the naturalist world - until a world expert on turtles at Harvard University announced that the swamp tortoise had already been scientifically described in 1901 and that there was a specimen in a museum in Austria. Pseudemydura umbrina , had been collected by a globe-trotting naturalist in 1839 and labelled simply ‘Nova Hollandia'.

Drawn to the Upper Swan swamps - the only place on Earth where the turtles live - Dr Serventy unearthed a specimen. Buried beneath leaves and clay, it was protected from heat and from hungry foxes.

Determined to preserve the turtle's habitat and secure specimens for captive breeding, Dr Serventy used his scientific and government connections to secure funding and to mount a public appeal that eventually saw 250 hectares of swampland purchased and reserved.

This is when UWA PhD student Andrew Burbidge enters the story. When he had arrived at UWA in the 1960s, it was Professor Bert Main's lectures in ecology and evolution that convinced Andrew Burbidge to major in Zoology. Professor Main was a legendary natural historian who had arrived at UWA after a period in a German POW camp during World War II. He went on to become Professor of Zoology at UWA.

"He was a great natural historian and scientist, extremely passionate and well known for service to the community," says Dr Burbidge. "He agreed that I could choose the Western Swamp Tortoise for my PhD research, but because it was rare and would be difficult to study, Bert added the oblong turtle and the plate-shell turtle, both WA freshwater turtles, to my study. A very wise move!"

Tracking and studying the Western Swamp Tortoise proved to be pioneering territory that called for ingenuity.

"While there were plenty of opinions about the little turtle, there was not much science," recalls Dr Burbidge. "The very first one I found was soon killed by a fox - at that time, there was little understanding of the degree of threat posed by feral animals. Unlike many other creatures that you can trap and later return to the wild, Western Swamp Tortoises won't go into traps. They eat live aquatic invertebrates like water fleas - so I rapidly appreciated that I needed to radio-track them, and in those days that meant me building radio transmitters that could operate on land and in water."

Instruction manuals from US transmitters designed to be attached to deer guided him as he soldered the circuitry of transmitters (that today can be purchased off the shelf). Armed with this, he was able to track turtles and describe their life history, biology and ecology.

A female turtle can store viable sperm for at least two years and, after a spring feeding binge, she lays eggs in an underground nest in November. Hatchlings emerge the following winter and must at least quadruple their birth weight before summer sucks the swamps dry - and their next meal may be half a year away. In dry years they simply don't grow large enough to survive their first summer. Growth is slow, with the turtles taking from nine to 14 years, to reach sexual maturity.

Dr Burbidge's PhD provided the scientific foundation for ongoing studies that continue at UWA today. After postdoctoral work at the University of Texas at Austin, the graduate joined the WA Department of Fisheries and Fauna (now Parks and Wildlife), the second ever scientist to be employed by the State Government to work on fauna conservation and the management of nature reserves.

Threatened species research was a part of his brief so he was delighted when Dr Gerald Kuchling, a world authority on freshwater turtles, was appointed to UWA's School of Animal Biology - at a time when the turtle appeared to be on the brink of extinction.

"We knew numbers were crashing in the wild and Gerald made the Perth Zoo captive breeding program - that hadn't been successful before his arrival - a priority. In the 1980s we set up a captive breeding committee working between Parks and Wildlife, Perth Zoo and UWA and that developed into a recovery program, one of Australia's first." (Dr Burbidge chaired the recovery team from its inception until 2002 and retains membership of it.)

The Western Swamp Tortoise remains Australia's rarest reptile and one of the world's most endangered turtles and Dr Kuchling says the battle to save it has attracted research students and postdoctoral researchers from France, Germany and the United States.

As an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at UWA and as a Senior Research Scientist with the Department of Parks and Wildlife, the Austrian-born scientist remains committed, describing the turtle monitoring that began with Andrew Burbidge as one of the world's longest-running studies of a freshwater turtle.

Once thought to be extinct, there are currently four wild populations (only 200 individuals in all) at Ellen Brook, Twin Swamps, Mogumber and Moore River Nature Reserves, and a similar number in the Perth Zoo captive population. Recently the 500th captive-bred and captive-raised juvenile turtle was released into the wild within a predator proof fenced area and the State Government has committed a million dollars to construct a new captive-breeding Perth Zoo facility for a program that has environmental awards.

However, in a drying climate, bore water must be pumped to maintain water levels at Twin Swamps and scientists are considering new options for the turtle's future.

"Long generation times and low genetic diversity mean that the turtle is unlikely to adapt quickly to climate change, so human intervention may be necessary to prevent their extinction in the wild," says Associate Professor Nicola Mitchell in the School of Animal Biology, who is leading a study into assisted colonisation.

"UWA research suggests that the coastal regions of the southwest - while well outside the historical range of the turtle - may provide good habitat," she says.

"While there is understandable unease about species introductions, this turtle has already been moved to new habitats, so assisted colonisation may not be such a philosophical leap. But the physical ‘leap' to a novel habitat will demand engagement with stakeholders, careful site assessment and monitoring of released animals and their impacts on the biological community."

However one thing is clear: this little Aussie battler has won many friends among researchers, Parks and Wildlife and Perth Zoo scientists and school children and members of the public visiting the zoo - along with a dedicated friends group that fund-raises, lobbies and spreads the word about the plight of the WA turtle (westernswamptortoise.com.au)

Today Dr Burbidge chairs the Western Australian Threatened Species Scientific Committee that provides advice to the State Government. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of WWF-Australia, and is co-author of The Action Plan for Australian Mammals 2012 . In the 2014 Australia Day honours he was made an Officer of The Order of Australia for distinguished service to the environment as a conservation biologist.