Saving our sea turtles
Turtles In Trouble Rescue Inc. rescue local sea turtles
Turtles In Trouble Rescue (TITR) volunteers respond to reports of stranded, sick, injured or unwell turtles on the Fraser Coast.
Volunteers rescue and transport distressed turtles into care at the UniSC Milbi Centre, assist with transfer to veterinary facilities, and support their eventual release back into the ocean.
Volunteers are active in monitoring, conservation research, community education and outreach to help protect turtles and their habitats.
Djaa Narawi Rangers protect turtles (milbi)
Butchulla Djaa Narawi (Land and Sea) Rangers are entrusted with protecting milbi located on Butchulla Country. Rangers are involved in all aspects of caring and protecting milbi, including monitoring nesting sites, ensuring milbi eggs are protected from predators and people, conserving milbi habitats, and making sure any sick or injured milbi are treated and able to return to Sea Country.
Rangers work in partnership with non-government organisations, including Turtles In Trouble Rescue, to monitor milbi health and serve as frontline responders to help rescue any sick or injured milbi.
If any milbi requires hospitalisation and treatment away from Country, rangers are always on hand to welcome the milbi back to Butchulla Country. Rangers want to make sure milbi are released in full health to continue living in their Sea Country.
Report to rescue to release: step by step
1. Report
Quick reporting gives turtles the best chance of survival.
If you see a sick, injured, entangled or stranded sea turtle near Hervey Bay or the Fraser Coast, call TITR on 0493 242 903. Do not move the turtle.
You can also report sightings of other marine animals to the Queensland Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation (DETSI) anywhere along the Queensland coast by using the QWildlife app or by calling 1300 130 372.
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2. Rescue
Trained TITR volunteers and Land and Sea Rangers will respond to your call and do an initial health assessment of an injured or sick turtle. If it needs rescuing, they will safely retrieve the turtle from the beach or water’s edge, taking care to reduce stress and prevent further harm.
3. Respond
The volunteers will bring the sea turtle to our centre where a veterinary examination will diagnose injuries or illness and begin care. Turtles requiring surgery or critical care will be transferred to Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital.
4. Rehabilitation
Under expert supervision in our centre, turtles receive ongoing treatment such as medication, basic wound care, nutrition and rehabilitation in specialist tanks. Recovery can take weeks or months to years, depending on how badly affected the turtle is.
5. Release
Once fully recovered and strong enough to survive at sea, trained TITR volunteers and Land and Sea Rangers will release the turtle back into the ocean – usually near where it was first found – ready to continue its life in the wild.
Watch sea turtle care in action
Sick or injured turtles are taken for specialist vet checks, treatment and care inside our centre.
After we treat them, the sea turtles are rehabilitated and strengthened, ready for eventual release.
If a sea turtle needs more care than the UniSC Milbi Centre can provide, we take them to larger specialised facilities like the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital.
Meet our rescue turtles
Saving Sango twice
Imagine carrying 1 kg of muck, mud and broken bone in a deep shell wound! This was the fate of Sango, a female green turtle, after her rescue in 2022. She was likely hit by a boat propeller.
After 3 months of treatment and rehab, Sango was finally released back into the wild.
Just over a year later, TITR found Sango again, stranded with signs of soft-shell syndrome. After another 3 months of treatment, she was released again.
Log a loggerhead
Just after New Year’s 2025, it’s sunrise and the tide is out on Sirenia Beach, leaving a turtle stranded. A visitor calls TITR.
TITR rushed out to discover an underweight loggerhead with a partially healed, amputated front flipper.
TOD, as it was named, was treated to reduce sandy grit compacting its gut and given a high-protein diet to rebuild its strength. TOD was released a month later with a satellite tag that showed it initially stayed near the release spot.
Rescuing a flatback floater
A ‘floater’, or a sea turtle with floating syndrome, is unable to dive because of gas caused by eating plastic or marine rubbish, or from injury or infection.
In late 2025, a local boatie found a floater off Burrum Heads. Volunteers, who named the turtle Pikelet, think his injuries were caused by a shark attack.
Pikelet underwent treatment and rehab for 56 days before being released at Burrum Heads with about 50 community members wishing him luck for his onward journey.
Report any sighting of a sea turtle, sick or healthy, dead or alive
Whether a turtle is swimming strongly, resting on the beach, injured or dead, your report will help build the knowledge we need to protect sea turtles for the future.
If you see a sick, injured, entangled or stranded sea turtle near Hervey Bay or the Fraser Coast, call Turtles in Trouble Rescue directly on 0493 242 903. Do not move the turtle. Quick reporting gives turtles the best chance of survival.
You can also report sightings to Queensland Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation (DETSI) by using the QWildlife app or by calling 1300 130 372.
Reporting all turtle sightings helps researchers:
- identify important turtle habitats
- map hotspots for injuries, strandings and deaths
- track individuals and populations over time
- detect impacts of climate change
- inform safer boating and fishing practices
- guide conservation planning and government protection measures.
Locals can get involved
Turtles in Trouble Rescue welcomes new volunteers. You can express interest on their website or send them an email at turtlesintroublefc@gmail.com
And have you heard of citizen science? You can be a vital part of real research by monitoring wildlife or collecting data with professional scientists on the Fraser Coast:
- Log turtle, fish and other marine animal sightings with iNaturalist
- Join a citizen science activity such as Seagrass Watch and Coral Watch
- Run or join a local rubbish clean up, and log rubbish data with the Australian Marine Debris Initiative Database
- Assist researchers by using the Pacific Whale Foundation's Whale & Dolphin Tracker
- Monitor plants and wildlife to understand the impacts of climate change with ClimateWatch
- Contribute to reef biodiversity monitoring with Reef Life Survey
- Log marine species through RedMap and contribute to Australia's marine environment data.
Watch out for the hatchlings
A sea turtle's lifecycle is complicated.
When turtle hatchlings emerge from their nests, they face one of the most dangerous journeys in nature.
After hatching they follow the moonlight to the sea, crawling towards the lowest, brightest light on the horizon. Reducing artificial lights from houses, streets and cars can increase the chance the hatchlings will go in the right direction.
As they make their way to the sea, the hatchlings face predators such as seagulls, dingoes, goannas, foxes, pigs and pets. Hopefully, they do not meet other obstacles such as 4WD tracks, damaged dunes or litter.
Researchers estimate that only about 1 in 1,000 hatchlings survives to adulthood.
They then travel from the beach they hatched on, to their feeding grounds, only to return to their nesting beach at around 30 years of age.
Tourists: continue your conservation actions back home
You can help turtles anywhere, all the time:
- don't litter, and pick up rubbish if you can
- recycle plastics
- refuse single-use plastics
- choose sustainable seafood
- promote climate action
- monitor beaches and rivers for distressed aquatic life
- report your wildlife sightings.
Global studies estimate that about half of all sea turtles have plastic inside them. Turtles often think floating plastic is food like jellyfish or algae. Plastic inside a turtle can starve them, choke them, drown them or change how they swim.
Follow our released turtles around the globe
Sea turtles have always been known as ocean explorers. Newer tagging technology has revealed just how far and wide they go.
Information collected about turtles' adventures improves our understanding of the world's oceans, their many unique habitats and why they face threats like dying in fishing grounds.
You can follow our ocean explorers using the Queensland Government's loggerhead program and the Sunshine Coast Council's turtle map.
Revealing sea turtle secrets
Knowing the threats
Researchers are documenting how sea turtles encounter and eat plastic and other debris, and how they are affected by fishing gear, boat strikes and pollution washing into the sea from the land.
Researchers' work increasingly looks at how sea turtles face combined threats, including climate change and extreme weather.
Understanding the threats helps design policies and actions for protecting turtles.
Rehabilitating turtles
When sea turtles are found injured or sick, they are diagnosed, treated and rehabilitated.
Just like for people, there are many health tests that researchers use to decide the best treatment and know when a turtle is strong enough to return to the ocean. But we are still learning more about the best tests and indicators of health.
Research from rescued sea turtles also helps us understand what dangers they face in the wild.
Understanding sea turtle biology to protect them
Scientists study sea turtle bodies to understand what a healthy turtle looks like. They test blood and body condition to compare healthy and sick turtles. They want to know how turtles’ health reflects the health of the environment they live in.
Increased understanding helps volunteers, Land and Sea Rangers and vets know how to care for sick turtles found around the Fraser Coast.
Discovering where turtles live, feed, breed and move
Researchers track where turtles swim, feed and rest using satellite tags and genetics.
From this work, we know many sea turtles that feed in Fraser Coast waters travel thousands of kilometres and are connected to nesting beaches in other parts of Australia and the Pacific.
Tracking turtles helps us to understand and protect the habitat health of important feeding and nesting areas.
Untangling the cause and effect of disease
Sea turtle disease research is increasingly like detective work because of how sensitive turtles are to the complexity of their habitats.
Scientists combine disease testing with turtle health checks and environmental information (like water quality, temperature and pollution) to work out causes of diseases, what makes them worse and the effects on turtles’ bodies.
This knowledge is used to find patterns and improve rescue, rehabilitation and treatment.
Acting locally, thinking globally
Scientists are learning how sea turtles are often affected by many problems at once – such as pollution, climate change, habitat loss and disease – and that those problems can interact.
Our research helps to identify the most important ways, places and times to protect and treat turtles – and people around the world are interested in what we are discovering.
Better knowledge improves Land and Sea Ranger programs, strengthens community efforts, and helps protect sea turtles for future generations all around the world.