Residents urged to help clean up beaches and protect baby turtles

  • 2016-02-04
Maroochydore, Queensland residents are being called on to take part in a major beach-to-sea cleanup exercise in an effort to give turtle hatchlings a top chance of survival.

As part of the Sunshine Coast Council’s volunteer TurtleCare programme, SEALIFE Mooloolaba and ReefCheck Australia, residents are being urged to help clean up the beaches and free them of marine debris, which contributes to the death through ingestion or entanglement of more than a million marine animals each year.

A council spokesman said the day was important on local Calendars, because cleaning up the beaches would give the area’s turtle hatchlings a much better chance of survival.

Several key locations from Mooloolaba to Caloundra have been earmarked to host the cleanup, with Signs erected to indicate enrolment points scheduled to open at 6:15 am followed by a barbecue breakfast at 8:00 am at La Balsa Park in Buddina, where the weigh-in station for marine debris is located.

The spokesman said several prizes will be up for grabs on the day as an added incentive to participants.

Help from the community to enhance and protect the loggerhead turtles’ habitat was very important, according to Cr. Jenny McKay who heads the Environment Portfolio.

She said the turtles were an endangered species and litter in the waterways and on the beaches could prove fatal, especially for hatchlings that feed off the ocean’s surface. The cleanup will be held this Saturday, February 6.
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