Bellingen Riverwatch volunteers test our local rivers' health each month to gather data on river health and support the recovery of the Critically Endangered Bellinger River Snapping Turtle.
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The project needs nine more water testing nine kits to support the amazing work of our volunteers, to help ease the current difficulties volunteers face in sharing kits. Each month our volunteers test 24 sites across the Bellinger, Never Never and Kalang catchments.
A generous donation from Billabong Zoo, a crowdfunding campaign, and a fundraising campaign by Australian Geographic, as well as monies from the NSW Office of Environment & Heritage Saving our Species program have come together to fund the first kit!
Bellingen Riverwatch would like to thank all the donors who made this possible.
In February 2015, the Bellingen River Snapping Turtle (BRST) suffered a significant mortality event due to a disease outbreak in the Bellinger River in northern NSW.
Since the mortality event a disease investigation has identified a virus (Bellinger River Virus or BRV), previously not known to science, as the agent most likely to be responsible for the mortality event. We lost an estimated 90 per cent of our turtles in this event. The infected turtles suffered blindness, internal organ necrosis and developed sudden inflammatory lesions.
This turtle has resided in this river and only this river for over 200 million years. It occupies about a 55 km stretch of the Bellinger River. During the mortality event, 35 healthy BRST from an area yet to be impacted by the virus were removed from the river by the Office of Environment and Heritage and now are now part of a captive breeding program at Taronga Zoo and Symbio Wildlife Park.
Alteration to water quality is identified as a threat to the Bellingen River Snapping Turtle (BRST) (see Blamires & Spencer 2013, NSW Scientific Committee 2016). The diet of the BRST includes aquatic vegetation and aquatic macroinvertebrates and these are both linked to water quality (Allanson and Georges 1999).
To support recovery actions for the BRST, it is important that the river's water quality is monitored consistently and on a long-term basis.
The project is an initiative of OzGREEN and the Office of Environment & Heritage, working in partnership with 11 partners, including Bellingen Shire Council.
In 2017, partner organisations, came together to design and develop Bellingen Riverwatch, a citizen science project to facilitate the water quality testing process with the intention to maintain and/or improve the river's health.
This program is part of a bigger picture of recovery actions for the turtle. Bellingen Riverwatch is working with Bellingen Shire Council and the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage to provide data on the health of the river to inform management of the river down the track.
The OEH Saving our Species (SoS) program is undertaking a series of actions to conserve the BRST, including: Research into the Bellinger River virus conducted by the Department of Primary Industries, the captive breeding programs at Taronga Zoo Sydney and Symbio Wildlife Park, biannual surveys to estimate population size, health of turtles and population dynamics, genetics research, riparian restoration program in the Upper Bellinger River to benefit the turtles through improving river health.
PhD student, Kristen Petrov, from Western Sydney University is also currently undertaking studies on the BRST.
For more information about this wonderful citizen science project, turning community concern into dedicated, constructive community action visit www.ozgreen.org.au/br. Bellingen Rivewatch data is distributed through a monthly River Health Snapshot - sign up at http://eepurl.com/dIFBdn
