BEHIND THE SCENES TOUR - MANNING RIVER TURTLE FACILITY | AUSTRALIAN REPTILE PARK
Вставка
- Опубліковано 8 тра 2020
- On today's live stream, we took you behind the scenes of our amazing Manning River Turtle breeding facility!
Located at the Australian Reptile Park, the facility is a project of our charity organisation, Aussie Ark - a wildlife conservation organisation. Find out more about what they're doing to protect the future of endangered Australian animals: aussieark.org.au/
Tune in on our Facebook and Instagram pages at 2pm to watch LIVE and ask our keepers questions:
/ australianreptilepark
/ australianreptilepark - Домашні улюбленці та дикі тварини
I would love to see a video explaining how to identify different baby / adult turtle species throughout Australia etc !
So cute! And the turtles ain’t half-bad either 😜 😘
This is awesome!
is it good if my turtle is only about 2 years old and he’s as big as her ??
Nice
I have a macleay turtle
what happened to Tim Faulkner
Great start to 2021, up here in Qld .Private reptile keepers have bred 50+ Purvis turtles Wollumbinia purvisi...aka Manning River turtles.....These results were achieved without a tax payer handout and despite the asinine laws pertaining to this species in NSW and Qld which restrict the keeping of this species.....Perhaps an investigative journalist may do a story on this turtle and question why taxpayer money is being given to commercial operations whereas private/non funded individuals are achieving results.....it,s not about conservation it,s all about politics.....Private keepers achieve results due to not working 9-5.....passion trumps politics.....cheers Marc Dorse herpetologist Toowoomba. (first to breed/document breeding of Manning river turtle)
I remember you coming to jC’s begging for paperwork😂😂😂
Hi fellow turtle fanciers. As a keeper of Wollumbinia purvisi (as per Wells/Wellington) I would like to make some observations after viewing this video. a. lovely set up (courtesy public funding) circa $100k yet not one turtle bred by ARP as yet ? b. hatchlings from a. eggs collected from the wild b. gravid female collected (this is harvesting NOT breeding. c. turtles marked for identification?....my hatchlings/adults are photographed...not liquid paper marked. If I understand the video correctly the hatchlings are to be returned to the wild?...@ up to 8cm they are prone to predation by eels/fish/birds.....seems counterproductive to me....unless you are wishing to supplement the diet of eels/fish/birds. As for asserting lifespan of 60 years...My guess would be 80plus years as per other Australian freshwater turtles and re. size @ 30cm!!!!...no way...they may..may reach 19cm...Also the record of 24 eggs in a clutch....average is 12 eggs per female per clutch. Re. survival of species dependent upon ARP/Aussie Ark not true....Thanking the partners UWS OEH...donations etc... Herewith I would like to make a few comments a. I have held this species for over 25 years on licence in Qld. I first bred this species 2014/2015 (eggs hatched Feb. 2015) 12 eggs per clutch (2 females). My set up located in Toowoomba (funded by myself...not from soliciting public donations) consists of 10k litre aquaculture tubs. To date I have breed over 90 hatchlings (currently have 16 eggs incubating (biggest clutch recorded so far...due to hatch late January 2021).....several keepers in Qld have also bred this species. Respected herpetologist Kevin Mackay has bred this species several times and is an innovative keeper in his approach to husbandry of Purvis turtle.....as has Lyall Squire from Cairns .As for OEH (NSW) involvement....politics trumps conservation....When I first bred this species I contacted NSW OEH re. becoming involved with a management plan for this species....6 years later I haven,t heard from them....Ironic seeing that the vulnerability of this species is part due to a. predation b. habitat management...both responsibilities of the Environment dept of NSW.....In the 2020 Red bellied courier (Aust. herp society) magazine there is a paper my friend and colleague Greg Fyfe and I wrote about breeding Purvis turtles.....Private keepers are going to ensure this species survival and to date over 200 individuals have been bred in Qld. Ironically in Qld where Purvis is not native the rec. wildlife keepers of Qld have had asinine conditions placed on keeper/breeding this species. In due course I shall be discussing the Purvis turtle conservation with my local and federal members of parliament and bringing the subject to the Australian media, thank you for your time to read my posting, best wishes Marc Dorse Toowoomba p.s It is great that ARP is attempting to breed this turtle....to conserve the species....something private rec. keepers have been achieving for several years...but not acknowledged....as I stated previously it,s all about politics not conservation...
As a private keeper and breeder of Wollumbinia purvisi now for many years up here in the state of QLD where it's sunny one day and perfect the next I must say I found this video at first rather amusing but then most importantly extremely full of misinformation. So let's get about setting the record straight. ARP never had nor ever will have claim to an Australian or world first record with captive breeding this species nor does the future of this species rest solely on the success of this project. This video claims that "Manning river turtles" reach maturity at 5-6 years... absolute boohockey... the generation gap of Wollumbinia purvisi is actually 15-20 years, they couldn't even be accurately sexed as either male or female at 5 years of age. The video claims they can grow up to 30cm... and live for 50-60 years, incorrect. The average adult female size is actually closer to 18cm with males being smaller... also the average clutch size is around 12-14 eggs not 20+ W. purvisi being such a slow species to reach maturity would live well beyond 60 years, a good 2-3 decades beyond. The video claims the Manning river turtle is Australia's oldest turtle, it is not, the Lavaracks turtle (gulf snapper) predates Wollumbinia purvisi by a further 60 million years. Dan also mentions that males are far more vibrant than the dull females.. rubbish! Females are equally as vibrant and in many cases more so. Some of my own females are better looking than the males, Marc Dorse also notes this within his own collection.
I currently have 12 W. purvisi hatchlings right now from a clutch that was laid on October 18th and hatched on December 7th (might I add without a 100k + public handout or state of the art facility, I'm a fully self funded home run operation) I do this because I LOVE, live and breathe turtles, I don't get paid from 9-5 Monday to Friday to keep, rear and breed turtles then get weekend's/public holidays off, this is a full-time and expensive hobby I maintain by having a full time day job to fund my efforts that I've been in for the last 18 years.
The video shows hatchlings that are apparently being prepared for wild release... well how can they be prepared for wild release in bare glass bottomed tanks that aren't blacked out on all sides?? Such setups prevent turtles from exhibiting all natural instinctive defensive behaviours. Those young turtles have already imprinted in their brains that humans are where their food comes from and aren't the slightest bit afraid of a giant glove covered hand approaching them. Those hatchlings placed into the wild now would last all of 5 minutes... they've been set up to fail. They're domesticated now because of visual overexposure to humans and a feeding regime that associates humans with food. Epic FAIL there. Nail polish marked plastrons which make them stand out like dog's balls to predators... camouflage fail.
Releasing them is a fool's errand anyway... the foxes that predate upon the nests haven't been erradicated, the introduced Emydura macquarrii that are displacing Wollumbinia purvisi haven't been eradicated, the impacts of climate change and agricultural pressures upon their tiny natural range haven't been reversed so really... plopping them back into the river/s achieves nothing in the scope of things.... sure some may survive a little while and make it look like a huge success and $$ well spent but it won't achieve anything in the long run. The little purvisi that do survive the eels and birds will probably grow up if conditions allow it, for what?? To have their own nests destroyed or be predated on themselves by foxes or to be made genetically redundant by crossbreeding with introduced Emydura sp?? This project video by ARP is fooling everyone into believing success is now inevitable but those of us who actually know anything about the situation see it very differently... this project is not actually going to save anything as far as wild populations go, it will however temporarily prolong the inevitable.
Wollumbinia purvisi has no future in the Manning river or its tributaries. Not until all detrimental impacts on the species are addressed and dealt with accordingly.
It is terribly sad but true.
For now, the immediate future of Wollumbinia purvisi rests in the more experienced and capable hands of private captive breeders like Marc Dorse and myself who have been making vital inroads into gaining a full understanding of this now rare and unique turtle's ecology and our combined vision to firmly establish this species in the captive trade where its future will be secure no matter what happens in the wild.
Finally, the recent law changes regarding the private keeping and breeding of protected wildlife imposed upon QLD keepers thanks to pressure applied on our government by certain parties based in NSW will ultimately seal Wollumbinia purvisi's fate of extinction if those changes are not revoked in the near future. This is not a game, it is not a joke, there will be no do-overs or second chances... politics and professional jealousy cannot stand in the way of the common good. This species has existed unchanged for over 80 million years, it is LITERALLY a living fossil and it's on the brink of extinction now thanks to the gross errors and mismanagement by every NSW department in the last 200. They say the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now. This applies for Wollumbinia purvisi... the best time to start acting was 20 years ago and there's a handful of us up here in QLD that recognised this species was in urgent need of conservation effort long before the various NSW depts came to the party. We already have a substantial headstart on establishing a solid captive bred insurance population for this species. Why would anybody conservation minded want to cease our combined efforts that cost neither the Government or Australian public nothing, not one red cent? It just does not make any sense.
Kevin McKay - private keeper / Wollumbinia purvisi breeder / Australian freshwater turtle conservationist - Toowoomba QLD.
I think it’s because they know the origin of Marc Dorse’s animals & yours too. They were wild harvested at Bretti, I actually have pics of yours on their backs, on the pebbly shores of the manning.
That aside, yes you have had some successes which is great, but don’t kid yourself in to believing they’re difficult to breed. When Manning river turtles are fed well they’ll breed like flies, they’re really that simple.
I noted you can’t determine sexes at 5 years, I think it’s quite easy, but I don’t know the growth rates of the ones you have seen. Anyway, keep up the good work, but don’t gaslight mate, it’s too small of a world.
@@MrCites1 your claims are laughable, the photo you're referring to was taken on a driveway of a private property in central QLD over a decade ago at the place which I acquired the turtles. You shouldn't make baseless assumptions. Now, as for being easy to breed, yeah, they're so easy to breed that myself and Marc Dorse are the only people to have ever privately bred them in captivity. Probably why the ARP and Dr Ricky Spencer of Western Sydney Uni have been in constant contact with me since 2018 trying to breed their wild harvested animals without any success. You claim to know a lot when the fact is you know very little. Wollumbinia purvis, like Teliqua rugosa are unique among reptiles as they are monogamous.. they bond and pair for life at a young age and purvisi do not reach sexual maturity at normal growth rate until the age of 20 years old. Now, why haven't the ARP to date bred any purvis in captivity? Because they collected random animals from various locations that will never pair or breed in captivity, regardless of how much they're fed. I have supplied Greg Parker and Adam Elliot of the Ballarat wildlife park with 12 captive bred purvis of my own and they, through their own government funded captive breeding program will be the first and only zoological institution to captive breed purvis successfully in captivity.. if you need to be educated further on the matter of purvis and the captive breeding of them, do not hesitate to ask, as it is well known I am to date the most successful breeder of the species on the planet. You're welcome. Kind regards.