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For the second year Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA) will spend over a month at Eco Beach Wilderness Retreat to conduct consecutive nights of monitoring nesting turtles to determine species and population, nest predation and beach dynamics as well as hatchling success rates.

Shell EcoVolunteers is designed to help species and ecosystems adapt to the effects of climate change. In north-west WA the program is helping to better understand the effects of global warming on the Australian flatback marine turtle. Turtles are under particular threat from climate change due to the impact increased water temperatures have on breeding patterns. A slight increase in the temperature will result in all female hatchlings.

Sea turtles are migratory animals, which means that they feed and live in one place and swim many thousands of miles to another place where they breed and lay their eggs. Of the seven species of sea turtles, six are listed as either Critically Endangered or Endangered. The seventh, Australia's Flatback, is listed as "Data Deficient", meaning that insufficient information exists to assess risk of extinction.

Many populations of sea turtles around the world are thought to be declining. In order to protect these animals, we need to find out where they live. Since sea turtles nest on land, most sea turtle nesting beaches are identified and well studied. However, no known annual or consecutive recording of nesting turtles on Eco Beach had occurred until now, although good anecdotal evidence from staff and residents of the area together with some past track counts by the Department of Environment and Conservation WA, provided Conservation Volunteers Australia the basis for the establishment of this new annual program.

After turtles leave the nesting beaches and swim away, we have little idea where they go. The only way right now that we can track a sea turtle in the open ocean is to attach a transmitter and wait for uplinks to be received when the turtle swims to new locations. If we can find out where the turtles migrate to, we can help to reduce the threats both at that location and along the migratory pathway to get there.

Eco Beach Wilderness Retreat is keen to promote to patrons the educational merit of understanding the nesting requirements of sea turtles which nest not far along the beach from the actual retreat. The information provided by CVA is an integral part of the community education component of the program.

This year satellite tags will be fixed to two turtles to enable an indication on migratory paths and we are giving the Western Australian public the chance to win fantastic prizes by guessing exactly where Lucy has ventured to!