After 1992 members attended and received training by volunteering their time at the
Mon Repos turtle research centre working under the direction of Dr Col Limpus,
who was, and still is, the head of the Queensland Turtle Research Program.
Later the group would hold annual training sessions for members in Mackay under
the direction of variously, Dr Jeff Miller, Ian Bell and Dr Col Limpus.
The group operates under a Scientific Purposes Permit issued by the
Queensland Environmental Agency and in accordance with directions by the agency.

What is involved in monitoring and what are monitoring activities?

Monitoring nesting and hatchling activity is not for the faint hearted. Many long, (all hours) windy, rainy, mosquito ridden evenings have been spent by members on beaches in the Mackay area and still rolling up for their day jobs. On the other hand though, some nights can turn to magical eventful evenings. What better place could there possibly be on a hot sultry summer night than be on a beach watching an act of nature unchanged for millions of years. Lots of patience, stamina and a sense of humour is mandatory before becoming a turtle nesting monitor. The Mackay district can have between 30 and 100 nesting female flatback turtles annually each laying approx. three times in a season lasting for approx. three months. That figure then has to be distributed over 30 or so beaches, so you can see there are a lot of nights spent walking and dreaming for little result other than exercise.

The egg chambers were excavated after the hatchlings emerged and counts of the number of eggs successfully hatched or otherwise were recorded to ascertain success rate of the nests. The group has since stopped weighing and measuring eggs and hatchlings as enough data has been collected for the present time. Monitoring activities today consist only of measurement and tagging of the adult turtle, the excavation of the nests after emergence has been completed and some sand temperature monitoring.