World Turtle Day 2010 marked in Australia's sands

On Sunday May 23 2010, the Wilderness Society, the Australian Marine Conservation Society & Environs Kimberley jointly organised a national day of action for World Turtle Day.

The event attracted over 200 people to hit their local beaches all around Australia and build giant sandcastle turtles to raise awareness of the plight of the flatback turtle.

Jenita Enevoldsen, Marine Community Campaigner for The Wilderness Society, thanked the keen group of Perth turtle lovers for coming down to Cottesloe beach in a cold 30knot wind, to get sandy to ‘save our flatbacks’.

Click here to see a slideshow of photos from our national World Turtle Day action.

We had a fantastic World Turtle Day in Cairns with around 30 mums, dads and kids joining the Wilderness Society down at the beach near the fun-ship on the Esplanade.

Ably directed by local sculptor Kevin Mayo, everyone pitched in to help build and decorate our very own 'designer' flatback turtle.

"It was a lot of fun for everyone who came," said Di Horsburgh, Community Campaigner for the Wilderness Society in Cairns.

Another family from Goulburn, NSW were inspired to create turtles in their sandpit of their backyard. They had just been to Ningaloo for a holiday and had snorkelled with some majestic turtles in Turquoise Bay, but didn’t realise that 6 out of the 7 species of sea turtles around the world are listed as 'Endangered', our native flatback being the only one labelled as ‘Data Deficient’ on the ICUN red list.

In Darwin over 80 participants took part. There were also an event in Broome on Cable Beach with over 60 people attending. Other unofficial groups included other turtle sculptors in NSW, SA and WA.

A big thanks to all participants who made the day so successful - let's make it bigger and better next year!

 Take action - send Peter Garrett an email to 'save our flatbacks' - click here