S4.E8 Bum breathers - the Johnstone River snapping turtle
Release Date: 11/15/2022
S6.E10 Steve Lizzio, Growing Bananas Beside the Great Barrier Reef
Reef And Rivers Podcast
Award winning banana growers Steve and Richelle Lizzio grow bananas in Mission Beach on one of the closest banana farms to the Great Barrier Reef. Their business is a great example of what's been achieved in the banana industry since environmental management guidelines were introduced.
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S6.E9 Dr Matt Curnock, Human Dimensions of Waterway Health
Reef And Rivers Podcast
Dr Matt Curnock is a senior research scientist at CSIRO in Townsville. His work in social and environmental science is focused on understanding how people perceive, value and interact with the Great Barrier Reef. Given that 'managing the environment is actually about managing people', social science offers insights into reef programs and policies.
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S6.E8 Maree Baade, Tablelands Regional Council
Reef And Rivers Podcast
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S6.E7 Travis Sydes, Biosecurity and the Threat of Amazon Frogbit
Reef And Rivers Podcast
Travis Sydes managing natural resources in Far North Queensland as part of FNQROC, which represents 10 local governments across the region. In this podcast he talks about biosecurity issues in the Wet Tropics with a particular focus on Amazon frogbit, an aquarium plant that is infesting local waterways.
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S6.E6 Geoff McClure, Restoring Cattana Wetlands
Reef And Rivers Podcast
Geoff McClure is one of hundreds of conservation volunteers who have helped transform Cattana Wetlands in the north of Cairns into an environmental park. In this podcast he talks about his love of conservation and the work that has gone into restoring the biodiversity hotspot at Cattana.
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S6.E5 Barbara Wueringer, Discovering The Elusive Sawfish
Reef And Rivers Podcast
Zoologist Dr Barbara Wueringer talks about her work with the fascinating sawfish her research of and how trawling through old newspaper clippings from the Gold Rush era helped to understand more about its historic distribution before gill nets and trophy fishing decimated it's populations.
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S6.E4 Matt Moore, Fish Passage
Reef And Rivers Podcast
Fisheries ecologist Matt Moore from Catchment Solutions talks about why fish habitat connectivity within waterways is so important and how decisions made to fix fish barriers such as weirs and dams.
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S6.E3 Sam Bastounas, Using Seaweed to Strip Nutrients from Water
Reef And Rivers Podcast
Sam Bastounas is the CEO of Pacific Bio, an Australian company that develops green technology to address water quality and food security issues. In this podcast, Sam discusses the challenge of purifying water and the development of RegenAqua, a new technology developed with JCU that uses seaweed to strip nutrients from water before it enters waterways.
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S6.E2 Heidi Tait, Cleaning Up Marine Debris
Reef And Rivers Podcast
Heidi Tait is the founder and Managing Director of Tangaroa Blue, a not for profit organisation focused on removing and preventing marine debris. In this podcast, Heidi talks about the problem of litter in our oceans and the importance of going beyond beach clean ups to tackle debris at its source.
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S6.E1 Phil Laycock, Results of the 2024 Wet Tropics Waterway Health Report Card
Reef And Rivers Podcast
This is the 9th annual Wet Tropics Waterway Health Report Card to be released by Wet Tropics Waterways to assess the health and condition of freshwater basins, estuaries, inshore and offshore areas of the Wet Tropics in Far North Queensland. Independent Chair Phil Laycock explains some of the key findings in 2024.
info_outlineDespite its name, the Johnstone River snapping turtle is no snappier than any other freshwater turtle – and is perhaps better known by its alias, the ‘bum breather’. According to turtle expert Alistair Freeman, this ability for cloacal respiration is thought to enable bum breathers to stay under water for prolonged periods to avoid predation, although this is still only theory.
Robust and adaptable, the Johnstone River snapping turtle is an important contributor to keeping its freshwater ecosystem healthy, thanks to its enthusiastic consumption of detritus and dead things! When it’s not hoovering up these tasty morsels, it enjoys hanging out in areas of river with deep pools and riffles, and healthy riparian vegetation.
Alistair is a Senior Technical Officer for the Queensland Government’s Aquatic Species Program and joins us to share his expertise and insights into the quirky Johnstone River snapping turtle.