Think you can see this exotic creature only on holiday? Try closer to home

They’re creatures often associated with tropical waters and exotic shores, but a Sydney research project has revealed one of the world’s most enigmatic marine animals is really as local as our backyard magpies and ringtails.

Green sea turtles and their more elusive cousins, the hawksbills and loggerheads, are capable of some of the most epic migrations on earth, yet preliminary data from a tracking effort spearheaded by Taronga Zoo suggests they spend much of their time in NSW as homebodies who stick to one particular beach or bay.

“They are staying inshore and residing in coastal bays and estuaries,” Dr Jo Day, a conservation biologist at Taronga, said. “Our tracking data is showing that a lot of our turtles are residents to those areas, and it’s surprising how small their home ranges are. That’s really new, exciting information.”

One green turtle didn’t leave Freshwater beach during a three-month tracking stint between February and May. It’s an animal capable of crossing oceans, but barely bothered to make the measly two-kilometre trip to the turtle (and snorkeller) hotspot of Cabbage Tree Bay off Shelly Beach.

“It’s still around,” Day said of the Freshwater turtle. “We have lots of public sightings of that turtle, so it does seem to be a resident of that area.”

Day said the research collaboration between Taronga, the Sydney Institute of Marine Science, NSW National Parks and the Gumbaynggirr Land and Sea Rangers was aimed at translating local expertise to scientific knowledge that could galvanise conservation efforts.

“Our overarching aim is to understand what type of habitats marine turtles are choosing to forage and rest, and the ultimate aim is to protect those environments.” More data is needed to firm up the researchers’ findings.

A study published by Australian scientists this year showed efforts to protect sea turtles have made a significant difference, with the number of nesting females tracking up in many areas across the world.

Better fishing practices and ridding nesting beaches of artificial light – which bamboozles hatchlings – was partly behind the trend, although some species such as leatherbacks still face drastic declines.

Day and her team are keen to track turtles as they move further south; NSW beaches may provide critical climate refuges as the ocean rapidly warms.

The latest Taronga data builds on a long-term project that tracks turtles brought into the zoo’s hospital for treatment after boat strikes or eating fishhooks.

That previous data shed light on the mystery of where young turtles spend their early lives, dubbed the “lost years”, and revealed young turtles were surprisingly urban creatures, frequenting Pittwater, swimming up the Hawkesbury River and gliding past Gosford.

The new project tracked healthy turtles to supplement the data from the rehabilitated animals.

While the latest findings mostly highlight the homebodies, one loggerhead turtle took its tracker for an epic 3500-kilometre journey to Lord Howe Island and beyond.

Turtles harness Earth’s magnetic field to navigate back to their birth beaches, but researchers don’t know how.

Scientists in the US are collecting sea turtles’ salt-expelling tears to test the theory the creatures use magnetic microbes as an internal bacterial compass.

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