The Hunter's freshwater turtles need your help!

November is Turtle Month and Cessnock City Council is encouraging residents to get involved with the 1 Million Turtles Citizen Science and Community Conservation program!

---

The 1 Million Turtles Program is the largest initiative of its kind undertaken across Australia. It trains members of the community to report freshwater turtle sightings using the TurtleSAT mobile phone app and website.

If you love turtles and want to give them a helping hand, download the TurtleSAT app from Google Play or the Apple App Store and start recording turtle sightings during Turtle Month.

If you’re wondering where you can start looking for turtles, a few good places would be urban wetlands, local lakes, lagoons or any other bodies of water near you. You may see turtles coming up for a breather, or simply basking on surfaces such as logs.

Sadly, sometimes turtles are also found as roadkill. If you do encounter this, please record this data via TurtleSAT.

Remember, if you do see a turtle near bodies of water and they are not in danger, please do not remove them from their habitat.

Cessnock City Council’s General Manager, Lotta Jackson, is encouraging residents to get involved in this fantastic initiative.

“It is wonderful to see initiatives like this one where the community is called on to help. We’d like as many Cessnock locals as possible to get involved in this project so we can help the turtles, and the team running the conservation project.”

For more information about the program, visit https://1millionturtles.com or join the Facebook group @1millionturtles and @turtle.sat