It's a little known fact but East Maitland is a thriving hub for turtles.
In particular, the wetlands at Earthcare Park are a hotspot for long neck turtles, but predators are a huge threat to their survival.
Earthcare Park Landcare Group members are arriving each day to find turtle nests destroyed by foxes, with eggs broken and strewn around.
To combat this, Earthcare Park is now home to the Hunter's first turtle island, a refuge for turtles to lay their eggs away from predators.
Part of the 1 Million Turtles citizen science project, the Landcare group worked closely with Dr Ricky Spencer from Western Sydney University to install the refuge.
Installed on Thursday, October 3, the island is located in a pond and monitoring cameras have captured turtles already using it to nest.
The turtle island is also a chance to more closely monitor turtle activity, and hopefully see some Hunter River short-neck turtles, which are believed to be in the area.
Earthcare Park Landcare Group president Eric Huber said the group has been working with the 1 Million Turtles project for two years now.
"This island here is the first one in the Hunter Valley and for us to be chosen is a real coup," he said.
The island is a floating structure made of PVC pipes, mesh, corflute and ramps which allow the turtles to climb on board to nest.
In time, the island structure will merge into the wetland environment.
"On the side [of the island] you've got four additional pontoons, and those pontoons have got wetland type grasses, reeds and sedges in it, and in probably the next couple of months most of those will grow and you'll hardly even distinguish that from any other area of the pond in the next probably couple of months," Mr Huber said.
"There's also another part to all this, and that is that from what they've discovered, all the roots from the plants that are put on to the island, they grow into the water and it creates its own environment under the water, so other marine life other than just turtles and birds actually get something out of it."
Why turtles need to be protected
Mr Huber said turtles are important and need to be protected for a number of reasons.
"They're the vacuum cleaners of any marine environment, so without the turtles the cleanliness of any marine area is jeopardised, and also affects other marine life," he said.
"The biggest problem with turtles at the moment is the incredible loss of habitat. We can see by urban sprawl coming into areas, we can see that the water is has been degraded.
"We've also got huge problems with predation which occurs from foxes, pigs, dogs and cats, but it's mainly the foxes which is causing our biggest problem."
Another impact of urban sprawl is turtles being hit by cars, with turtles unable to roam around freely without the possibility of being injured.
1 Million Turtles
1 Million Turtles is an Australia-wide community conservation program, which sees scientists and the community working together to conserve threatened Australian freshwater turtle species.
The community can get involved with the 1 Million Turtles project by downloading the TurtleSAT app and recording any turtle or nest sightings.
