Expeditions: Southwest Western Australia

In December 2007 Scott travelled to Perth, Western Australia to collect the oblong turtle, Chelodina oblonga. Upon arriving in Perth Scott met with Dr. Gerald Kuchling of the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC). Gerald is one of the world’s foremost authorities on turtle conservation. He was instrumental in implementing the conservation program for the Western Swamp Tortoise, Pseudemydura umbrina, the only other turtle species endemic to southwestern Western Australia. Gerald provided traps for the collection of Chelodina oblonga and suggested a number of collecting sites around Perth.

After successful collections in the Perth area Scott headed to Albany where he attended the annual meeting of the Australian Society of Herpetologists. A meeting participant, Ms. Atlanta Veld, helped in turtle collection in Lake Seppings in Albany. After the meeting Scott headed east to try to collect turtles at the eastern edge of their range in the Fitzgerald River National Park. Increasing water salinity has evidently reduced or eliminated turtle populations from this area, but the park rangers with whom he spoke pointed out the remains of the rabbit-proof fence, a continent-spanning attempt to keep rabbits out of Western Australia made famous by the movie of the same name.

After visiting the fence the expedition moved east to Manjimup where Mr. Bruce Ward of DEC arranged accommodation and trapping advice at the spectacular Perup Nature Reserve. Perup became base camp for the rest of the expedition and a number of turtles were trapped and parasites recovered from sites near the Reserve. The platyhelminth fauna of these turtles was relatively limited: two species of Choanocotyle, one new species of Aptorchis, one amphilinid and a species of the polystome genus Neopolystoma.

Chelodina oblonga	A grumpy shingleback!
Swim to freedom	Black swans in Perth
Longneck crossing in Albany	Great Southern Ocean near Albany
Curious at the campsite	Scott and the fence
Rabbit-proof fence	Rabbit-proof close up
Rabbit-proof info	Short-billed black cockatoo
Splendid fairy-wren at Perup	Valley of the Giants
Flies, flies and more flies!	Roo crossing
Varanus crossing	Tree top walk
Scott and longneck	Well hidden

Authors: Vasyl V. Tkach, Scott D. Snyder, Yuriy Kuzmin