STOP THE DAM
Kings Beach – Let the salt be 🌊
News - 29/10/2026
Salt and turtle eggs 🐢
Dam Kings Beach say turtle nesting "will be surveyed before any works begin" which is good, but it got a few of us reading about turtles and salt water. There is a study from researchers in Queensland who tested green turtle eggs from Raine Island by putting them under seawater for different amounts of time. One to three hours made less than 10% difference to whether they survived and six hours reduced it by about 30%. That study was about sea level rise and not about walls, and the authors say flooding alone doesn't explain everything, but it does seem like a lot if you are a turtle.
Turtles lay up in the dry sand because that is where the water doesn't normally get to, and the wall would go between the dry sand and the water, so we have some questions. Can a turtle get past a 6 metre wall? There are stairs but we haven't seen a turtle use stairs and nobody at the meeting had either. If the hatchlings do come out behind the wall how are they meant to get to the sea? And Dam Kings Beach say the salt builds up on the beach side, so is that where the eggs would be?
We don't know how often turtles nest at Kings and we haven't been able to find anyone who does, so if you have ever seen a turtle or a nest down there please leave it alone and keep your distance, and let National Parks know, and maybe let us know too.