Phase 1 : Assessment of suitability of Queensland Parks & Wildlife Service sea turtle data for use in models of the population dynamics of the southern Great Barrier Reef green turtle stock

Abstract

The sea turtle research program of the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS), which is part of the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency is the most comprehensive long-term program studying sea turtle demography in the world. The program provides substantial data sets on key aspects of sea turtle demography essential for developing an age-structured and sex-specific stochastic simulation model with some explicit spatial structure. This model would be suitable for helping to design conservation policies and strategies appropriate for addressing the potential impact of harvesting and other competing mortality risks on the long-term viability of the southern Great Barrier Reef (sGBR) green turtle stock. The statistical analyses to support such stochastic simulation model development are presented here using the extensive QPWS database. The data sets provide sufficient information to enable inclusion of environmental and demographic stochasticity on key demographic processes and for evaluating model performance against long-term stock abundance estimates.