Green Turtles Need Seagrass

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

A green turtle eating paddleweed (a species of seagrass) in the Cabbage Tree Bay Aquatic Reserve, Sydney. She’s selecting and eating individual leaves, clipping them where they emerge from the sand. And she’s also eating the rhizomes, the runners that travel under the sand and connect the leaves.
Seagrass is the preferred food of larger green turtles and in eastern Australia they prefer to eat paddleweed. When seagrass is sparse they’ll eat more seaweed and mangrove leaves, and in cooler waters they’ll also eat jellyfish, sponges, molluscs, and fish.
It’s a win-win situation: regular grazing and re-grazing of paddleweed leaves by green turtles increases the re-growth rate of the leaves.
Although green turtles are usually found in tropical and sub-tropical waters, several green turtles live in the Reserve. Large beds of paddleweed are rare on east coast ocean beaches and so the seagrass there is especially important for these turtles and all the other animals that use it.
Music: ‘Moonlight Haze’ by Falconer via Artlist