Returning to where footprints were trodden into the sand 49 days ago, an Australian photographer made a breathtaking discovery.
On July 28, Darwin woman Jill Huck photographed a trail left by a nesting sea turtle that walked out of the ocean and onto the dunes to lay her eggs. The waves have long since wiped away traces of the rare turtle, and on most days, the wet sand has been stepped upon by more common inhabitants like crabs, seabirds, humans, and dogs.
But on Monday morning, there was only evidence of one species on the sand -- dozens of tiny footprints from newly hatched sea turtles, walking from their nest towards the water.
"I checked the beach and couldn't see any hatchlings. Sometimes you'll find a few stragglers, or one upside-down. They did all seem to get down to where the water would have been, and I couldn't see any bird tracks, so I don't think they'd been interfered with," she told Yahoo News Australia.
After retiring six years ago, Jill has taken the same walk along Casuarina Beach in the city's north every day, and she's grown fond of the endangered turtles that return to the same nesting ground every year.
Only one in a thousand sea turtles makes it to adulthood, and they take two to three decades to reach maturity, so seeing signs of live turtles has left Jill feeling "delighted".
"I feel like a grandmother all over again. It's really gratifying to see turtles nesting on a city beach. You don't have to travel to an exotic place to see them," she said.
According to experts who have studied the nesting times and the type of turtles that flock to Casuarina Beach, the nesting mother and her babies were likely flatbacks. While this medium-sized species does feed in the waters of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, it only breeds in Australia, and like so many other native species, it is threatened with extinction.
Mick Guinea is an adjunct professor at Charles Darwin University and the chair of Darwin-based conservation group AusTurtle, and has been studying the city's turtles for decades.
"Darwin is the only capital city in Australia where you can see sea turtles. You can basically drive to the beach during the spring tides of June, July, and August. And about 50 days later, you can expect to see hatchlings," he told Yahoo News.
Mick has noticed turtle numbers around Casuarina Beach have experienced moderate fluctuations, but they remain largely stable at around 20 nests or fewer, between Buffalo Creek all the way to Lee Point to the north. Although the large car park lights would ordinarily trouble nesting turtles, the casuarinas that grow along the edge create shadows that make them feel comfortable.
Threats to the survival of flatback turtles are all human-related. They include rising sea levels and erosion caused by climate change, habitat destruction for coastal development, marine pollution, and disturbance by introduced predators like feral pigs, which will raid nests for eggs.