Water NSW criticised for ‘appalling’ decision after hundreds of turtles left to die in wetlands

A leading scientist has criticised an “appalling” New South Wales government agency decision to stop water flowing to wetlands in the state’s north-west, saying it was “absolutely crazy” that researchers had to scramble to save animals buried in drying mud.

Guardian Australia reported on Saturday that turtles, waterbirds, frogs and sheep had died after Water NSW abruptly stopped flows to the Gwydir wetlands region near Moree in March.

Environmental flows refer to water released by the government from dams and tributaries into rivers and ecosystems to restore their health.

The University of New England researchers were filmed digging broad-shelled turtles out of thigh-deep mud after the Gingham watercourse, which supports four Ramsar-listed sites, dried up.

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email

Thirty-nine turtles are being housed at Taronga Western Plains zoo in Dubbo because the water that could save them is being held in Copeton dam after concerns about inundation of private land were raised by a landholder.

Prof Richard Kingsford, a river ecologist and conservation biologist at the University of New South Wales, called the decision to withhold the flows “appalling”.

“I think it’s appalling because we have a catastrophe unfolding here,” he said.

“There’s the solution to fix it, which has been agreed by the federal government and the state governments: environmental flows are for the environment.

“And we essentially have a process where a landholder is stopping the water that will save these turtles [from] coming down the river.”

The NSW water minister, Rose Jackson, has said the government was working on “pathways to reinstate those deliveries while managing liability as soon as possible”. Guardian Australia has sought further information from the government about the circumstances that led to the water agency’s decision to stop the flows, including any advice it may have received related to inundation of private land.

Jackson said on Saturday the government had worked urgently to relocate as many turtles as possible and that they would be returned to the Gingham watercourse as soon as it was refilled.

Kingsford said: “It’s awful. It’s a classic bureaucratic tangle which should never happen. This water needs to be there to avoid this sort of catastrophe.

“This is a wetland that can’t go where it used to because farming keeps gobbling up the margins of the wetland.