The Caraplace

The world’s first turtle health research facility at JCU provides an environment in which to study sea turtle health in great detail under suitable conditions.

In the indoor ‘Caraplace’ we can house 48 little green sea turtle hatchlings – each in their own tank – where they can freely eat, swim and rest on a sub-surface platform. The facility caters for the needs of the turtles under near natural conditions, but it also enables us to study them close up, which is impossible to do in the wild.

The ‘Outer Shell’

Opened in May 2018 after a lot of hard work and some very generous donations, the Outer Shell extension to the Caraplace research facility provides the young turtles with a secure outdoor nursery area in which they can swim about and bask in the sun throughout the day. The outdoor ‘Turtle Nursery’ protects hatchlings from predators while allowing them exposure to sunlight via retractable shade sails that will keep them cool in summer and warm in winter.

Taking care of the Caraplace

There is a lot of husbandry to get through every day in order to make sure all the needs of the residents are well catered for and along the way we have become experts in how to do this.

Of course it helps that the residents are ridiculously cute.

Keeping the Caraplace and its residents in the best possible condition requires a lot of constant time, effort and money. We welcome any donations to help keep our little hatchlings fed and housed.