Dr Col Limpus, Senior Principal Conservation Officer with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, is one of the world’s leading experts on marine turtles. His great interest in the creatures began when he was just a boy who loved studying turtle nests on the beaches near Bundaberg in Queensland. For Col this has meant a lifetime of research into these incredible animals.

In the early 1970’s he marked over 100,000 loggerhead turtle hatchlings and has been waiting ever since for some of them to return as adults and lay their own eggs. Amazingly some have returned, nearly 30 years later. Col has been championing measures aimed at protecting turtles and his contributions to turtle conservation were recognised with the award of the Public Service Medal in 1993. His assistance on the protection of marine turtles has been requested internationally and he has advised countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Col will talk about the amazing life of marine turtles, how important our Australian populations are, the sort of research he conducts, including "turtle rodeos" and the ways in which turtles and fisheries interact.  He will discuss how the introduction of Turtle Excluder Devices in tropical prawn trawl fisheries has helped turtles, the role of circle hooks in oceanic longline fisheries and what else needs to be done.