Olly Pitt – Marine Biologist and General Manager of Australian Seabird Rescue
Photos courtesy of Tom Armstrong and Olly Pitt
Originally hailing from the Gold Coast, Olly Pitt relocated to the Northern Rivers to study her Bachelor in Marine Biology. While studying at Southern Cross University she also volunteered at Australian Seabird Rescue with her good mate Kelsey. Olly is now the General Manager of Australian Seabird Rescue in Ballina with Kelsey by her side as the trusty Assistant Manager. We swung by Australian Seabird Rescue in Ballina on a rainy morning to chat about scary birds, fishing entanglements (#Dontcuttheline) and why healthier rivers should mean less sharks in the Northern Rivers. Here’s the result:
Hey Olly! Let’s get the ball rolling. How did you wind up being the general manager of Australian Seabird Rescue (ASR)
(laughs) How would I even explain it? Basically I started watching documentaries on YouTube where people were out tagging sharks and stuff like that and I was thinking “Hey I wanna do that!”. I’d recently lost my job – this was way back in 2011 – and I just said “I wanna do this”. It wasn’t something I’d wanted to do my whole life. I didn’t always want to be a marine biologist it just kinda came about one day. I knuckled down, worked hard, got into my degree and went from there.
And you studied at Southern Cross University in Lismore?
Yeah it was so much fun. I loved that uni because it was so hands on, so much field work involved and because it wasn’t as big of a university you got a lot of one on one time with the lecturers.
Eventually I started volunteering here at Seabird Rescue at the end of 2013 with my friend Kelsey – who’s now my assistant manager – and we volunteered on and off for a number of years in between travelling and studying. My passion was always sharks – I liked working with turtles at ASR but I’d always wanted to do more with sharks and shark conservation.
But then, all of a sudden, we did a post-mortem here on a sea turtle that had sadly died and to be honest it just blew my mind! Sea turtle anatomy was unlike anything I’d ever looked at or read about so it just inspired me to stay with turtles. Birds actually took a while to grow on me – I was actually quite scared of birds when I started volunteering here.
A critically endangered Beachstone Curlew at Mobbs Bay
Cause I guess the birds can be pretty cagey when they’re injured and confined right?
Yep they wanna hurt ya. Funnily enough I was actually most scared of the pelicans and they’re the ones that don’t hurt you at all. (laughs)
So yeah, eventually a job came up at ASR as assistant to the general manager and I almost didn’t go for it cause I was studying honours at the time and didn’t think I could do both. That would have been silly cause I eventually got the job and have loved every minute since!
I guess the thing I want to get across to people is that you don’t have to be the person that gets the top grades or the person that has wanted to do something your entire life. Passion comes as you grow as well and that’s what I want people to know.
That’s cool! Did you ever meet Lance Ferris (founder of ASR)?
Sadly no. His presence is definitely still around though, that’s for sure. I’ve watched every single thing on him that I could find and he just seemed like a very kind person. We still get people coming into the centre with stories like “we knew Lance, he was such a legend!”
What is your favourite Northern Rivers species?
Ooooooo that’s a really gooooood question. (pauses) Can it be from the sea? Do they have to hang around?
Well we do say “From the Big Scrub to the Sea” so yeah of course!
Obviously I love my sea turtles so much. I think I really love hawksbill sea turtles. They’re not known to be in the Northern Rivers, according to data, in our area but they are. That’s a big misconception. We’re starting to see more of them as we see climate shifts but they’ve been around here for a while.
In terms of around Ballina it’s hard to go past the pelican, they’re just so good.
Hawksbill Turtle at Australian Seabird Rescue
The name suggests you guys only work with seabirds but it seems like you work with plenty of other wildlife too?
ASR started out by just rescuing pelicans so that’s where the name comes from. Over the years people started bring Lance [Ferris] other kinds of animals too so we’ve evolved and now we rescue seabirds, shorebirds, sea turtles and sea snakes as well.
Sea turtles probably bring in most of the attention cause they’re very cute but we get around double the amount of birds as we get sea turtles.
Do you have a maximum capacity here?
Yes and no. We’ll never say no to rescuing an animal. Generally at capacity we say that we won’t take more than 30 turtles. Then we might start ringing around to other rehabilitation centres like SeaWorld or Dolphin Marine Rescue however it’s never really been an issue because by the time we get a new injured turtle we’ve usually got some that are ready to be released.
What are the main types of injuries you guys see at ASR?
With birds its 100% fishing entanglements. And especially in the last 18 months we’ve seen a huge increase since COVID because people want to go out and enjoy the little things again. However now it’s about educating the public on responsible fishing. We’re not saying “don’t go out” we’re just saying “if you want to go out make sure you educate yourself on best practice”. If you were to hook or entangle a bird by accident our campaign is Don’t Cut the Line. Just call your local rescue group and we’ll guide you through what you need to do.
In regards to Sea Turtles there’s not just one thing. Plastic ingestion is still an issue – I can’t really see it slowing down ever, especially now with hatchlings and microplastics. Fishing entanglement is also an issue and we have a turtle in care at the moment that suffered a boat strike.
We are starting to see other affects as well which we’re not actually sure of the cause. The turtles are in a completely emaciated condition, parasite loads are high, it could be malnutrition and we’re looking at ocean acidification affecting their skin as well as climate shifts. We’re also looking at food resources diminishing – the list goes on. We’re just starting to see turtles coming in in this condition so hopefully we’ll have some answers in the next few years.
A brooding Silver Gull – too often the victim of fishing entanglements.
What does a healthy Northern Rivers look like to you?
I would like to see our rivers have a better rating than what they currently do, I’d like to see clean rivers. (Ed note: US TOO!). If we have clean rivers we have clean oceans and in the Northern Rivers we are just not there at the moment. A healthy Northern Rivers is an educated area and an educated community. I think if it starts with the rivers we can move forward from there.
Also this is probably a little controversial around here but I’ll say it anyway – if we have healthier rivers then there’s a good chance we’ll have fewer sharks, due to the fact that it would address our currently massive nutrient outflows from our rivers into the ocean. There’s plenty of scientific evidence to support that theory too.
We donated to the bird aviary upgrade. Why is this upgrade so important?
The more we learn about bird behaviour and the more we learn about seabird rehab, we just need to keep up with the times and upgrade. That aviary has been there for a long time – the structure is still great and the aviary is in perfect condition. We just want to make it better.
What can people out in the community do for our local birdlife in a day to day situation?
Education around fishing is obviously a big one cause we still see so many birds coming in that are suffering from this. Apart from that you can do your best. Basically:
· Don’t litter
· Don’t cut the line (#dontcuttheline)
· Sign petitions
· Don’t release helium balloons into the wild – that is having a huge impact
· Go to your local beach clean-ups
· VOTE! Know who you’re voting for and what their key messages are
· Reduce your plastic consumption
I think it’s really important not to be discouraged or overwhelmed by the amount of things you can do. You can do little things every day and if you make a mistake one day – do better the next! That’s my motto.