In 1991, Tony and his partner Nancy FitzSimmons, a conservation geneticist, travelled to Australia where they worked alongside Dr Colin Limpus tracking loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) using VHF technology at Mon Repos turtle rockery in Queensland—a revolutionary tracking technology at the time—before Tony and Nancy both began their PhDs.

Tony worked as a freshwater turtle biologist for two years after completing his PhD, which would influence future decisions about water management in south-east Queensland.  

From 1999 onwards, Tony and Nancy have spent several weeks each year paddling out in a canoe and snorkelling through creeks in remote areas of the Kimberley, conducting capture-mark- release studies of freshwater turtles that were previously understudied.

This mostly self-funded research resulted in a dataset that significantly contributed to conservation management in the region and is a legacy of Tony’s dedication to freshwater turtle research. So great is Tony’s legacy, that a newly discovered species was named after him in 2009—the Camallanus tuckeri—an intestinal parasite of side-necked turtle species in the Kimberley! 

In 2013, Tony began his role as Senior Research Scientist with the North West Shelf Flatback Turtle Conservation Program at the then Department of Parks and Wildlife. The flatback turtle (Natator depressus) was an exciting species for him to work on, given how little was known about their biology, behaviour and populations.

Tony’s background in stable isotope analysis was vital to the team, enabling them to understand flatback turtle diets without having to catch feeding flatbacks in the wild—a feat accomplished a few years later in Yawuru Nagulagun Roebuck Bay Marine Park with Tony at the helm.

Throughout his career at the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions and its predecessor agencies, Tony played an integral role in discovering the distribution and density of flatback turtle nesting sites across the Kimberley through the Western Australian Marine Science Institute (WAMSI) Kimberley Turtle Project, which involved many weeks camping at remote beaches ‘ground truthing’ aerial surveys with Traditional Owners. 

Throughout his career, Dr Tony Tucker became renowned in his own right, publishing more than 150 peer- reviewed scientific papers and book chapters about freshwater crocodiles, freshwater turtles and marine turtles.

His expertise spanned many ground- breaking concepts, where he collaborated on projects including methods to age long-lived reptiles through skeletochronology (bone growth rings) and the calculation of epigenetic clocks, revolutionary VHF radio and satellite tracking techniques, applications of stable isotope analysis, and determining population genetics and dynamics of several species.