Footage supplied by the office of the Greens legislative council member Cate Faehrmann shows scientists digging to reach broad-shelled turtles stuck under boggy mud in the Gingham watercourse. Researchers from the University of New England have been desperately trying to help more than 300 turtles they say have been left to die in the Gwydir wetlands after the NSW state water agency stopped environmental flows after a landowner complained about overflow on their property. UNE conservation biologist Prof Debbie Bower called the scene a 'disaster'. 'These deaths are incomprehensible, given there is environmental water sitting in the dam.