Broome resident Kevin Smith has been dubbed the Cable Beach 'turtle whisperer' for his efforts monitoring nesting activity on the famous beach.

Every wet season for the past decade Mr Smith has patrolled one of Australia's most famous tourist beaches, scouting for turtle nesting tracks.

"It's been a good year - lots of activity," he said.

"I've seen three turtles nesting this season, which is more than I've seen in the past nine years."

Turtles typically lay their eggs and then leave the nests, leaving the eggs to hatch alone after about eight weeks.

Mr Smith coordinates the Cable Beach Community Turtle Monitoring Program, a volunteer initiative run in conjunction with the Yawuru rangers which records evidence of turtle activity.

"[We record] how many nests, how many times the turtles have come up and tried to nest and haven't been successful," Mr Smith, who rises at dawn to make his patrols, said.

"And then we'll look to see how many of those actually hatch and try to get an estimate of how many baby turtles come out of those nests by the number of tracks we see in the sand."

After about 20 years, turtles reach sexual maturity and return to the beach they hatched on to nest and lay their own eggs.

In the winter months, tourists flock to Cable Beach to thaw out, but in the off season, the beach dunes become a flatback turtle nesting hotspot.

"A lot of people don't realise there are turtles nesting on Cable Beach here - even people living in town," Mr Smith said.

"We're looking at six kilometres of beach here and I think the average over the 10 years is somewhere around 40 [nests] but it's been as low as 13."

Turtle monitoring program vital to understanding species survival

Yawuru ranger supervisor Luke Puertollano said the information was vital to understanding how the flatback species survives in such a busy space.

"It helps the Department [of Environment and Conservation] in knowing that there are still turtles nesting on Cable Beach," he said.

"Every year the statistics go up and down and that shows us trends and whether that population is growing or falling.

Volunteers Kevin Smith, Bret Garrity and Samara Galloway document a turtle nest. ( ABC News: Natalie Jones )

"If they are falling, we can identify key factors like if it's predation, if it's vehicle access, then they're things the department can manage."

Mr Puertollano said the Shire of Broome had closed off vehicle access to the beach during high tides, which had helped, and the presence of volunteers also increased awareness of how to protect the turtles.

But Mr Smith said predators were also a threat.

"There's certainly a very active, or possibly two very active goannas along this stretch of beach," he said.

"And then once they find the nests, dogs seems to find them as well. Once they've had a go, crabs and hermit crabs seem to get in and have a go as well."

He said new volunteers to help patrol the beach were always welcome.