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Helping Sick and Injured Sea Turtles Heal & Return to the Wild

How Conservation and Welfare Complement Eachother

Typically, conservation medicine tends to focus on population level interventions to help save endangered species from extinction. That could be by, for example, investigating the possibility of vaccinating packs of painted dogs against canine distemper virus, or looking at how better overall husbandry can prevent outbreaks of viral psittacine beak and feather disease in rare birds like the echo parakeet in Mauritius. Meanwhile, the care of individual sick or injured animals tends to fall more within the sphere of traditional animal welfare work, where every single animal is similarly deserving of resources and treatment, regardless of the status of its species; saving a feral pigeon is just as important as saving a tiger.

Equally part of caring for all life on our planet, where these two approaches overlap is when there are so few animals left of a particular species, or where populations of a threatened species are particularly fragmented, that conservation medicine can legitimately intervene to help any individual animal. If numbers are sufficiently low, any sick or injured animal that can be successfully treated and returned to the wild, or even taken into a captive breeding programme, has real potential to breed and contribute to the continuation of their species.

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Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation

Take the example of sea turtles. With every species now threatened by extinction, and, in addition, as we come to better understand the integral roles they each play in maintaining a healthy marine ecosystem (read more: https://bit.ly/46i0s2B), it is right that a proportion of conservation efforts are directed at helping any sick or injured turtle that finds its way into a rescue centre. This is surely all the more justified given the anthropogenic nature of the main threats these extraordinary animals are facing, from entanglement in discarded fishing gear and ingestion of plastic waste, to boat strikes and direct attacks from fishermen. Read more: https://bit.ly/3Flyl6H

At WVI we have been working with two flagship turtle rescue centres in the Mediterranean, where the record levels of plastic in the sea are a huge threat to marine life, for a number of years.

Partnering with ARCHELON Sea Turtle Rescue Centre

Since 2019, our WVI Turtle Team of marine specialist vet Tania Monreal and veterinary nurse Matthew Rendle, have been making regular visits to Greece’s ARCHELON rescue centre, just south of Athens. Matt and Tania visit two to four times a year to train and advise the permanent staff and seasonal volunteers, in order to maximise the chances of recovery of the turtles in their care. In between visits, Matt and Tania are always available to advise remotely. Improving husbandry and welfare for the turtles often means that they get better faster and the less time they spend in the rescue centre, the higher their chances of a successful return to the wild. A quicker turn around also means creating space to give more turtles a chance to benefit from a stay at the centre.

As a specialist in the care, rehabilitation and conservation of marine and aquatic animals, Tania has helped introduce appropriate veterinary protocols and techniques, which Matt has shared his expertise in wound care and healing, as well as in exotic anaesthesia. Both help with practical clinical work too, focusing on anaesthesia, blood sampling, and how staff and volunteers can get the best use out of their existing equipment. Tania excels at removing the trickiest of swallowed fishing hooks, often with fishing line attached, while Matt has demonstrated how turtles should be X-rayed, and even shown how physiotherapy can help rebuild flipper strength.

Matt and Tania have also advised on diet, enrichment and pain relief, to ensure that the mostly loggerhead turtles coming into the centre are given the best possible care in order to speed up their recovery and maximise their chances of recovery and successful return to the wild. They have been able to identify issues connected with uneven exposure to UV light, when turtles are moved between indoor and outdoor tanks. The change in levels can lead to calcification of blood vessels and other problems. In addition, Matt and Tania have advised on optimal temperatures for the tanks, as turtles that are kept in water that is too cold can experience significant slowing down of digestion and other processes, causing food to rot in the gut.

About a quarter of the turtles coming into the centre come in suffering from plastic ingestion or the consequence of collisions with boats. Another quarter will be victims of entanglement, having become caught up in fishing gear or other debris, which sometimes results in amputation. The majority of remaining victims will typically have been injured through the deliberate actions of humans. Fishermen often feel they are in competition with turtles and will attack those they feel threaten their catch.

Four years of working closely with ARCHELON has meant that the rescue centre team are now confident to carry out most of the necessary procedures themselves, but with the knowledge that expert advice is always on hand.

2023 Sea Turtle Health and Welfare Workshop

ARCHELON is well known to rescue centres from around Greece, who often transfer badly injured or very sick turtles to the team for more advanced care. In February 2023 we held our first dedicated Sea Turtle Health and Welfare Workshop at ARCHELON, for turtle rehabbers from across Greece and further afield. Delegates came from as far away as Dubai and Brighton, as well as from Rhodes, Crete, Kefalonia and other parts of the country. The workshop was very popular and helped disseminate information about many aspects of turtle care and medicine. Do you know, for example, that whilst manuka honey is generally great at promoting wound healing, it has to be used with great care on head wounds, as it will draw fluid away from any exposed brain tissue. Or that turtles must not be released too quickly after an MRI scan, given the risk that the magnetism to which they are exposed may disrupt their unique navigational ability, which uses Earth's magnetic fields. Overall the workshop was an opportunity to forge new connections between rescue centres, as well as expand access to Matt and Tania’s expertise. Plans are being made for our next turtle workshop, which we hope will take place in the UK, at Sea Life Brighton, in February next year.

Why are turtles washing up on the beach in Ghana?

While he’s been in Ghana over the last two years to work with endangered primates, vet nurse Matthew Rendle has become increasingly aware of the high number of turtles washing up dead or close to death on beaches not far from the capital, Accra. He’s been talking to staff from the Ghanaian Wildlife Division and we hope to take forward plans soon to help with training in turtle first aid, teach fishermen how to deal with entangled turtles and support the creation of a community team to help with stranded animals. It’s also going to be essential to find out why the animals have died, so Matt would like to train local staff in post mortem techniques too.

Individual animals can play a vital role in saving species from extinction

Whether it’s a loggerhead turtle that’s swallowed a fishing hook in Greece, a painted dog with a broken leg in Zimbabwe, or a vulture caught up in kite-string in India, where numbers of a species are critically low, it is vital to try to save sick and injured animals and give them the chance of returning to the wild and being part of the solution for their species. At WVI, this is often a vital element in our training of local conservationists, vets and biologists, alongside building capacity in wider disease surveillance, translocations and reintroductions of endangered species.

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