New medical findings show that sea turtles can suffer from decompression sickness, also known as the bends. This is important for two reasons: it was the first diagnoses of its kind in a “non-human diving vertebrate” and secondly, it identifies a new conservation threat to sea turtles by-caught in fishing nets. Till this study, sea turtles who were incidentally caught in fishing nets were released under the assumption that no long term, lethal damage occurred. However, this study shows that a serious threat could be lurking inside the sea turtle and introduces the question is the mortality rate of by-catch higher than we think. There is a lot of work ahead, getting these new findings out into the conservation world and determining how to identify and successfully treat potential bends patients. The good news is these two sea turtles responded well to treatment and have been released successfully back into the Mediterranean Sea. Read full article here: whoi.edu/page.do?pid=139576
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 14:15:10 +0000
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