Alarmingly, there seems to be a lot of contamination in Australia's Great Barrier Reef, if you go by the turtle herpes outbreak. Due to coral bleaching with climate change, there seems to be a steady reduction rate in the turtle numbers, even as fishing nets and starvation here are leading to havoc.
"We see these tumours in turtles in very localised hotspots around the world where there is heavy human activity ... We think there must be some external trigger that causes the tumour development," Jones told New Scientist.
Turtles in healthy marine environments also carry the virus, even though it becomes dormant, and is not detected. "We think there must be some external trigger that causes the tumour development," she says.
The list of disorders assaulting them are innumerable: tumours due to pollution and fibro papillomatosis due to tumour virus. The tumours seem to be damaging their internal organs, shell, tail, flippers and eyes.
The tumours even blind the turtles when they expand in size, which makes it tough for the turtles to spot predators or other blocks, like boats.
Karina Jones of James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, said that the tumours infect the turtles, which "are quite skinny and have other pathogens affecting them" and killing them.
Marine biologist and co-founder and director of the Cairns Turtle Rehabilitation Centre, Jennie Gilbert, said that food-supplying seabeds do not get repaired following cyclones. Sea-crust beds in Townsville north become affected.
"It really is a problem. We've had a couple of turtles that have died, we've opened them up and they're full of fishing line ... And I think people... have to take a step back and say, 'Let's dispose of this responsibly and let's do this before we actually lose so many animals that we may get to a stage of extinction,'" Gilbert told the ABC.
In order to manage the wounds inflicted on the turtles due to the boat and finishing net assaults, the Cairns Turtle Rehabilitation Centre is on the job. It has been helping the injured turtles for 16 years. However, only when the turtles are on the brink of starvation, they are brought in, feels the organisation.
