Sea turtles with tumors fill Florida hospital

[Sunlei]

Source: The Peninsulaqatar

February 08, 2016 - 12:00:00 am

This endangered green sea turtle, about two years old and too young for the staff to know yet whether it is male or female, is infected with fibropapillomatosis, a potentially deadly disease caused by a type of herpes virus.

Experts still don't understand quite how the virus spreads, or what causes it, though some research has pointed to agricultural runoff, pollution and global warming.

As the population of green sea turtles rebounds in and around the Florida Keys, cases of fibropapillomatosis have exploded too, filling the corridors of the United States' oldest rescue and rehab facility, known simply as the Turtle Hospital.

Each turtle can require several operations to remove all the tumors, which cover their necks, underbellies, and eyes, blinding them and making it hard for them to find food.

Read more: http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/news/international/369477/sea-turtles-with-tumors-fill-florida-hospital

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"I have this horrible feeling that as the oceans warm we are going to see more and more disease," he says.

Zirkelbach says about half the green sea turtles in the area are infected, and the cases are getting worse.

"In 2012 it was rare to have a turtle coming in with tumors on both eyes. By fall of 2013 almost every turtle that came in with this virus had both eyes covered with tumors."

After spending a year in the hospital's pools, tumor-free, the turtles may be released.

But if the lesions get into the kidneys and lungs, there is no way to save them.

These days, just one in five green sea turtles with fibropapillomatosis will make it back out to the wild, says Zirkelbach.

"They are just too sick."

[trillion]

1. Dang! Good luck to the turtles. I hope Florida catches the poluters.

Maybe it's global warming but I doubt it this early in the game because the size of the mammal and it's not dependent on there being sea ice.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

2. Could be that oil spill a while back.

[Cassiopeia]

11. Or all of the Corexit used to try to hide it.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

12. Fight chem with chem.

[CountAllVotes]

14. I believe you are right

Its been a few years since the BP disaster. Now we are seeing just some of the results.

Who would eat any seafood coming out of these polluted waters? Perhaps not I, but I'm sure many others are.

And, you know that what you eat you are!

How incredibly SAD!!!

& recommend.

[jillan]

3. ----

[trillion]

7. Totally agree.

[appalachiablue]

4. Good luck to the beautiful sea turtles in the glorious Keyes. What's happening to creatures around

the world is so sad. Humans are turning the planet into one filthy, poisonous and hazardous garbage dump.

[ffr]

5. Let's not forget acidification. Dead zones where our rivers meet the ocean too.

One river after another, dead zones in the ocean, acidification, thinning shells and mutations for crustaceans, warming seas with less oxygen in them. How much longer before we realize and act?

There's just too damn many of us. We're the root of all the bad that's going on. Less of us, the sooner Earth can heal.

[trillion]

6. I think there are too many of us getting away with dumping toxic chemicals and other toxic things

that created those dead zone. There are too many people buying officials who should stop the dumpings and arrest them.

[Dustlawyer]

10. Gave up oysters for this reason.

Another mass extinction event in the making, right in front of our eyes! The MSM and Florida officials won't say Climate Change, not discussed. I hope we don't put ourselves on the list, most of the world's oxygen comes from phytoplankton. They are starting to disappear too!

[OnyxCollie]

8. (sigh)

[Lorien]

9. The tragic effects of deregulation, unfettered greed and denial

The shorelines are currently covered in dead seabirds in Alaska. Whales are beaching themselves in large numbers on European coasts. Only 38 giraffe remain in the Congo. Yet still we don't make Climate change a priority. There are SO MANY things that we could be doing NOW to slow it's effects. But no, the establishment loves disaster Capitalism, and most people are too distracted with "terrorism" and celebrity nonsense.

[Judi Lynn]

13. So wrong, so unnecessary. Sad beyond description. People need to know this is happening. n/t

[CountAllVotes]

15. Some ignore the facts

Even if they do know will they still eat what is being caught off the coast of Florida and elsewhere?

Seems not and eating factory farmed seafood is not an option for many, myself included, and that is because factory farmed seafood tastes like crap!

What a sad sick world we are living in. What if anything can be done to change it?

I really don't care to eat a salted tumor found on some fish, etc. for dinner, that is a guarantee!

[restorefreedom]

16. poor turtles...

isn't deregulation, rollback of environmentsl protection, and unfettered capitalism great?

[Vinca]

17. Crap from the oil spill? Global warming?

One way or another we seem determined to kill the planet.

[Dont call me Shirley]

18. Probably Rush Limbaugh's fault. He hates sea turtles.