Marine turtles face multiple threats including plastic ingestion, fisheries bycatch, beach development, climate change and illegal trade, with conservation programmes protecting nesting females and hatchlings at critical beaches globally.
Marine turtle welfare encompasses both the conservation threats to populations and the individual welfare of turtles throughout their long lives. Turtles entangled in ghost fishing gear can suffer for days or weeks before escaping or dying. Plastic ingestion causes slow death from obstruction and malnutrition. Beach disorientation from artificial lighting causes hatchlings to walk inland rather than toward the sea, exhausting themselves and dying from dehydration. Nesting females disturbed by beach development experience stress and reproductive failure. Individual turtle welfare and population conservation are inseparable — the recovery of turtle populations creates welfare benefits at individual scale through turtles living longer, undisturbed lives.