Green sea turtles have recovered in some populations following legal protection. Their ongoing welfare threats include entanglement, ingestion of marine debris, and fibropapillomatosis disease.
Green sea turtles face several significant welfare threats. Fibropapillomatosis causes large tumours on the eyes, flippers, and internal organs, impairing vision, mobility, and organ function — an often prolonged and debilitating disease for which no field treatment exists. Plastic ingestion causes intestinal blockage, reduced buoyancy, and starvation. Entanglement causes injury, exhaustion, and drowning. Boat strikes on foraging turtles in shallow coastal waters cause severe traumatic injuries that many animals survive with reduced welfare long-term. Warming nesting beaches producing predominantly female hatchlings threatens population sex ratios. Sea turtle rehabilitation centres treat injured animals and provide welfare data but cannot treat the underlying environmental drivers of disease and injury.