Sea turtles face multiple anthropogenic threats that cause individual suffering on a massive scale, from fishing bycatch to plastic ingestion and coastal development.
Sea turtles captured as fishing bycatch face drowning, injury from gear entanglement, and the extreme stress of air exposure and confinement. Those that survive bycatch encounters often suffer barotrauma from rapid surfacing or internal injuries from swallowed hooks. Plastic ingestion causes a slow decline over weeks as digestion becomes increasingly impaired. The combination of chronic threats means many sea turtles experience prolonged suffering before death. Wildlife rehabilitation centres that treat injured turtles relieve individual suffering while serving conservation goals.