Sea turtles face multiple anthropogenic welfare threats that cause significant suffering to individual animals and threaten population recovery.
Sea turtle welfare threats operate across the entire lifecycle: hatchlings on nesting beaches face lighting disorientation and plastic pollution; juveniles and adults face longline entanglement, ingested plastic causing intestinal blockage, and fibropapillomatosis. The welfare harm of fibropapillomatosis is particularly significant - turtles develop multiple large tumors on the eyes, flippers, and body that impair vision, movement, and organ function, causing progressive welfare deterioration. Individual turtle rehabilitation from plastic ingestion and fishing entanglement provides welfare benefit and conservation data, but population-level welfare improvement requires addressing the systemic causes: fishing gear modification, plastic reduction, and beach lighting management.