Climate change is altering sea turtle egg incubation temperatures, affecting sex ratios, hatchling health, and population viability with cascading welfare implications.
Sea turtle incubation welfare connects individual hatchling welfare to population-level conservation outcomes in a climate change context. Hatchlings from overheated nests that survive may have compromised health and fitness that reduces their long-term welfare and survival probability. At population level, extreme sex ratio skew threatens reproductive viability of populations that have already survived multiple threats. Conservation interventions to moderate incubation temperatures - shading, relocation, cooling - have welfare benefits for individual hatchlings and potentially significant population benefits. The ethics of interventionist conservation requires careful scientific assessment but the welfare and conservation case for action is compelling.