Rising ocean temperatures and coastal thermal pollution affect sea turtle physiology, behaviour and sex ratios, with profound welfare and conservation consequences.
Climate change creates welfare harms for sea turtles through multiple pathways - altered sex ratios threaten population viability, changing thermal regimes cause cold stunning events, and disease outbreaks linked to warmer waters cause suffering in individual animals. Conservation interventions including nest shading and assisted migration of nests to cooler beaches are being explored as short-term mitigations.