New research is detailing how environmental stressors, including heavy metals, brought on by human activity are harming coastal green sea turtle populations – work that researchers hope will inform conservation efforts going forward.
New research is detailing how environmental stressors, including heavy metals, brought on by human activity are harming coastal green sea turtle populations – work that researchers hope will inform conservation efforts going forward.
In a study that appears in the journal Science of the Total Environment, a multidisciplinary group of researchers set about evaluating turtle health, water quality and other factors in the aftermath of a catastrophic mass death of green turtles in Australia.
“We found evidence of heavy metals – particularly cobalt – in sea turtle populations where we also saw signs of illness,” said lead author Mark Flint, program head of Zoo and Wildlife Conservation Medicine and Ecosystem Health in the College of Veterinary Medicine at The Ohio State University.
“Though we can’t be sure what caused this, there were cyclones and major flooding in this part of Australia two years prior to the start of our study, and that could have drawn out sediment rich in heavy metals that had been lying in rivers and streams benign for the past 50 years,” Flint said.
Read more at Ohio State University
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