Comprehensive health assessment of green turtles Chelonia mydas nesting in southeastern Florida, USA

Important indicators of population health needed for large-scale sea turtle population
recovery efforts include demographics, disease and mortality trends, condition indices, and
baseline blood data. With this comprehensive health assessment of adult female green sea turtles
Chelonia mydas nesting on Juno Beach, Florida, USA, we (1) established baseline health indices;
(2) identified individuals with evidence of infection by chelonid alphaherpes viruses 5 and 6
(ChHV5, ChHV6), which are implicated in fibropapillomatosis and respiratory and skin disease,
respectively; and (3) compared measured health indices between turtles that did versus those that
did not test positive for ChHV5 and/or ChHV6. All 60 turtles included in the study were in good
body condition with no external fibropapillomatosis tumors. Hematological and biochemical reference
intervals were established. Via quantitative PCR (qPCR), 5/60 turtles (8%) tested positive
for ChHV5, and all turtles were negative for ChHV6. Of 41 turtles tested for antibodies to ChHV5
and ChHV6, 29% and 15% tested positive, respectively, and 10% tested positive for antibodies to
both viruses. Notably, there were no statistically significant differences between health variables
for nesting turtles that tested positive for ChHV5 DNA versus those that tested negative; and also
no differences between turtles that tested positive for ChHV5 or ChHV6 antibodies and those that
did not. This suggests that these viruses are enzootically stable in Florida’s adult green turtles.
This study provides a health profile of nesting green turtles in southeastern Florida applicable to
temporal and spatial investigations of this and other populations.