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Managing long-term wellness in captive sea turtles

Part of: AWF Wild Animal Welfare

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

LD Wood
LD Wood*
Affiliation:
National Save The Sea Turtle Foundation, 4419 West Tradewinds Ave, Ft Lauderdale, Fl 33308, USA
*
email: Larry@floridahawksbills.com
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Abstract

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Circumstances surrounding advances in stranding response and veterinary care have created a growing need for the long-term housing of captive sea turtles. However, the difficulty in recreating natural conditions in captive settings places a responsibility on caregivers to offset wild-type behavioural deficits with enrichment programming that is, preferably, commensurate with the limitations of each enclosure. Though standardised, multi-institutional behavioural monitoring programmes are currently lacking for marine turtles, facilities housing (or planning to house) sea turtles for the long-term are strongly advised to include ‘wellness’ as a fundamental part of their animal care protocol. Here, concepts of wellness and enrichment in sea turtles are reviewed, and a framework for developing longterm behavioural monitoring programming is provided.

Keywords

animal welfareaquariumbehaviourenrichmentsea turtlewellness
Type
Research Article
Information
Animal Welfare , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , November 2022 , pp. 423 - 432
Copyright
© 2022 Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

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