By Nancy Lai
Two green turtles found dead on beaches
KOTA KINABALU: The carcasses of two female green turtles (Chelonia mydas) were found in Kota Belud and Tanjung Lipat here in the last two days.
Both animals showed signs of internal haemorrhages, Sabah Wildlife Department director Agustine Tuuga said when commenting on the findings.
Augustine said that on Tuesday, a netizen shared information on Twitter about coming across a dead turtle on the Lok Kelia beach in Kota Belud yesterday and a team from SWD was sent there to collect it.
A post-mortem was conducted and the findings showed that it was a 94-cm long female green turtle of about 30 years old, he said.
The probable cause of death, he said, was chronic respiratory problem as all respiratory track was severely haemorrhaged.
“(There were) no gastrointestinal tract significant changes although we found some seaweed, the type that is grown for human consumption so she may have visited one of those farms on her last meal,” he added.
According to Augustine, in most of the cases these severe haemorrhages in vital organs are due to toxicity, red tide, toxins thrown into the sea and water pollution among others.
“Unfortunately in most of these cases the detection of toxins in laboratory is reduced when the animal is in advanced stage of decomposition, so it only left for us to still try to send to a proper toxicology lab for analysis or to send the histopathology test to analyse the tissue at cellular level,” he said.
On the dead turtle found in Tanjung Lipat yesterday morning, SWD collected the carcass for a post-mortem and the result showed that its liver and intestines were aggregated with haemorrhages.
“(The) Liver was also enlarged which is also a sign of toxins or viral disease. Samples were taken for further analysis. Also, although it might not have been the cause of death, this turtle was found with a fish hook embedded in its neck.
“Although the hook was only at subcutaneous (under the skin), this can cause septicaemia which provided a node for bacteria to enter the body,” he said, adding that the 60-cm long turtle was estimated to be in its 20s.