JWD
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

Journal of Wildlife Diseases, 45(4), 2009, pp. 1138-1142
© Wildlife Disease Association  2009
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Chaloupka, M.
Right arrow Articles by Work, T. M.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Chaloupka, M.
Right arrow Articles by Work, T. M.

SHORT COMMUNICATION

Rise and Fall over 26 Years of a Marine Epizootic in Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles

 Milani Chaloupka1,4, George H. Balazs2 and Thierry M. Work3

1 Ecological Modelling Services, P/L PO Box 6150, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland 4067, Australia
2 Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries, 2570 Dole Street, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA
3 US Geological Survey–National Wildlife Health Center, Honolulu Field Station, PO Box 50167, Honolulu, Hawaii 96850, USA
4 Corresponding author (email: m.chaloupka{at}uq.edu.au)

ABSTRACT:   Estimates of chronic disease prevalence are needed to improve our understanding of marine disease epizootiology, which is poorly known for marine megafauna such as marine turtles. An emerging worldwide threat to green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) is fibropapillomatosis (FP), which is a pandemic tumor-forming disease associated with herpes-viruses. We report on a 26-yr FP epidemic in the Hawaiian Archipelago and show that apparent disease prevalence in the world’s main endemic hot spot increased rapidly following a late 1980s outbreak, peaked during the mid-1990s, and then declined steadily ever since. While this disease is a major cause of sea turtle stranding in Hawaiian waters and can be fatal, we also show that long-term tumor regression can occur even for turtles with advanced FP. The endemic Hawaiian green turtle stock was severely depleted by overexploitation prior to protection under the US Endangered Species Act in 1978. This stock has increased significantly ever since, despite exposure to a major chronic disease epidemic that is currently declining.
  Key words:  Chelonia mydas, fibropapillomatosis, green sea turtle, marine epizootic.






HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright © 2009 by the Wildlife Disease Association.