Two turtles found dead on Sabah 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.
The probable cause of death, he said, was chronic respiratory problem as its respiratory tract suffered severe haemorrhage.
“(There were) no significant changes in the gastrointestinal tract, although we found some sea weed the type that is grown for human consumption so she may have visited one of those farms on her last meal,” he added.
According 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 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 Wednesday 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.
“Although the hook only at subcutaneous (under the skin), this can cause Septicaemia which provided a node for bacteria to enter the body,” he stressed.