Questions:
Can turtles spread diseases to humans? 
- Asked by Vallerie Ng

How do people deal with dead turtles? 
-Asked by Foo Swee Lee

Answers:

1. If any, it has mostly been through contact with contamination in the water or on the turtle itself. The causative agent is usually Salmonellaor E. coli.

   Very recently, an Australian veterinary student reported the country’s first known case of a captive turtle acquiring a highly infectious disease caused by a mycobacteria which could potentially spread to humans.  The turtle ultimately died. Such cases have also been documented in the US.

   People who keep turtles as pets should be careful and learn how to recognise the symptoms and treat them before they start to spread.

2. Scientists will perform a post-mortem on dead turtles to find out the cause of death. They will keep samples of tissues for further analysis. A layman should try to inform the authorities if they ever encounter dead turtles stranded on the beach.  Documentation of such cases will help elucidate patterns of mortality, etc. We have encountered dead turtles stranded on beaches in Terengganu several times and most of them were probably killed in fishing gear. A picture of Azimi and Fong helping with a dead green turtle is posted below:

   

   Stranded adult male green turtle in Menagabang Telipot, Terengganu

This post is part of Turtle Blogathon 2009, where we stayed up for 24-straight-hours to blog about turtles. Posts written during the Turtle Blogathon are filed in the Turtle Blogathon 2009 category.

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