Dead Honu at Five Caves / Five Graves

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Shaka Doug

Shaka Doug

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Location
Kihei, Maui, Hawaii 96753, middle of the 808!
# of dives
Aloha....

Does anyone know anything about the dead sea turtle in the cave at Five Caves? It's been there for a while now... at least a couple of weeks. I thought it would have either decomposed or been eaten by worms and scavengers by now but it's taking a long time. It appears that it suffered from the papilloma virus and maybe the entire body was full of the tumors / growths. The site of it is pretty ugly and the shell has broken into many pieces. Some bones are piling up and they resemble moose antlers.

Is it illegal to collect the bones? Would there be any chance of transferring the virus from this dead animal to living turtles (or humans)? Anyone have any thoughts?

Mahalo!

Shaka Doug
 
Contact your local DAR office - they may want to perform a necroscopy.
 
What a shame Doug. I found one up at Honolua a few years back. I pulled it up on shore and let the authorities know. Just didn't seem right to leave it down there since it also had tons of tumors on it. So far all I caught was a case of grumpy. But I may have had that going in.
 
Thanks for the advice Santy. I called just now and gave the info. They say that NOAA may try to follow up on it. Now I guess we just wait to see what happens. This turtle isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

SHAKA!!
 
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