The game of survival for the great Green Sea Turtle has just
recently changed for the worst. Less than two hundred years ago
the Hawaiian’s hunted Green Sea Turtles for their meat and shell.
Then came the proverbial and literal “white man” who pillaged
the islands for many resources including the Green Sea Turtles,
which almost lead to a complete extinction. Then scientists and
activists motivated the politicians in the 1970’s to pass strict
protection laws for the sea turtles and ever since we have seen an
incredible increase in their numbers and ultimately it has been
a great success, against the odds, story. Today there is something
much more sinister at work on these great creatures. It’s a little
known virus called Fibropapilloma, or for short FP.
It’s hard to accept that the great sea turtle, who has survived
since the age of the dinosaurs, survived the ice age, and survived
the humans, could face annihilation from such a banal
cause. How could this be? And the alarming thing is that it was
first detected in the Hawaiian Green Sea turtles but now it has
been found in almost all species of sea turtles. In the words of
Osha Gray Davidson, “for creatures that have existed for more
than a hundred million years, extinction, that black hole of
evolution, is a real possibility”





