An immune response-based approach to evaluate physiological stress in rehabilitating loggerhead sea turtle.

The sea turtles maintaining in rescue centres can cause physiological stress to the animals with subsequent effects, such as the imbalance of immune system components. It is therefore crucial to investigate how innate immune responses are influenced by stress within recovery centers with the aim to use them as primary tools for the evaluation of the rescued specimens' health status and for developing more effective conservative strategies. In this study we monitored for the first time different immune responses in hospitalized Mediterranean loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) (n = 88), comparing them with free-ranging animals (n = 11).