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Although most tumors appear to be benign, larger tumors can interfere with basic activities, such as respiration, feeding, vision (identification of prey, resting places, etc.) and swimming (Aguirre & Lutz, 2004). Physiological stress caused by FP ranges from immunosuppression, anemia, uremia, hypoproteinemia, hypoalbuminemia, electrolyte imbalance, bacteraemia and lowered levels of cholesterol and triglycerides (Aguirre & Balazs 2000, Norton et al.1990, Work & Balazs 1999, Work et al. 2001, Work et al. 2004).

The SOS Turtles ("SOS Tartarugas"�) program was created in 2002 by the Urban Turtles Project (UTP; "Projeto Tartarugas Urbanas"�), in response to the stranding of sea turtles on the same beaches where the UTP protects and researches nesting E. imbricata in the municipalities of João Pessoa and Cabedelo, Paraiba, northeastern Brazil. (Mascarenhas et al. 2003, 2005). In addition to daily monitoring of roughly seven km of coastline, a telephone hotline was maintained for locals and tourists alike to alert the research team of stranded turtles. The research team collected data from stranded turtles reported as occurring over 130 km of coastline in Paraiba, however the majority of strandings came from within the seven km which are monitored daily (N = 248; 86%).

In this paper, we present data on the prevalence and expression of fibropapillomatosis in C. mydas found stranded over four years. We also report a single record of a C. caretta with fibropapillomas. It is our hope that this will assist in expanding the data available in the scientific literature regarding fibropapillomatosis's geographic distribution on Brazil in order to better understand the possible epizootic and/or panzootic that may be taking place presently.

Data were collected from stranded turtles found during the period extending from September 2002 to September, 2006. Strandings included dead and debilitated (live) animals. Almost 97% of stranded turtles were found washed up on the sand; the other 3% collected were found floating near the shore. A standardized field protocol was used by the SOS Turtles team of professional biologists and trained volunteers (biology students) to collect data from each stranded turtle, including date, species, sex, location, curved carapace length and width (CCL and CCW), condition of the turtle (alive, dead, decomposition state, health status), and presence of anomalies (shark attacks, epibiont and parasite loads, and evidence of interactions with local fishing practices). We analyzed the presence of the disease according to sex, size class (<50 cm, 50-69.9 cm, 70-99.9 cm, >100 cm, and unidentified size, i.e. if only part of the turtle was recovered), and location of tumors observed on turtles. FP was considered present when the team grossly detected at least one verrucous tumor growing on the turtle. Starting in October 2004, the location of each tumor was plotted on a schematic drawing of the turtle on the data sheet; the tumors were then registered in 12 possible locations: head, eyes, mouth, neck, anterior flippers, axillary region, carapace, plastron, posterior flippers, inguinal region, caudal/cloacal region, and "generalized"� (i.e. tumors present on most of turtle's external soft tissue). The majority of turtles suffering from FP were photographed and kept with the digital database for reference. The size of the tumors was not measured. A standardized system of scoring FP severity, such as those used in other study sites, has not yet been adopted.

Figure1. Sex and FP distribution on sea turtles in Paraiba state.

During the study period, 289 stranded sea turtles were registered by the SOS Turtles program. Four species were observed, the majority being green turtles (Chelonia mydas), the latter size range being 34.9 - 106 cm CCL. Tumors that characterize FP were observed on 75 individuals: 74 were green turtles and one was (loggerhead) C. caretta, accounting for 26% of total strandings (Table 1). For animals that were directly assigned a sex, the majority were tumored females (Fig. 1). The single loggerhead was a large male (>100cm CCL) that stranded alive on the northern coast of Paraiba in March 2005. A large (>15 cm in diameter) tumor was growing on its right fore flipper. From 2004 onwards, we noted that tumors located on the neck, anterior flippers, axillary and inguinal regions made up 68.2% of the cases (Table 2).

Table 1. Size-class, number and prevalence by sex of FP in green turtles stranded from 2002-2006 in Paraiba state, Brazil.

The prevalence of FP in Parai­ba is much greater (26%) than that reported in other studies done in Brazil (Baptistotte et al. 2001), although the time frame of our study is relatively short. FP has been observed in turtles from the far northeast to the south of the country (Baptitotte et al. 2001), but its overall pervasiveness and intensity are still largely unknown for all marine turtle populations in Brazilian waters. There is also a paucity of data available to the scientific community regarding the incidence of the disease in South America. Without further research focused on documenting the prevalence of FP in Brazil, it will be difficult to recognize the potential epizootic.

Table 2. Location of tumors found on stranded green turtles between October 2004 and September 2006 in Paraiba state, Brazil.

Although tumors were encountered on every external part of the turtles, there was a predominance of tumors observed on the neck, anterior flippers, and axiliar region. Few cases of ocular tumors, a manifestation of the disease commonly observed in Florida and Hawaii, were observed. No oral tumors have been recorded to date in Paraiba. Similarly, oral tumors are a rare occurrence in green turtles observed in Florida (Bresette et al. 2003). In contrast, between 1991 and 1995, 61% of turtles with FP found stranded on beaches throughout Hawaii and 40% of those with FP sampled through live capture and release in Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, had tumors in the oral cavity and surrounding tissues (Balazs et al. 1997). The patterns of variation in the expression of FP in green turtles have not yet been established in the literature.

FP has been hypothesized to be associated with a number of environmental co-factors: degraded shallow near-shore habitats where agriculture, industry, and other human activities and high water temperatures are prevalent (Herbst & Klein 1995). In this study, no research was completed to examine these co-factors; however, future work in this area would be interesting, as feeding grounds are located in warm waters close to the coast, where intense fishing, algae collection, and tourism occurs. Additionally, many rivers that pass through large agricultural areas (e.g. sugar cane) empty into the ocean close to these feeding grounds. Monitoring of the quality of these feeding grounds will be necessary to study the possible factors that facilitate FP infection in the turtles found along the coast of Paraiba, as well as to assist in comparison of possible environmental co-factors between geographically distant populations.

Little information is known about the migratory routes of the green turtles that feed and strand along the coast of Paraiba. It is possible that turtles found here could be part of nesting stocks from other regions, given that a number of turtles tagged in Brazil by Project TAMAR have been recovered in diverse locations (Bellini et al. 2000; Lima et al. 2003; Lum et al. 1998; Marcovaldi & Filippini 2001). In particular, some green turtles tagged in Ceará, 800 km to the North of the SOS Turtles program, have been recovered in Trinidad and Nicaragua (Lum et al. 1998, Lima et al. 2003). Additionally, a tagged female green turtle who nested in Tortuguero, Costa Rica, was found dead in Ceará, (Lima & Troeng 2001). Lima & Troeng (2001) propose a possible connection between populations of green turtles in Brazil and the Caribbean.

While it is still not understood how the disease is spread within populations of sea turtles, these potential migrational paths or abnormal patterns in individuals' movements could be a link between the epizootic currently occurring in the Caribbean (Williams et al. 1994) and the prevalence of the disease in populations of turtles in Brazil. Common foraging grounds for turtles from distinct breeding populations, such as those that may likely exist off the coast of Parai­ba, could be potential locations of exchange of diseases between infected and healthy individuals (Herbst & Klein 1995). More integrated research is needed to better understand the patterns of movement and international migration of marine turtles in Brazilian waters. This information has implications for the geographic distribution of FP, including the genetic variation and phylogenic history of the viruses associated with the disease from more diverse geographic regions.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to CNPq and FAPESQ Grant 350462/2004-6, to students and volunteers of the Urban Turtle Project (Associação Guajiru: Ciência - Educação - Meio Ambiente), and to the anonymous reviewers who kindly provide constructive comments on manuscript.

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