The final meeting of the “TurtleVet” project has taken place in the island of Lampedusa, Italy. This project has been funded by the “Leonardo da Vinci Partnerships” action, part of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission.

This last meeting took place at the Rescue Centre of Marine Turtles of Lampedusa-WWF Italy, and was mainly focused on organizing the final products of the project. New ways to finance these yearly meetings for Mediterranean rescue centres were also discussed. The aim is to make it possible also for colleagues coming from non-European countries (such as Tunisia, Morocco, or Israel) to participate in these meetings in the future, thus increasing the impact of such training sessions.

During the meeting there was also time to do clinical examinations of the 13 turtles kept at the rescue centre at the time. One of them needed surgery on a fractured flipper, and several needed debridement of their wounds. Some clinical cases were also discussed, including the findings after a mass stranding of marine turtles in Israel and their possible connection to marine seismic activities on the area, or the surgical treatment and follow-up of a severe and extensive wound on the neck of a sea turtle.

We would like to thank Daniella Freggi and the staff at the Rescue Centre of Lampedusa for their hospitality and hard work during this meeting.