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RE: Working in an Animal Care Facility: Quarantine Procedures
Question - if your turtle is in quarantine, why is it swimming with a bunch of fish? This pic confused me a little bit on the process you were describing, likely because I misunderstood. I thought they needed to be isolated.
Do some animals experience any detrimental effects from not getting any sunlight for 30+ days?
Those are great questions! So generally yes, the animals are isolated, however they can be housed with other animals that they were previously housed with. For example, these fish are from the same tank the sea turtle came from at another aquarium. Since they were housed in the same system, there isn't really a risk of cross contamination; if the turtle had something, they would too and vice-versa (fortunately, nothing has turned up for either). So in quarantine, some animals will be housed together, like the mudpuppies I mentioned in the post, because they require the same environment and treatments. Animals that come in on their own are always housed separately; this is more often the case. That wasn't made clear by the post at all.
When I say the animals are provided with everything they need, that includes "sunlight". Living without any sunlight for 30+ days would absolutely be detrimental to health; we do have animals that suffered from previous captivity in an environment without proper ultraviolet radiation. All enclosures are set up with both heating lamps and UV emitting bulbs that simulate natural sunlight, and these lights are on timers that mimic natural day/night cycles. Using UV meters, we can be sure that when these animals are basking, they are receiving the same levels of UV that they would if they were outside. Even on exhibit, these animals won't recieve true sunlight because they are inside, but the bulbs do provide them with the light, heat, and UV that the sun naturally provides. This is clearly observable to guests too; during the "night" cycle, many of our reptiles hunker down while during the "daytime" cycle, they bask, flaunt some impressive colors, and even display mating behaviors!
(Thanks for your thoughtful reply btw.)