Examination of pathogen shedding patterns in confiscated eastern box turtles based on variation in temperature

Eastern box turtles ( Terrapene carolina carolina ) are increasingly targeted by the illegal wildlife trade, which facilitates the spread of infectious diseases and complicates conservation efforts. Managing confiscated turtles, which are often positive for multiple pathogens, requires evidence‐based quarantine protocols, yet how housing conditions influence pathogen dynamics and detection remains poorly understood. We evaluated how housing configuration and temperature affect pathogen prevalence, clinical disease, and detection, and identified sampling strategies that optimize pathogen detection during quarantine. Thirteen confiscated eastern box turtles were housed in 4 environmental conditions: 1) group‐housed at cold temperatures, 2) group‐housed within a temperature gradient, 3) group‐housed at warm temperatures, and 4) individually housed at warm temperatures. We sampled turtles weekly over 8‐week trials for Terrapene herpesvirus 1 (TerHV1), Terrapene adenovirus (TerAdv), and box turtle Mycoplasmopsis sp. (BTMyco). A sensitivity analysis identified the optimal sampling approach for each condition. Apparent prevalence, clinical signs ( n = 7), and mortality ( n = 2) were highest in group‐housed turtles at warm temperatures, where BTMyco and TerAdv were detected in all turtles, and TerHV1 was detected in all but 2 turtles; however, detection and co‐detection were highest for BTMyco and TerAdv when turtles were housed within a temperature gradient. Two weekly swabs maximized detection, while sampling every 3 weeks remained effective for quarantine periods exceeding 2 weeks. These results provide practical, evidence‐based recommendations for quarantine design that reduce disease transmission risk while optimizing pathogen detection in confiscated turtle management and highlight how temperature‐driven changes in pathogen dynamics may have implications under a changing climate. Future work should validate these protocols across larger cohorts and field‐based confiscation settings and further examine how warming temperatures reshape disease risk in chelonian conservation.