And though mandatory devices now help turtles escape fishing nets, other devices designed to reduce bycatch are depriving Kemp’s ridleys of one of their food sources because fishermen are no longer throwing overboard large quantities of unwanted fish. Warming oceans, Shaver says, are another likely culprit because they could be affecting the turtles’ food sources - for example, populations of one of the small crabs that these turtles eat have been declining in recent years. After the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, some weak and starving turtles covered in oil washed ashore, and scores of others could have died at sea. She speculates about some of the factors that might be hurting the population. Shaver tells me that fewer new turtles are nesting at Padre Island and that the turtles that were nesting on these beaches aren’t returning as often as they used to. That’s why I’m meeting with Shaver: to talk about this stagnated population growth and what researchers are doing about it. But then, the turtle population stopped growing, in both Mexico and Texas. ![]() At the same time, numbers in Mexico had risen from a few hundred nests a year to more than 20,000 nests, and scientists started to project that the Kemp’s ridley would be downgraded on the endangered species list - from endangered to threatened - by 2020. In 2009, Shaver’s team and their collaborators found nearly 200 nests on the Texas coast. In 1996, the first tagged female from the project returned to Padre Island, and, for more than a decade thereafter, the number of nesting turtles grew almost every year. Over the course of 10 years, scientists collected thousands of eggs from Rancho Nuevo and released the hatchlings onto the beach at Padre Island with the hope that the turtles would one day return to their birthplace in Texas to nest. and Mexico joined forces to re-establish Padre Island as a nesting colony that would be a backup to Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, by then the only large nesting site for the species. camera icon © AMAR AND ISABELLE GUILLEN-GUILLEN PHOTO LLC/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, such as this one swimming through an oil rig off the Texas coast, spend most of their lives out in the ocean. At one point in the 1980s, fewer than 250 females were nesting in Mexico, and almost none on the Texas coast where the turtle had historically nested. Possibly to limit the impact of predators, thousands of turtles would swarm a beach at once - a phenomenon known as “arribada.” But decades of poaching both the turtles and their eggs took their toll on the species. Researchers estimate that in the 1940s, about 50,000 females laid eggs in more than 120,000 nests along the Gulf of Mexico each year. Kemp’s ridleys are the smallest and most endangered sea turtles in the world. By the day’s end, turtle watchers spot 19 Kemp’s ridley nests along the 70-mile stretch of undeveloped barrier island that makes up the national park and find an additional 11 nests at nearby beaches. “This could be the kind of day we wait all year for.”įor Shaver, who’s been leading the park’s sea turtle program for more than three decades, a big day means dozens of turtles nesting along the Texas coast. “This could be a big, big day,” Donna Shaver tells me when I get inside. ![]() ![]() I don’t see any, but the wind, I will find out a few minutes later, is a very good sign that I might get to see what I’ve been hoping for: nesting Kemp’s ridleys, coming ashore to bury their eggs in the sand. I’m at Padre Island National Seashore to learn about rare Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, and as I walk to the park headquarters, I can’t help but study the landscape for signs of the turtles. It’s a windy May morning on the Texas coast, and dancing sand nips my ankles as I cross an expanse of beach.
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