Sea Turtle Hatchling Releases in Texas
Kemp's Ridley Nesting Restored on North Padre Island Beaches
Jun 8, 2009
Endangered Kemp’s ridleys (Lepidochelys kempi) sea turtles nest on Texas beaches from April to July. The female turtles take roughly 45 minutes to dig a nest, deposit about 100 eggs, cover them with sand, and return to the water. In 2008, a record 195 ridley nests were discovered on the Texas coast, 104 of them in Padre Island National Seashore. As of June 7, 2009, 174 Ridley nests have already been found.
The nests can be difficult to spot; ridleys lay eggs during the day, when wind quickly erases the mother’s tracks. While park staff and more than 100 volunteers monitor 80 miles of Texas beach beginning in April, the majority of nests are still reported by members of the public visiting the shore. Biologists then collect the eggs and incubate them in a special lab.
Sea Turtle Hatchling Releases
Ridley eggs generally hatch at night, so releases take place early in the morning. Park staff carry the baby sea turtles to the beach in grocery store coolers, and place each one gently on the sand. The hatchlings, roughly the size and color of over-baked oatmeal cookies, immediately head toward the surf. They must scramble over bits of seaweed and driftwood, many of those bits equivalent to high fences for the little reptiles, and around ridges of sand and other debris. The short trip can take some of them as long as 30 minutes. Once they reach the water, the surf often tosses them unceremoniously back up on the sand. The determined little hatchlings try and try again, until a wave carries the last one away from shore. All the while, spectators cheer them on and snap photos like proud parents.
Restoring Sea Turtle Nesting on Texas Beaches
Ridleys nested on Gulf of Mexico beaches in Texas and northern Mexico for millennia. But by 1978, fewer than 800 were known to nest worldwide, not a single one of them in Texas. Large-scale taking of eggs from nesting beaches in Mexico and loss of juvenile and adult turtles from fishing operations had caused drastic declines in the number of ridleys, according to Donna Shaver, PhD, chief of the division of sea turtle science and recovery at the National Seashore. Four of the five sea turtles species found in the Gulf of Mexico are endangered.
In 1978, biologists launched a multi-agency, bi-national effort to help this critically endangered species. For ten years, they collected eggs from a nesting beach in northern Mexico, incubated then in boxes of sand from North Padre Island, and released the hatchlings on island beaches. They hoped the ridleys would someday return to make their own nests. In 1986, Shaver began patrolling the beaches in search of returnees. During the next ten years, staff and volunteers occasionally found a nesting turtle. But none of them bore evidence of the shell plugs, or living tags, that had been used to mark the previously released turtles.
Then, in 1996, Shaver at last found what she’d been looking for, a nesting female with a living tag. “To me it symbolized real hope for the future,” she said. “The real possibility that all we worked for all those years would come to fruition.” Before, Shaver had only hoped that nesting could be re-established in Texas, now she was sure.
Dates and times of public releases are recorded on a hatchling hotline, 361/949-7163. Shaver recommends that those who want to see a release plan several days in the area, in case a clutch of turtles must be released early. Sometimes, baby turtles become too active and must be released during the night. Otherwise, they could use up energy they will need to make it to the safety of floating sea grass some 60 miles offshore. She also advises checking the hotline the evening before a scheduled release, and again in the morning before driving to the park.
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