Discovery of Kemp’s ridley sea turtle nest on South Padre Island is 1st of 2017

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Sea turtle eggs were placed inside a transport crate for relocation to a hatchery lab (Photo by Brazoria County Parks’ Bryan Frazier).

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Corpus Christi, Texas
According to the National Park Service: “Padre Island National Seashore separates the Gulf of Mexico from the Laguna Madre, one of a few hypersaline lagoons in the world. The park protects 70 miles of coastline, dunes, prairies, and wind tidal flats teeming with life. It is a safe nesting ground for the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle and a haven for 380 bird species. It also has a rich history, including the Spanish shipwrecks of 1554.”

Photo credit: U.S. National Park Service less

Corpus Christi, Texas
According to the National Park Service: “Padre Island National Seashore separates the Gulf of Mexico from the Laguna Madre, one of a few hypersaline lagoons … more

Photo: U.S. National Park Service

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Eggs of a Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle on South Padre Island.

Photo: Pam LeBlanc, Staff Writer

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A female Kemp’s Ridley Sea turtle found her way to a nest location at Quintana Beach County Park to lay her eggs on Wednesday morning (photo by Brazoria County Parks’ Patty Brinkmeyer).

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This July 10, 2010 photo released by NASA shows the first group of hatchlings from endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle eggs brought from beaches along the Gulf Coast being released into the Atlantic Ocean off NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. less

Photo: Kim Shifflett, AP/NASA

GALVESTON – The discovery this week of the first nest laid this year by the official Texas sea turtle, the endangered Kemp’s ridley, on South Padre Island represents the earliest finding of a nest in Texas, a scientist said Friday.

“It’s the earliest we’ve found on the Texas Coast,” said Donna Shaver, chief of the division of sea turtle science and recovery at the National Park Service.

The nest discovered Thursday was the first found in March since record keeping began in 1979, Shaver said. Nesting began several weeks ago at the main nesting ground at Rancho Nuevo in Tamaulipas State, Mexico.

Counting turtle nests is the only way scientists can gauge the Kemp’s ridley population, which has been declining since the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf Mexico. Oil spewing from the Deepwater-Horizen oil platform killed untold numbers of turtles and polluted turtle feeding grounds.

BP has denied that the spill had any effect on the turtle population.

The nest was discovered by members of a turtle patrol made up of volunteers and interns who were training in preparation for the start of turtle patrols Saturday, Shaver said.

The early nest could be related to the warm winter, Shaver said. “They are reptiles and when the water is warm they are more active and eat more,” she said.

Scientists are hoping that the warm winter allowed female turtles to fatten and become more likely to nest. Turtle nesting season usually ends in mid-July.