Environmentalists have been scrambling to work on saving a variety of land and sea creatures. Many species have already been added to the list of endangered animals, and if nothing will be done about it, the world will have to pay the ultimate price.
Sea turtles, in particular, have been slowly disappearing. Groups have come together to create an environment that’s safe enough to lay their eggs on. Their efforts haven’t been futile because now, they have seen the fruits of their labor for the first time in ten years.
In fact, Galveston Island State Park became the site of one breakthrough. A routine survey was made and the people have uncovered a nest of 107 extremely precious turtle eggs that belonged to a Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle, a species listed as Critically Endangered. In reality, this is actually the most at-risk sea turtle on the planet.
According to experts, Kemp’s ridley is the smallest of all sea turtle species. They reach maturity at 58 to 70 cm (23 to 28 in) carapace length, and they weigh a mere 36 to 45 kg (79 to 99 lb). The typical sea turtles that you have come across has a dorsoventrally depressed body. They also have a specially adapted flipper-like front limbs as well as a beak.
As for the Kemp’s ridley turtle, the adults are about 75 cm (30 in) in carapace length and weigh 50 kg (110 lb) at their biggest. Its oval carapace is long and is olive-gray in color. This also has five pairs of costal scutes. As for their head, it comes with four prefrontal scales. These rare turtles change color as they get older and they only nest during the day.
For the last decade, it has been fruitless and lonely for Texas A&M’s Sea Turtle Patrol. They searched high and low for a find and they often found themselves disappointed. They haven’t come across a Lone Star State turtle nest. Last sighting was 2012 for them. However, they finally came across what they were looking for. The exhilarating discovery ended in mid-May when the eggs were brought to a safe incubation center. They needed to raise these the chances of survival for these babies to a near-certainty in order to take them out of the endangered list.
As said, Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle is a smoother, smaller turtle when compared to the more popular species such as the Green, Loggerhead, or Hawksbill sea turtles. They belong to one of just two members of the genus Lepidochelys and has been around for 160 million years in their present form.
These turtles are also widely dispersed around areas such as Mexico and in the U.S. But they were just recently discovered in Texas. In 1947, aerial surveys recorded around the beaches of Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, saw how this type would come ashore by the tens of thousands. Unfortunately, they have seen a catastrophic population disappearance.
“A lot of nesting habitat for the Kemp’s Ridley has been lost to storms, high tide and predation, which is why it is important to transport these nests to an environment where they have the best chance for survival into adulthood,” said Christopher Marshall He is a professor of Marine Biology at Texas A&M University at Galveston and Director for the Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research.
“We almost lost the species to extinction,” Marshall told the Washington Post just recently. “This species has been with us for 140 [million], 160 million years, and we’re the ones responsible for almost sending it to extinction in the 1980s,” he added. “So it’s up to us to intervene and help bring this species back to a viable population level.”
Conservation efforts honed in on restoring and saving this marine reptile to its former hordes by 1980. By the early aughts, 10,000 of them were recorded nesting on Padre Island National Seashore. Then, two major declines followed, and by 2014, and the number of nests discovered on Padre Island went down by a whopping 45 percent. And on Galveston Island, they completely vanished in the blink of an eye.
Right now, they plan to continue the conservation efforts. They, along with the people of Smithsonian, had reported how about 5,500 individuals nest on the beaches of Mexico, and 55 nest in Texas. They plan to bring back the former breeding grounds and the fact that they see it has become a good sign of their recovery. They hope that A&M’s Turtle Patrol won’t have to wait decades to find another nest.
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