[ocean waves] [music]
I love working and living around the ocean.
The sound of the surf and looking out into the ocean,
I can't imagine being anywhere else.
I am Dr. Donna Shaver and I lead the Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle Recovery project
here at Padre Island National Seashore.
Kemp's Ridley is an endangered species
that was almost obliterated within just a blink of an eye.
And it became endangered because of human activities.
And it's going to take human activities
to help conserve that animal
and to keep it on this planet for the future.
There's still a long way to go to recover the population
of the Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle.
[music]
There was a film that was made in 1947
that showed an estimated 40,000 Kemp's Ridleys nesting
at Rancho Nuevo on just one day.
By the time that biologists went to the nesting beach
to try to investigate,
the number of Kemp's Ridleys nesting had already plummeted
due to the loss of eggs,
due to intentional taking of the eggs from the nesting beach
as well as loss of the juveniles and adults due to fisheries operations.
The Kemp's Ridley population continued to decline
to a low of only 702 nests worldwide for 1985.
A project was started as a safeguard against extinction
so if a political or environmental catastrophe occurred at Rancho Nuevo
there'd be a safe area in the U.S. where Kemp's Ridleys could nest
and be protected.
From 1978 to 1988,
22,507 Kemp's Ridley sea turtle eggs were brought to Padre Island National Seashore
for incubation in an attempt to establish a secondary nesting colony
because Kemp's Ridley is a native nester to south Texas.
What we tried to do was to imprint the turtles
to Padre Island Island National Seashore.
The hatchlings were released on the beach, allowed to crawl into the surf
where they were recaptured using aquarium dip nets.
Then the hatchlings were sent to the
National Marine Fisheries Service Laboratory in Galveston, TX
where they were raised for approximately 9 to 11 months.
And that allowed the turtles to grow to a size large enough
so they could be tagged for future recognition
and also to be able to avoid most predators when they were released.
[camera operator] That's a big turtle!
It's about 3 feet long!
[Donna] And it took a full 10 years before
we found our first confirmed returnee from that project.
And it was an extremely happy day.
We knew that these turtles were from the project
because they had on them living tags.
A living tag is like a skin graft
where there was a piece of the bottom shell taken out,
a piece of the top shell,
and that small plug from the bottom shell was glued into
the surrounding shell surface on the top,
providing a permanent lite identification marker
on the darker background of the top shell.
[camera operator] Okay, there's the egg cavity with the eggs.
[observor] She said there's about 100.
[Donna] This is very significant for us in that we've got the first
documented evidence of a sea turtle of any species
that's been experimentally imprinted to a particular area
to return to that area to nest.
[music]
[Linda Reed] Oh, I love this job.
We're looking for sea turtle tracks primarily.
We're looking for those nesting turtles.
We go for their eggs
and we bring them into the hatchings facility.
We got 6 nests my first year and
now to get a day when we get 19 in one day is just...
it's so exciting I can't tell you how much it means.
It's nice to know that we'll be able to pass through this life
and leave the earth a little bit better place
than it was when we got here.
This is the track left in the sand by the nesting female.
This is what we're looking for when we're patrolling.
As you can see, it's about a foot 1/2 to 2 feet wide
and there's scuff marks from the flippers and little divots in the sand
that are made from the nails on the flippers as the turtle crawls up the beach
or back down into the water.
[music]
Nesting Kemp's Ridley sea turtles are only on the beach for about 45 minutes.
She lays the eggs. They come out in 1 or 2 or 3 at a time.
They provide no maternal care for their eggs and don't return to the nest site.
When the turtle is done
she will cover that nest cavity and she returns to the sea.
It's very important that you watch carefully
for nesting Kemp's Ridley turtles.
They are very slow
and they can't move to avoid an approaching vehicle.
This is a species that's been around for 4 million years.
I feel like we've got an obligation to try to bring this species back
so that it can be enjoyed by future generations.
[wind]
We work so hard to find Kemp's Ridley nests on the Texas coast.
Sometimes, despite hours of digging and of probing,
we're unable to find the nests and protect those eggs.
So, when possible, we call in the expert sniffer,
[music] my cairn terrier Ridley,
who we've trained to aid with nest detection.
Find the nest, Ridley!
When we bring Ridley to a site,
he aggressively sniffs on the beach
trying to find where that nest is located
and he really enjoys doing this.
And the little dog,
we could have spent 5 hours probing and digging,
bring him in and within a matter of just minutes
he locates the nest.
Oh, good boy, Ridley! You found it. You found it! Oh, good boy.
The eggs are collected from all of the nests that we find on the Texas coast
and brought in for protected incubation.
The incubation temperature determines
whether the turtles will be male or female.
Warmer temperatures produce females, cooler temperatures, males.
We try to hatch mostly females
so that they'll have a better chance of reproduction in the wild.
[music]
During the day of the release,
the turtles are immediately brought down to the beach
and they're placed on the beach and allowed to enter the surf and go free.
[music]
These animals are pretty primitive animals
and basically are working on instinct right now.
Smelling the salt air, hearing the waves, probably,
and just making a mad dash towards the water
to try to get in there as quickly as they can.
They're free and they're going to be on this journey
that's going to last their whole lifetime.
After many years of hard work by many people
both in Mexico and the United States,
the Kemp's Ridley population is increasing.
For the future, we're going to have to continue our very hard work.
These is an endangered species success story in the making.