[ocean waves]
[soothing music]
♪ ♪
- DR. DONNA SHAVER: 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.
[ocean waves]
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 Ridley 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 would be a safe area in the U.S. where
Kemp's Ridley could nest and be protected.
[airplane engine hums]
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 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
Laboratory in Galveston, Texas, 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.
- MAN: And that's a big turtle.
It's about three feet long!
- DR. SHAVER: And it took a full 10 years before we found
our first confirmed returnee from that project.
And it was an extremely happy day.
- MAN: Look at him!
- DR. SHAVER: 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 light identification marker
on the darker background of the top shell.
- CAMERAMAN: Okay, there's the egg cavity with the eggs.
- GIRL: She said there's about a 100.
- DR. SHAVER: 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.
[motor starting]
[upbeat 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
hatching's facility.
We got six 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-and-a-half to
two-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.
[ocean waves]
[inspirational music]
Nesting Kemp's Ridley sea turtles are only on the beach
for about 45 minutes.
She lays the eggs;
they come out in one or two or three 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 four 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.
[rolling waves]
[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 nest and protect those eggs.
So, when possible, we call in the expert sniffer,
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 five 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.
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.
[inspirational 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.
[inspirational 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.
[inspirational music]
They're free and they're going to be on this journey
that's going to last their whole lifetime.
[inspirational music]
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.
This is an endangered species success story in the making.
[rolling waves]
[wind blows]