PARIS: The nesting season for the world’s most endangered sea turtle, and official sea turtle of Texas, begins amid fears that it may be facing a decline after a decadelong rally that had federal officials ready to take it off the endangered species list.
The Kemp’s ridley sea turtle nesting season this year could show whether drastic reductions in the number of nests in the two previous years will continue.
“I would call it a critical year, because if it declines again we’re in big trouble,” said Carole Allen, Gulf Coast director of the Turtle Island Restoration Network.
The turtle’s primary nesting grounds are in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas and in South Texas, which has more nests than any other U.S. Gulf state. Counting nests during the April-August nesting season is the only way scientists have of gauging the Kemp’s ridley population.
Exponential gains abruptly ended in 2010, the year the worst oil spill in U.S. history soiled the Gulf of Mexico. The Deepwater Horizon spill dumped an estimated 4.1 million barrels of oil into the Gulf, much of it polluting Kemp’s ridley feeding grounds and saturating floating islands of seaweed where newly hatched turtles make their home.
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