Egg-citing news: Endangered sea turtle lays eggs on replenished Galveston Island
GALVESTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A Kemp's Ridley sea turtle laid eggs after a nest was found about three months ago at Galveston Island State Park.
The video above is ABC13's 24/7 livestream.
"The Kemp's Ridley sea turtle is one of the most endangered sea turtle species in the world, so every egg matters," Dr. Christopher Marshall, a professor of marine biology at Texas A&M University at Galveston, said.
"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," Marshall said.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Galveston District's beach renourishment project helped make the nesting possible, according to USACE.
According to the district's Operations Chief Chris Frabotta, the sand used to replenish Babe's Beach is provided through the district's routine maintenance dredging of the Galveston Channel.
"This is all done in keeping the Corps of Engineers' navigation mission to provide safe, reliable, efficient, and environmentally sustainable navigation channels for the movement of commerce," Frabotta said. "The Galveston District pays for dredging of the sandy material from the channel while the (Galveston) Park Board and the Texas General Land Office cost share the incremental amount required to transport the sand to the beach."
USACE has replenished the beach three times: first in 2015; then in 2019; and most recently during the summer of 2021, Frabotta said. The sand is dredged from the Galveston Channel and then placed along the Galveston shoreline, primarily the area known as Babe's Beach. To date, USACE has placed about 1.7 million cubic yards of sand onto Babe's Beach.
The dredging routine keeps the channel deep enough for large ships to access the port facilities at Galveston, Texas City, and Houston.
"This is a new beach thanks to the Babe's Beach renourishment project, where we previously have no historical records of nests occurring," said Theresa Morris, rehabilitation hospital manager at Texas A&M's Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research.
When turtles nest on Galveston, Morris and her team excavate the entire clutch and transfer it to Padre Island National Seashore for incubation and release, she said. "This is because almost all nests in the upper Texas coast zone would become inundated, crushed, or predated if left in place."
"We are very excited about this event," Morris said. "As this project brought new nesting habitat to an endangered species."
Marshall said this sea turtle species was almost lost in the 1980s. If a nest were to be left on the beach, the eggs would have about a 45% chance of survival. In an incubation facility, he said survival rates can be up to 95%.
"We're really proud to know the dredging and sand placement is doing more than creating recreational opportunities for Galveston, but also benefitting local marine life by creating more nesting grounds for a critically endangered species," Frabotta said.
The Turtle Patrol and the Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research took the nest to an incubation facility at Padre Island National Seashore.
The next cycle of sand placement at Babe's Beach is scheduled for April 2023.
For images of the nest, visit the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's Flickr page.
