GALVESTON — Living at the beach can be exciting at times. There’s the constant roar of the surf, the spectacle of pelicans dive bombing for a meal, and of course, the occasional hurricane evacuation. But just this morning there was a rare happening that, for those concerned about the precarious plight of the sea turtle, was an exquisitely exciting experience.
My wife Carole, the unofficial sheriff of the beach in front of The Dunes of West Beach, was out on a Saturday morning patrol looking for beach miscreants to scold or simply just someone to talk to since I’m a bit reticent.
Apparently she had wandered off to the beach in front of the Silverleaf resort, which is out of her jurisdiction. Anyhow, I received a phone call from her instructing me to bring the camera over there. As an obedient husband, I walked over there, a good fraction of a mile.
When I crossed the dunes, I saw a white pickup truck parked askew on the beach, which is a no-no since motorized vehicles are prohibited from most of the west beaches.
A large decal on the driver side door identified it as from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the people who track storms and who are shepherds of the ocean fisheries. They’re exempt; their vehicles can come on the beach.
A short distance from the truck, an auburn-haired young lady knelt on the sand digging cautiously and forming a sizeable hole. She was digging at the apex of a triangle formed by two smooth swaths in the sand leading 100 or more feet to and from the surf.
A witness related how a Kemp’s ridley turtle had sidled in, dug a hole, deposited her eggs, covered up and waddled back to the surf.
The young lady was Erin Seney, a doctoral student in the Texas A&M University at Galveston’s Sea Turtle & Fisheries Ecology Research Laboratory. She also is a Fisheries Biologist employed at the NOAA Sea Turtle Facility (Turtle Barn) in Galveston. In this capacity, she was on the beach to retrieve the eggs for transfer to the NOAA facility in Galveston and then on to Padre Island National Seashore near Corpus Christi, where they will incubate for six or more weeks before hatching. The hatchlings are immediately released from the National Seashore into the Gulf of Mexico.
Seney continued digging until she reached the top of the egg cache. Then she lined sand from the hole around the bottom and sides of two styrofoam boxes. She gently lifted the eggs from the hole and nestled them into the sand in the boxes, counting them as she did so.
She counted 50 eggs into the first box, inserted a sensor through the side of the box and covered the eggs with more sand from the hole. It was this sand that the instincts of the mother chose for incubating her eggs, so it is this sand in which they will incubate.
The remainder of the 117 eggs were placed in the second box. The boxes were then slung in a swinging cradle of a tubular frame with free hung straps, which prevents sudden shocks or change of orientation during transport.
You might ask two questions:
What if the mother comes back to check on her eggs? She won’t. Her maternal instincts are satisfied as soon as she dumps the eggs.
Why not leave the eggs alone to hatch, and have the hatchlings make their way back to the water naturally?
Well, Mother Nature simply has not made very good accommodations for the survival of these hatchlings. The odds are less than 1 percent will live to a size that can procreate.
Most nests in Texas are moved because the Kemp’s Ridley is an endangered species, and efforts are being made to help the population by increasing the number of eggs that hatch, as well as by trying to decrease threats to the turtles while they are on land and in the water.
Eggs laid on Galveston Island are especially, making it even more important to move these eggs off the beach. Problems especially prevalent in Galveston include: beach raking, high tides on narrow beaches and predators such as fire ants and dogs.
If this endangered species is to survive, they need to be helped along. That’s why Seney asks everyone to look for the telltale signs of sea turtle nests on the beach and to call her as soon as one is sighted. The number is 1-866-TURTLE5.
Frank J. Bowser is a member of the Friends of Galveston Island State Park.
