{"id":36124,"date":"2014-04-18T09:27:08","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T14:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=36124"},"modified":"2014-04-22T09:33:28","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T14:33:28","slug":"how-oil-and-budget-cuts-threaten-the-worlds-most-endangered-sea-turtle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/04\/18\/how-oil-and-budget-cuts-threaten-the-worlds-most-endangered-sea-turtle\/","title":{"rendered":"How Budget Cuts and Oil Spills Threaten &#8216;World&#8217;s Most Endangered Sea Turtle&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_36126\"  class=\"wp-caption module image center\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"A Kemp's Ridley sea turtle on laying its eggs on Texas Gulf Coast. \" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/04\/KEMPS-MAMA-EDIT.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-36126\" alt=\"A Kemp's Ridley sea turtle on laying its eggs on Texas Gulf Coast. \" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/04\/KEMPS-MAMA-EDIT-620x328.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"328\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/04\/KEMPS-MAMA-EDIT-620x328.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/04\/KEMPS-MAMA-EDIT-300x158.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Courtesy of the National Park Service.<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Kemp&#39;s Ridley sea turtle laying its eggs on the Texas Gulf Coast.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Around this time every year, female<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fws.gov\/northflorida\/seaturtles\/turtle%20factsheets\/kemps-ridley-sea-turtle.htm\"> Kemp&#8217;s Ridley<\/a> sea turtles arrive like clockwork on Matagorda Island, on the Texas Gulf Coast.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDuring the day they\u2019ll craw up, usually closer to the dunes, and they\u2019ll dig out an area and they\u2019ll lay a nest of several eggs,&#8221; says\u00a0Jeremy Edwardson, a biologist with the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fws.gov\/\">U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service<\/a>.\u00a0&#8220;Then they move back out to the water\u2019s edge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/145213565&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_artwork=true\" height=\"166\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>The Island is a wildlife refuge maintained by the service. \u00a0Edwardson says it\u2019s usually kept free of all human activity.<\/p>\n<p>But not this year, because of an\u00a0ongoing cleanup by state and federal agencies in the wake of a <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/galveston-bay-oil-spill\/\">barge accident in the Port of Houston<\/a>\u00a0that spilled more than 150,000 gallons of oil.\u00a0Officials are\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/04\/11\/experts-fear-impacts-of-oil-cleanup-on-texas-gulf-coast\/\">worried cleanup efforts could hurt<\/a>\u00a0the turtles and other wildlife. But the alternative &#8211; just leaving the oil on the beach\u00a0\u2013\u00a0is not really an option.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->\u201cThe traffic on the island could potentially impact a turtle that would want to be coming up to nest. They might become disturbed,&#8221; Edwardson\u00a0says.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_36142\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Jeremy Edwardson is a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist. \" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/04\/P1130061.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-36142\" alt=\"Jeremy Edwardson is a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist. \" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/04\/P1130061-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/04\/P1130061-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/04\/P1130061-620x465.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo by Mose Buchele<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jeremy Edwardson is a biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cIf a female turtle were to essentially drag herself up on shore and got coated with that oil, then we need to get that cleaned off of her,\u201d says<b>\u00a0<\/b>Kimberly Reich, Director of Texas A&amp;M\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Trophic-Ecology-and-Sea-Turtle-Research-Lab\/385265514896926\">Trophic Ecology and Sea Turtle Research Laboratory.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Reich says sea turtles may also have swam through the oil while it was still at sea. The spilled oil can be toxic to the turtle, and if it gets in the nest, it can damage the eggs.<\/p>\n<p>All told, it&#8217;s shaping up to be a bad year for the Kemp&#8217;s Ridley turtle. And researchers say it will be made worse by recent budget cuts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBack in December 2013, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided to reduce funding to the nesting beach program in Mexico for this current nesting season,&#8221; says Pam Plotkin, Director of the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/seagrant.noaa.gov\/\">Sea Grant Program at Texas A&amp;M<\/a>.\u00a0&#8220;They have communicated that they will cease funding the program in 2015.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While some turtles lay their eggs on the Texas coast, the primary beach for the Kemp&#8217;s Ridley is in Mexico. Tens of thousands of them used to arrive there every year. By the 1980s, the number had dropped to just a few hundred, so the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Mexican government partnered to save the turtles from the brink of extinction.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_35813\"  class=\"wp-caption module image left\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"More than 150,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil spilled into the Houston Ship Channel on March 22, 2014 after a collision between an oil barge and a ship.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/04\/P1120990.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-35813\" alt=\"More than 150,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil spilled into the Houston Ship Channel on March 22, 2014 after a collision between an oil barge and a ship.\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/04\/P1120990-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/04\/P1120990-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/04\/P1120990-620x465.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Mose Buchele\/StateImpact Texas<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">More than 150,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil spilled into the Houston Ship Channel on March 22, 2014 after a collision between an oil barge and a ship.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Conservation in Mexico paired with efforts on the Texas coast paid off, says Plotkin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd over the years, the recovery became more apparent, and was actually increasing to the point where it was almost a 19 percent increase every year,&#8221; she says.<\/p>\n<p>Then in 2009, the population stopped growing.\u00a0Researchers believe the BP oil spill likely contributed to the lull, just as they worry about the current spill. But Plotkin says without stable funding, impacts will be hard to understand. The Fish and Wildlife Service <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/04\/FWS-Letter-December-20-2013-2.pdf\">says it made the cuts<\/a>\u00a0in response to mandated across-the-board budget cuts (the so-called &#8220;sequestration&#8221;) last year, an\u00a0explanation\u00a0for which Plotkin has little\u00a0sympathy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy program was sequestered, too,&#8221; she says. &#8220;And I had to make decisions about where to cut, and Fish and Wildlife Service had to make similar decisions, and unfortunately they decided that they were going to cut the most successful program in their history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Outside funding<a href=\"http:\/\/www.expressnews.com\/news\/local\/article\/Funding-found-to-save-endangered-sea-turtles-5339631.php\"> has arrived to continue the Mexico project this year<\/a>. But Plotkin says the long-term prospects for Kemp&#8217;s Ridley conservation in Mexico are still unknown.<\/p>\n<p>On top of that uncertainty, the Turtle Research Lab&#8217;s\u00a0Kimberly Reich says a separate pool of money that funded work with the turtles on the Texas Coast as part of the BP oil spill settlement has dried up as well.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have\u00a0about 20 percent of the budget we had last year,&#8221; she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Around this time every year, female Kemp&#8217;s Ridley sea turtles arrive like clockwork on Matagorda Island, on the Texas Gulf Coast. \u201cDuring the day they\u2019ll craw up, usually closer to the dunes, and they\u2019ll dig out an area and they\u2019ll lay a nest of several eggs,&#8221; says\u00a0Jeremy Edwardson, a biologist with the\u00a0U.S. Fish and Wildlife [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[52,132,376,176],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36124"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36124"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36154,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36124\/revisions\/36154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}