One of the most popular public events in the National Park System was the release of sea turtle hatchlings, shuffling off into the Gulf of Mexico at Padre Island National Seashore. I say was, because the number of those public events has been drastically scaled back in recent years.
The programs featuring the release of Kemp’s ridley sea turtle hatchlings at Padre Island offered young and old a crash course in conservation of a species that has narrowly avoided extinction, and remains highly endangered. In 2019, before the COVID 19 pandemic shuttered the public hatchling releases at Padre Island, an estimated 16,000 people viewed the releases. In 2020, online video presentations of the events attracted about 1 million viewers.
Yet despite the strong conservation value of these events, not just in public education but in the tens of thousands of hatched turtles released to the ocean, advocates of the program say the national seashore’s Sea Turtle Science and Recovery program itself is endangered. For after the Park Service recruited Dr. Donna Shaver to build that sea turtle science program, a role that saw her lifted to international prominence, the agency now seems to be squandering her success and hoping she will retire.
What’s been going on at Padre Island since 2021 has drawn the concern of the Sierra Club’s Lone Star chapter, based in Austin, Texas. It recently led a petition drive to raise concerns over the direction of the sea turtle program. Dr. Craig Nazor, the chapter’s conservation chair, recently met with Kate Hammond, the Director of the Park Services Intermountain Region, to question the direction of the program.
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One thing not mentioned is that in 2010 the NPS initiated a NEPA process to examine vehicle beach access at Pardre Island. In that process various alternatives for limiting beach access were developed, and the one chosen in 2012 was the NPS preferred alternative. That alternative continued vehicle beach access with some restrictions on speed and limited area closures. This was a compromise between the public's desire to have vehicles on the beach and also support sea turtle nesting. This process supported continuing the turtle program as it had been doing for many years---locating nests, collecting and incubating eggs, and releasing hatchlings to the ocean. It recognized the threats from predators, climate change with rising sea levels, and pollution. It recognized that beach driving was a longstanding tradition from before the national seashore was created and protecting turtles could be done with continued beach driving.