Frequently Asked QuestionsFrequently Asked QuestionsWhat was the Headstart Experimental Project?
"Head starting" is the term used to describe an experimental procedure when hatchlings are retained in captivity and raised for several months to increase the juvenile population by reducing hatchling mortality. Tiny sea turtles racing from their nest on the beach to the safety of the water are devoured by ghost crabs and hungry birds. When they reach the water, they become tasty morsels for fish and diving birds.
The Headstart Project at the National Marine Fisheries Service, Galveston, Texas, began in 1978 . The government of Mexico presented a precious gift of endangered Kemp's ridley eggs to the people of the United States and continued the practice until it was abruptly terminated in 1993. The eggs were first taken to the Padre Island National Seashore where they were carefully incubated and hatched. The hatchlings were allowed to enter the water briefly before being scooped up for transport to Galveston.
The Kemp's ridley population had reached a critically low number when the project was begun to try to establish a second nesting beach. Scientists have yet to establish the reasons that sea turtles return to the beach where they hatched so the eggs were packed in sand from the Texas beach for hatching and the tiny animals were exposed to the Texas shoreline early in their lives.
For the next ten years, the hatching and imprinting experiment went on at the Padre Island National Seashore attracting visitors from all over the world. Suddenly and with little warning, the project was stopped. The ten years of imprinting the hatchlings was thought to be enough. Since the regulations requiring the use of Turtle Excluder Devices to allow sea turtles to escape from drowning in shrimp nets had not been passed, these Kemp's ridleys would swim in dangerous waters for years to come.
For another five years, hatchlings were taken directly from the nesting beach at Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, to the Galveston, Texas, facility for head starting. The tiny turtles lived in individual buckets and were fed turtle chow which was purchased by thousands of U.S. school children through the HEART (Help Endangered Animals-Ridley Turtles) volunteer program which supported the government's efforts.
In 1993 after the Mexican government had approved transfer of 2,000 hatchlings to the U.S., head starting was stopped. The tiny travelers did not make the trip. Reasons for the termination have never been made clear to the questioning public. Funds were available in the summer of '93; the schoolchildren had bought the turtle chow and the staff at Galveston had been ready to receive the new "crop" of hatchlings which never came.
Homecoming for Ridleys
Critics in and out of government said that hatchlings raised in buckets would never survive in the wild and would never assimilate with other Kemp's ridleys. How wrong they were. In 1996, two headstarted Kemp's ridleys nested at the Padre Island National Seashore and this April (1998) one more has been recorded nesting on Mustang Island to the north of Padre Island.
This last turtle was headstarted in 1984 according to the scientist who saw her. She was released from the University of Texas research vessel, The Longhorn, near Corpus Christi. Many other headstarted Kemp's ridleys may have nested but only verification by a qualified scientist/biologist can be accepted. Tony Amos of the University of Texas Marine Science Institute at Port Aransas, Texas, was on board that day and recalls:
"... the animal had been tagged and was identified as a member of "The Class of '84" (i.e. they were hatched in 1984). On 21 May 1985, thirteen years ago, 1017 Ridleys, including the one you saw were released from our R/V Longhorn offshore from Port Aransas in the middle of a thunderstorm. I was Chief Scientist on that cruise, and may have actually put that very turtle in the sea!"
Headstarted Kemp's ridleys have begun to return to the Texas coast with the majority of nestings occurring at the Padre Island National Seashore.
In 2007, a record breaking total of 128 Kemp's ridley nests have been confirmed on the Texas coast including (north to south in state): Bolivar Peninsula 1 Galveston Island 6 Surfside Beach 2 Bryan Beach 1 Matagorda Peninsula 4 Matagorda Island 8 Mustang Island 4 North Padre Island 81, including 73 at Padre Island National Seashore South Padre Island 18 Boca Chica Beach 3
For a listing of the number of total nestings, including headstarted turtles, see the National Park Service information on Kemp's ridley sea turtles at the Padre Island National Seashore, go here.
Why are these sea turtles called the "Kemp's ridleys?"
In 1880, Richard Kemp of Key West sent a specimen to Samuel Garman at Harvard. The new species was named for Kemp. No one seems to know why the name "ridley" is used.
Why is the Kemp's ridley called the "Heartbreak Turtle?"
Author Pamela Phillips wrote in the "Great Ridley Rescue" that a Kemp's "would struggle to the point of death when captured and laid on its back on deck, and fishermen believed that it died of a broken heart; thus it came to be known as the heart-break turtle." Modern history finds this smallest of sea turtles fighting its way back from the brink of extinction in spite of wrangling between government and industry and cruelty at the hands of law-breakers who catch and kill them.