Nearly 300 Loggerhead Sea Turtles Found Stranded on Texas Beaches and Scientists Don't Know Why

Anna Lazarus Caplan
·2 min read
14
Sea Turtle Rescue Programs, Rehabilitation Facilities Responding to Record Loggerhead Strandings on Texas Coast
Sea Turtle Rescue Programs, Rehabilitation Facilities Responding to Record Loggerhead Strandings on Texas Coast

Donna Shaver/NPS/National Park Service;

Wildlife experts in Texas are puzzled as to why nearly 300 loggerhead sea turtles have stranded themselves along beaches in the state's Coastal Bend counties since April.

The large turtles, which can weigh up to 350 pounds and reach 3 feet in length, have been found stranded along beaches between Texas' Calhoun and Kleberg counties, a wide swath stretching southwest of Galveston to the Corpus Christi area, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a news release earlier this month.

"This is more than twice the average annual number of loggerhead strandings recorded from 2012 to 2021, which was 109, and annual numbers have increased during this decade," Donna J. Shaver, Texas coordinator of the Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network (STSSN) and chief of the division of sea turtle science and recovery at the National Park Service's Padre Island National Seashore, said in a statement.

"This dramatic increase in loggerhead strandings this year is alarming and has STSSN participants on high alert in the Coastal Bend to be ready for the increased influx of incapacitated loggerheads needing immediate rescue and care," she added.

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About two-thirds of the turtles have been found dead; rescuers took in others that were severely underweight, according to Mary Kay Skoruppa, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Sea Turtle Coordinator for Texas.

Sea Turtle Rescue Programs, Rehabilitation Facilities Responding to Record Loggerhead Strandings on Texas Coast
Sea Turtle Rescue Programs, Rehabilitation Facilities Responding to Record Loggerhead Strandings on Texas Coast

Donna Shaver/NPS/National Park Service

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"The affected loggerheads have been found underweight and emaciated," she said. "They are receiving diligent care in rehabilitation, and we hope that most will recover and ultimately be released back into the Gulf of Mexico."

Scientists believe the increase in strandings could be habitat-related, with possible decreases in "prey availability, freshwater inflows, and water quality, and exposure to hypoxic areas and contaminated prey" as the causes, the agency said.

Infectious diseases, biotoxins, and fisheries-related captures have been ruled out as the reasons for the surge.

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Loggerheads are one of five species of sea turtle known to inhabit the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shared. In the United States, loggerhead turtles nest primarily along the Atlantic coast of Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, and North Carolina and along the Florida and Alabama coasts in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries' website.

Authorities are urging Texas residents that encounter stranded sea turtles to quickly report the sightings by calling 1-866-TURTLE-5 (1-866-887-8535).