ENN — On Saturday, June 2, Gulf Specimens Marine Laboratory released six endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles into the Gulf of Mexico. The turtles were caught by recreational fishermen that use the marine laboratory’s dock on Dickerson Bay. The lab released the turtles to draw attention to a proposed public fishing pier which, it believes, would decimate the recovering population of endangered turtles.

The lab’s greatest concern is the unintentional capture of large numbers of Kemp’s Ridleys by fishermen, who would then release the turtles back into the water lodged with hooks, or kill them immediately by hauling them up by hook to the new elevated dock.

Local fishing enthusiasts planned a fishing tournament on the same day as the turtle release to rally support for the new pier.

Caribbean Conservation Corporation (CCC), the world’s oldest sea turtle conservation organisation, is working with Gulf Specimens Marine Laboratory to either halt the pier’s construction or make sure safeguards for Kemp’s Ridleys are incorporated into the pier’s design and management.

Kemp’s Ridleys are the most critically endangered sea turtles in the world. In the first half of this century there was considerable debate as to whether the Kemp’s Ridley was a distinct sea turtle species or a hybrid created by cross-mating turtles. The hybrid theory ensued because no Kemp’s Ridley had ever been seen nesting, despite the fact that sea turtle biologists, including the famed Dr Archie Carr, founder of the CCC, had searched throughout the Caribbean for any evidence of nesting.

The story of how the world finally came to learn of the Kemp’s Ridleys’ hidden nesting site at Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, is recounted in Dr Carr’s book, So Excellent a Fishe. In 1965 a forgotten film shot by an amateur photographer 18 years earlier was shipped to Dr Carr. The film showed the mass nesting, or arribada, of at least 40,000 Kemp’s Ridleys on a tiny stretch of beach.

In the ensuing years, rampant poaching and capture in shrimp trawls decimated the species. By 1987, the annual number of nests had plummeted to just 748. Since then an international coalition has co-ordinated efforts to save the Kemp’s Ridley. The required use of Turtle Excluder Devices on shrimp trawls and protection of the nesting beach has reversed the downward spiral. However, the annual number of nests is still in the low thousands and turtles continue to die each year from interactions with commercial and recreational fishing industries.

Dickerson Bay is a hot spot for Kemp’s Ridleys. The sea turtles use this quiet isolated bay, located just 30 miles south of Tallahassee, as a developmental feeding area. In just the last three years, 27 Kemp’s Ridleys have been caught by the handful of recreational fishers who fish at Gulf Specimen’s small dock.