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Many readers of the Marine Turtle Newsletter already know the fascinating story of the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle (Hildebrand 1963; Carr 1977; <https://seaturtle.org/mtn/special/MTN_Kemps.pdf>). Almost extinct in the 80s, this small sea turtle whose eggs were poached in Mexico and whose juveniles-through-nesters drowned in shrimp trawls in the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. East Coast, was about down for the last count (Heppell et al. 2007; Crowder & Heppell 2011). But then a small army of conservationists and government agencies in both countries joined with thousands of students led by people who refused to think of extinction for this endangered marine reptile.

The history goes back to one turtle being found on a Florida beach in 1906 by a fisherman named Richard Kemp, from which the first part of the species’ common name was derived. Years passed with little attention paid to the Kemp’s ridleys. Andres Herrera made an amateur movie documenting for the first time an arribada of approximately 42,000 Kemp’s ridleys nesting during a single day in June 1947 at Rancho Nuevo, Tamaulipas, Mexico (Hildebrand 1963). Following that, some 80 to 90 per cent of the nests were thought to have been excavated by local villagers and the species experienced a dramatic decrease (Hildebrand 1963). Between the years of 1978 and 1991, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) estimated only 200 Kemp’s ridleys nesting annually (National Marine Fisheries Service et al. 2011).

The Kemp’s ridley was nicknamed “The Heartbreak Turtle” because it appeared the species would be lost unless some incredible programs were introduced and supported by people in both Mexico and the United States with a measure of good luck added in. Houston’s PBS station made a film entitled “The Heartbreak Turtle” in 1979, which has been followed by “The Heartbreak Turtle Today” in 2011 (available from <http://www.seaturtles.org>).

It is impossible to name all the people who have dedicated years to the recovery of the Kemp’s ridley so I will not attempt to do so in this article. However, I must mention Drs. Henry Hildebrand, Archie Carr, Peter C.H. Pritchard, and René Márquez-Millán, without whose early warnings and conservation efforts the Kemp’s ridley might not exist today.

I regard being invited to write an article for the Marine Turtle Newsletter as a great honor for someone who is not a biologist but did the most beneficial work for the Kemp’s ridley as an unpaid volunteer between 1982 and 2002. After that, I was invited to join STRP to continue my work for sea turtle conservation. I would be remiss if I did not speak up about “The Heartbreak Turtle” and if I did not mention a few instances when my own heart was broken by actions of individuals and agencies I had worked tirelessly to support.

My most powerful volunteers have always been the students of the United States. Believing that their legislators would listen to their pleas for Turtle Excluder Device (TED) regulations and law enforcement, students from kindergarten through college wrote letters of concern for sea turtles and continue to do so. In the beginning, younger students drew pictures of the “trap door” the turtles needed to escape the net and avoid drowning. While a “head starting” experiment was being conducted by the NMFS in Galveston (Fontaine & Shaver 2005; Shaver & Wibbels 2007; Caillouet et al. in press; Shaver & Caillouet in press), children bought the turtle food for the tiny hatchlings and juveniles and took advantage of the opportunity to see real sea turtles reared in captivity for about a year before being tagged and released into the Gulf of Mexico. Thousands of children visited the Galveston facility and thus created a much higher level of public awareness about the killing of sea turtles by the shrimping industry. My personal Heartbreak #1 was the sudden termination of head starting in 1993, when a newspaper reporter called to break the news that no one else had bothered to share with me. I tried to point out that Kemp’s ridley head starting was the very best way to educate the public about the need for the Endangered Species Act, TEDs, and law enforcement at sea. I took a futile trip to Washington, D.C. to plea for the program before a disinterested Congressional committee and was provided only a few minutes to speak to a panel whose minds were already made up to say “no.”

During this time, children sent nickels and dimes to help the sea turtle camps in Mexico and, although the amount could not compare with what the shrimp industry donated later at the advice of public relations firms, it was enough to pay for many educational packets for Mexican schools, a small building at Rancho Nuevo, an ATV and other badly needed supplies. These efforts by school children seem to have been forgotten in recent years and, for me, this is Heartbreak #2.

The annual spike in sea turtle strandings each year when shrimping activity increases, the federal government’s refusal to put TEDs on skimmer trawls, and its inability to force state officials in Louisiana to enforce federal TED regulations in state waters continue to be a huge Heartbreak #3.

Heartbreak #4 is the loss of at least hundreds of Kemp’s ridleys during the BP oil spill in 2010. Seeing juvenile Kemp’s ridleys covered with oil and others rotting on Mississippi beaches was a site too painful to ever forget. Nest numbers dropped unexpectedly in Tamaulipas and Texas in 2010. In fact, preliminary nest counts indicate another alarming drop in nesting in 2013. Although numbers of nests laid on Tamaulipas and Texas beaches have since returned to levels near those in 2009, the 19% per year increase predicted for 2010-2020 by the bi-national recovery plan (National Marine Fisheries Service et al. 2011) has not resumed. This is cause for Heartbreak #5.

Last but not least is the federal government’s refusal to follow the recommendations of the bi-national recovery plan (National Marine Fisheries Service et al. 2011). Efforts to declare critical habitat areas along the Texas Coast continue to be ignored, as well as the actions recommended in the Plan to educate the public and work closely with communities. Waters of coastal Texas represent an important foraging corridor for nesters (Shaver et al. in press). The City Council and County Commissioners of Galveston have both unanimously passed a resolution asking for eggs from Kemp’s ridley nests found on the Upper Texas Coast to be retained and incubated there, with the hatchling releases made available for viewing by thousands of people. The lack of opportunity to educate people who will probably never be able financially to get to the Padre Island National Seashore to see a release is Heartbreak #6.

In closing, I want to personally thank everyone who has helped the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle struggle back from near extinction. We must never stop our work to protect them and to keep their population growing. It is especially important to find out why nesting dropped in 2010 and why it hasn’t resumed its recovery plan-predicted increase of 19% per year.

CAILLOUET, C. W., JR., D. J. SHAVER, & A. M. LANDRY, JR. (in press). Head-start and reintroduction of Kemp’s ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii) to Padre Island National Seashore, Texas. Herpetological Conservation and Biology.

CARR, A. 1977. Crisis for the Atlantic ridley. Marine Turtle Newsletter 4:2-3.

CROWDER, L. & S. HEPPELL. 2011. The decline and rise of a sea turtle: how Kemp’s ridleys are recovering in the Gulf of Mexico. The Solutions Journal 2:67-73.

FONTAINE, C. & D. SHAVER. 2005. Head-starting the Kemp's ridley sea turtle, Lepidochelys kempii, at the NMFS Galveston Laboratory, 1978-1992: A review. Chelonian Conservation & Biology 4: 838-845.

HEPPELL, S.S., P.M. BURCHFIELD & L.J. PENA. 2007. Kemp’s ridley recovery: how far have we come, and where are we headed? In: P.T. Plotkin (Ed.). Biology and Conservation of Ridley Sea Turtles. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. pp. 325-335.

HILDEBRAND, H.H. 1963. Hallazgo del area de anidacion de la tortuga marina, “lora”, Lepidochelys kempi (Garman) en la costa occidental del Golfo de Mexico. Ciencia, México 22:105- 112. Available with translation at <https://seaturtle.org/PDF/CaillouetCW_2010_Hildebrand1963ATranscriptionandTran.pdf>

NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE, U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE & SEMARNAT. 2011. Bi-National Recovery Plan for the Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle (Lepidochelys kempii), Second Revision. National Marine Fisheries Service. Silver Spring, Maryland 156 pp. + appendices.

SHAVER, D.J. & C.W.CAILLOUET, JR. In press. Reintroduction of Kemp’s ridley (Lepidochelys kempii) sea turtle to Padre Island National Seashore, Texas, and its connection to head-starting. Herpetological Conservation and Biology.

SHAVER, D.J., K.M. HART, I. FUJISAKI, C. RUBIO, A.R. SARTAIN, J. PEÑA, P.M. BURCHFIELD, D. GOMEZ GAMEZ, & J. ORTIZ. In press. Foraging area fidelity for Kemp's ridleys in the Gulf of Mexico. Ecology and Evolution.

SHAVER, D.J. & T. WIBBELS. 2007. Head-starting the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle. In: P.T. Plotkin (Ed.). Biology & Conservation of Ridley Sea Turtles. Baltimore: The John’s Hopkins University Press. pp. 297-323.