Boon in Texas Gulf Coast sea turtle nesting

Critically endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtles are nesting like never before, a promising sign in the species’ ongoing and struggling recovery.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service recently reported that nesting sites for Kemp’s ridley sea turtles along the Texas Gulf of Mexico coastline rose by some 55% over the last count. USFWS officials counted around 697 nests attributed to the species per data released on November 9, up from 449 nests documented in 2025.

Trained USFWS staff members and volunteers are employed in the annual Kemp’s ridley sea turtle nesting census. The federal agency cautions that the count is of nests only, not of actual surviving sea turtles.

Still, the fact that nesting locations expanded by 55% in a year is an encouraging sign, officials say.

“On the Texas coast, growing from about one nest every three years in 1978 to nearly 700 nests in 2026 would not have been possible without decades of partnership among thousands of people and organizations across the U.S. and Mexico,” said Dr. Donna J. Shaver, Chief of the Division of Sea Turtle Science and Recovery at the Padre Island National Seashore.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle as critically endangered. It is the rarest and smallest species of sea turtle in the world.

Wildlife experts have spent decades trying to save the species from extinction. Aside from habitat loss and threats such as Gulf of Mexico oil spills, their numbers have been decimated by poachers going after their eggs on beaches.