Padre Island National Seashore says it has received $300,000 for research into kemp's ridley sea turtles./Rebecca Latson file

Padre Island National Seashore has landed $300,000 for research into kemp's ridley sea turtles, the smallest and most endangered of sea turtle species.

Announcement of the funding comes as controversy continues to swirl around the fate of the seashore's Sea Turtle Science and Recovery Program, which a 2020 National Park Service report said was unsustainable at its current size. Specifically, the report said the program had gotten unwieldly and too costly at roughly $1.9 million per year. Within 3-5 years, the review added without any detail, the program would be unsustainable. As a result, it should be tightly reined in, the report recommended.

That review has raised questions about the drivers behind the report and its conclusions, which at times seem contradictory in the narrative. While calling for tighter controls over the STSR program, its operations and budget, the report applauded its successes and value, noting that it has "greatly influenced the success of Kemp's ridley sea turtle conservation in Texas and in the Gulf of Mexico."

"Research conducted at the park has been included in many peer-reviewed publications and former (Padre Island) STSR seasonal staff have become prominent researchers and managers working on marine conservation," it added.

However, Dr. Donna Shaver, who was brought to the seashore in 2003 specifically to build that sea turtle science program, has been in administrative limbo since 2020 and prohibited from talking to the media about the report's findings or her current role.

On Tuesday, Padre Island Superintendent Eric Brunnemann announced the additional $300,000 in federal funding for research into the survival rates, resource use patterns, and a debilitating wildlife disease of the endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle.   

"I know firsthand how much the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle means to Texans, and the pride we feel with stakeholders and partners about such magnificent animals,” said the superintendent in a release. “It is my sincere hope that the funding we are announcing today, along with our efforts to increase seasonal staffing in place of overtime, will reassure the public that we have every intention of strengthening our sea turtle program moving forward.”

The U.S. Geological Survey, which provides science support to bureaus in the Interior Department and other federal agencies, was awarded a $200,000, three-year project to determine survival rates and resource use patterns of the endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle. The information will be used to investigate potential causes of the decline in Kemp's ridley nesting.

Additionally, the Park Service approved a $100,000, three-year project to research the emerging incidence of fibropapillomatosis, a wildlife disease, in Kemp’s ridley sea turtles. Fibropapillomatosis is a debilitating disease that affects sea turtles in many parts of the world. Turtles with this disease have external tumors that may grow so large and hanging as to hamper swimming, vision and feeding.

“Padre Island National Seashore is the most important nesting beach in the U.S. for the endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, and we’re excited to continue working with Donna Shaver and the National Park Service as we analyze their long-term data on nesting females,” said Kristen Hart, a research ecologist and lead USGS scientist on the project. “Our work will entail estimating survival rates for females and determining their use of various regional foraging habitats. We anticipate that our results will help identify drivers of trends in the larger Kemp’s ridley population.”

In June 2020, the National Park Service released the first program review of the park’s popular Division of Sea Turtle Science and Recovery that outlined goals to strengthen its mission, clarify its priorities and expand opportunities for shared stewardship (find that report here: https://go.nps.gov/paisreview). That report discussed the need for the park to identify additional financial support and potential savings in light of an expected 2026 sunset of project funding originating from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement.