Endangered Species of Sea Turtle Sees Drop in Nest Numbers for 2013

The numbers are in and it's not looking good for the endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle for which scientists were only able to identify 153 nests along the Texas coast that serves as the largest US nesting ground for the animal.

This number represents a sharp decline from a total of 209 last year, and since new nests typically don't appear after mid-July, there is little hope this number will improve much, if at all.

As to the reason for the drop -- especially over such a short period of time -- researchers have yet to come to any decisive conclusions.

"I'm very concerned about it because it is something we weren't expecting," Tom Shearer, the US Fish and Wildlife Department Kemp's ridley coordinator, told the Houston Chronicle.

A similar drop is also being reported in Mexico where the turtle's largest nesting ground is located.

In contrast, scientists reportedly expected the number of nests for the species to grow annually by 12 to 17 percent.

During its heydey, the Kemp's ridley sea turtle was known to lay as many as 40,000 nests in one summer; however, by the 1960s, commercial fishing and shrimping that often led to the inadvertent capture of the animal had pushed it nearly to extinction. Then, with the introduction of turtle excluder devices on nets, the population once again began to rise, albeit slowly.

One possibility for the recent downturn is the fact that both 2009 and 2010 were cold years that could have killed hatchlings, Ben Higgins, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Galveston, told the Chronicle.

Others suggest that the 2010 BP oil spill may be to blame. There is also the possibility that the event may simply be the natural result of an event further back in time since female turtles don't reach breeding age until 12 to 17 years old.

"There could be something else out there we don't know about," Tasha Metz, a sea turtle biologist at Texas A&M University at Galveston, said. "We really can't jump to conclusions."