Oh the life of a conservation biologist!
Every Monday, a NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-yeah…it’s a mouthful) employee from our Galveston lab drives about 90 miles of beach from the Bolivar Peninsula through Galveston to Freeport looking for stranded or deceased sea turtles. Fortunately, the Houston Zoo has been given the opportunity to ride along on these beach surveys a few times a month. We will report what we find each Tuesday morning to keep you updated on all the sea turtle happenings on the upper Texas coast.
NOAA stickers on the side of the survey truck
Our Monday’s start bright and early at 7:00am, where we meet our fisheries biologist at the sea turtle facility in Galveston. We load up the truck with plastic bins, towels (for injured/stranded turtles), tow ropes, tool boxes, data sheets, a field notebook, buckets, and LOTS of water, coffee, and snacks for our 10-12 hour day.
You never know what cool things you'll stumble upon when you go outside!
Tow ropes are important because a lot of small cars think they can make it across a nice sandy beach-think again. We usually have to pull 1 or 2 cars out of the sand on any given survey day. Being a wildlife conservation biologist involves lots of skills-including how to hook up a tow rope!
Lyndsey-a NOAA employee hooking up the tow rope yesterday
We first drive onto the ferry which takes us across to Bolivar Peninsula. Yesterday I saw several dolphins on our ferry trip and the area was FILLED with boats! We survey about 30-45 miles of beach on Bolivar-as much as the truck can endure. As we drive further away from civilization the beaches become narrow and difficult to drive on. When we survey, we drive 5 miles of beach at a time, looking for turtles along the beach, and recording our coordinates and our findings. Most of the time we find A LOT of trash (even sites where trash is burned on the beach), but thankfully no stranded or deceased turtles yesterday!
Burning beach chairs and other trash-this does not keep it from going into our water
After returning to Galveston on our return ferry trip, we start at East Beach and work our way all the way down to Freeport. We were stopped several times yesterday because people were asking us if we were conducting water quality tests. If you couldn’t smell the fish from Houston, I’m surprised. We were told by beachgoers that the thousands of dead fish that washed up over the past few days were because of warm water temperatures, which decreases the available oxygen in the water. I did a little research this morning, and it looks like the fish died because of a toxic algal bloom.
A toxic algal bloom caused thousands of fish to die
The dead fish made for a very smelly survey day…even the seagulls seemed disinterested in the easy prey!
After we finish our beach surveys, we walk down the Freeport Jetty (a very busy fishing area) to collect monofilament line from some amazing recycling bins that were put together through a collaborative effort by many institutions. Monofilament line is used by most recreational fishermen to catch fish. If this line is cut and left on the rocks of the jetty, the green sea turtles that come to feed on the algae of the rocks can become entangled.
Monofilament recycling bin filled with trash
Unfortunately, there are no trash cans on the jetty, so people are using the monofilament recycling bins as trash cans. It’s great to get the trash off the ground, but little room is left for the line to be contained. It would be amazing to see trash and recycling cans next to each of these monofilament bins so we can keep this busy fishing area clear!
Non-trash monofilament recycling bin filled with trash
The Freeport Jetty is not only a great fishing spot, but a wonderful tourist location to observe green sea turtles. We saw 2 in a matter of 30 minutes yesterday as we cleaned and organized the line and trash.
After a long day of surveying the beach, answering fish and turtle questions, and collecting trash and monofilament line, it’s back to the sea turtle facility to check on a few of the wild sea turtles who are being rehabilitated.
A recent Kemp's Ridley hatchling with thumb to show actual size!
You may remember this turtle from Facebook...he had a shoe wrapped around his flipper
More Posts Like This!
- Off to Greener Sea Grass Beds On Thursday, August 9th, a green sea turtle (native to our Gulf Coast waters) was released into Galveston Bay through...
- Kemp’s ridley sea turtle on beach yesterday! While on my sea turtle patrol yesterday I intercepted this female Kemp’s ridley sea turtle awkwardly flapping and slowly inching...
- Saving a Sea turtle! Be ready for a story of an endangered Kemp’s Ridley female sea turtle with a happy ending! Our head veterinarian,...
- Sea Turtle Rescue Yesterday at the Houston Zoo! Yesterday afternoon, Dr. Joe Flanagan, the Houston Zoo’s Director of Veterinary Medicine, called over to let us know that we had...
- Let’s make “Litterbugs” an endangered species! You will generally never hear me say we should drive any invertebrate to the edge of extinction, but this bug is...
