Padre Island National Seashore's highly acclaimed sea turtle recovery program is to be scaled back by the National Park Service, which says it's too costly/Rebecca Latson file.
Editor's note: This adds National Park Service comments, reaction from the Center for Biological Diversity, along with additional details from the review report.
A National Park Service review of the renowned Kemp's ridley sea turtle recovery program at Padre Island National Seashore in Texas is calling for substantial funding cuts and programmatic changes that would greatly hamstring the program and amount to "conservation malpractice," Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility charged Thursday.
The cuts are called for in a June report that reviewed the history of the recovery program. While the review noted the Sea Turtle Science and Recovery Program has drawn widespread acclaim for its work in boosting numbers of Kemp's ridley turtles, the most endangered of the five species of sea turtles, it said that funding for the program "is disproportionately high compared to the number of partners involved and the percentage of the turtle population being addressed."
"The program should not rely on additional parkwide base fund allocations or short-term project funding to cover long-term operational costs," it added.
The report also questioned how the program has been run, called for a "formal 5-year strategic plan," and said the recovery program should focus on protecting turtle nests and not an incubation program. It also expressed concern about the amount of overtime accrued by the program staff, and said that fuel charges constituted "possibly as much as half of the parkwide fuel used in a season."
Dr. Donna Shaver, who long has overseen the program and is considered one of the world's leading sea turtle experts, was under a gag order and could not discuss the review or the funding cuts.
At the National Park Service's Intermountain Region Office in Denver, which signed off on the review document and its recommendations, spokesperson Vanessa Lacayo said the recommendations will improve the turtle program.
"The National Park Service review not only underscores the importance of this program to the park, but also outlines goals to strengthen its mission, clarify its priorities, and expand opportunities for the program’s shared stewardship," she said in an email. "The National Park Service’s only plan forward is to strengthen the program, which is built by the support of our employees and volunteers."
That perspective was dismissed by Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity.
"Slashing the National Park Service’s sea turtle research and conservation program is a disaster. Totally unacceptable," said Suckling. "There would be no Kemp’s ridley sea turtles in the United States were it not for Park Service’s incredibly successful, incredibly popular reintroduction program starting in 1978. The Kemp’s population is steadily growing and has started to expand into Alabama, but it’s still endangered with just 262 nests in Texas this year. The Park Service should be increasing its sea turtle budget to get the Kemp’s turtle over the line to full recovery, not pulling back."
"The bureaucrats’ argument that they need to slash the budget now, when funding is healthy, because funding might decline in the future makes no sense at all," Suckling added. "It’s a cover for the Trump administration’s attack on science and conservation within all federal agencies."
PEER said it was acting on Dr. Shaver's behalf by filing a legal complaint under the federal Information Quality Act demanding that the review of the sea turtle program "be retracted due to many misleading findings, inaccuracies, and actions that violate law as well as NPS policy. One of many issues is new restrictions placed on the scope of sea turtle research, in violation of the agency’s Scientific Integrity Policy."
The National Park Service has 60 days to respond to the complaint and Dr. Shaver may appeal any denial of her demand for retraction.
Within its 28-page complaint PEER said the review's recommendations to scale back the turtle recovery program are contrary to the Park Service's mission to work to recover species listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
The Kemp's ridley sea turtle has been listed as endangered since 1970. The green and loggerhead sea turtles, which also appear at Padre Island National Seashore, also are listed as endangered.
"NPS personnel have a duty to proactively protect these species with practices that are proven to be successful here and elsewhere in the world, contrary to the conclusions of the review," PEER's filing said.
The review, however, maintained that the national seashore's practice of incubating eggs from green and loggerhead sea turtles at the seashore and then releasing them into the Gulf of Mexico isn't warranted and should be discontinued.
"There seems to be no conservation reason to maintain this practice, and no (environmental assessment), (Biological Opinion), or other directive exists to support this management action. The majority of organizations interviewed suggested that this practice should stop," said the 51-page document signed off on by Michael Reynolds, the director of the Park Service's Intermountain regional office.
The document also said the turtle recovery program's $2,196,055 budget represents nearly a quarter of the national seashore's entire annual budget, to the detriment of other programs.
"The Science and Resources Management division’s budget ($248,670 in FY20), which is used to manage all other natural and cultural resources science and stewardship, planning and compliance, and Native American relations, is only 4.3 percent of the park’s base budget," it noted. "The perception of some park staff is that most natural and cultural resource management programs have been largely ignored as a result of the intense and disproportionately high allocation of financial and staff resources applied to the sea turtle program."
Although the turtle program has a 20-year record of successfully landing grants and other funding, the review document said those sources can't be expected to continue forever and so the program's budget should be reined in by 30 percent. At the same time, the document suggested the park look to friends groups and outside non-governmental organizations for financial support.
“Padre Island is cannibalizing one of its best and most important programs for bureaucratic reasons having nothing to do with the recovery of sea turtle populations,” said Jeff Ruch, PEER's Pacific director. “The steps Padre Island is now pursuing will result in many needless sea turtle deaths.”
Comments
The Kemp's ridley sea turtle program has been an exceedingly well run operation. It has been successful in reestablishing a nesting colony on Padre Island National Seashore. The success has been due to a combination of factors one of which is the use of corrals and Incubation room for protecting the eggs. These eggs need protection not only from the numerous predators on the 70 mile long stretch of beach and environmental factors but also vehicular traffic. Texas considers the beach a roadway and cars are driven on all but a few miles. If the corrals and incubation room as disbanded, patrols reduced and program efforts pulled back, all will be lost for this most endangered sea turtle on the planet.
Less than the cost of one day of Trump golfing!
Just a bad idea. One of many from this administration that will do more damage than any projected benefit.
Last year The Wildlife Society and Johns Hopkins Press published a book entitled "The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation." Several chapters include criticisms of the wildlife management policies of the National Park Service. One claims the National Park concept was created in the late nineteenth century with its "primary function" being public recreation, "Nature conservation was a distinctly secondary function." The author claims the "national parks played a crucial role protecting big game species, but did so as a matter of benign neglect." The hunting oriented authors fail to mention when the US Army and advent National Park Service saved the extirpation of those signature megafauna, the science of modern wildlife management had not yet been born. "Benign neglect?" Hardly! A different time, a different mission, maybe. But the world's first national park was neither created, nor conserved into modernity, out of neglect.
Regarding the Padre Island NS Ridley Turtle issue, the widely acclaimed and successful program represents the very best of efforts by the NPS to mitigate the negative impacts of neighboring commercial and recreational resource management and use on the unique resources of its units. In many locations those NPS areas provide the only large enough natural areas to support and preserve the unique biota the area was once home to. And the huge range of resource threats to those areas require unique management actions which, to the extent possible, generally follow the common thread of preserving those elements without the preconceived numerical objectives common to the "North American Model of Wildlife Conservation." The Ridley program at Padre Island is one of the most important models of the unique portion of North American wildlife management borne and practiced by the National Park Service. It deserves continued accolades and increased support from the NPS and all National Park aficionados.
Having worked at that park in the past, this review is long past due. cuts in funding do not mean cuts in efficiency necessarily. If you read the report, it is just calling for a change in strategy. The current sea turtle conservation program is its own division with its own respective funding and does not fall under the division of science and resource management (SRM) like in most other national parks. Consolidating the divisions once again and leaving down-island nests in situ is not detrimental to the effectiveness of the program. What's more, the reasons for declines in Kemp's Ridley turtles have little to do with nest success and more with fishing practices and pollution. In a record year, all of Texas didn't even have 400 sea turtles nesting, well there are beaches in Mexico were they nest in the thousands. The folks in charge of the program put turtles above all else, even employee safety. This review is long overdue and although the article makes it seem like it's the end of the world, these changes are much-needed.
Well, Chick3nScr4tch, we're in the last seven months of one of, if not the, most corrupt, malicious, ignorant, and incompetent administrations in American history, an administration so underhanded, devious, manipulative, mean, and stupid that has repeatedly demonstrated, beyond any reasonable doubt, that it cannot be trusted to do anything, anything, anything, on any topic, in a trustworthy and competent manner. And, it has not stopped at the federal level. The party that backs this disgraceful excuse for an administration has seeped into state and local governments and bureaucracies everywhere, especially throughout Texas. Absolutely nothing this administration or the party that backs it have done in regards to conservation, our national parks, or wildlife protection have been even close to trustworthy, benevolent, or even appropriate and that includes absolutely disgracefully obscene antics spanning Alaska, the Northern Rockies, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and all the way across to the Everglades Complex. Ryan Zinke was despicable and Bernhardt is cut from the same cloth, if not worse.
Given this tragic situation, you should easily be able to comprehend how I, as a taxpaying American citizen, don't want this administration or this president or any one in his party making absolutely any more changes, to anything, before we can get them the hell out and let a new administration come in and review the propriety of whatever this disgusting band of miscreants proposed doing. If it needs changing, the next administration will get to it. Just leave it all alone over the next seven months, get the hell out, and take your yippy little minions with you.
I volunteered there during several summers driving Marine Biologists up and down the 70 mile section of the beach looking for sea turtle nests. The must be harvested and incubated or they will fall to coyote predation and vehicles driving on the beach. The fuel costs are high because the drive a fleet of ATVS for constant patrol during nesting periods. Leave it to -RUM- to cUT the bugdeT to cover his Golf Game, and he plays poorly.
That's ok, David Vann. It doesn't matter how porly he plays golf - he not only owns the clubs, but has been ovserved time after time to cheat.