Sea Turtles at the Mansfield Channel

The Mansfield Channel [left, click to enlarge] is located at the southern end of Padre Island National Seashore, along the south Texas coast. The Mansfield Channel is one of only tow direct routes of passage between the Gulf of Mexico and the Laguna Madre. A pair of jetties armor the Gulf of Mexico entrance to the channel. The Mansfield Channel may provide important habitat for foraging, developing, resting, and migrating sea turtles.

Four sea turtle species, including the green (Chelonia mydas), hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata), Kemp's ridley (Lepidochelys kempii), and loggerhead (Caretta caretta) are documented in the vicinity of the Mansfield Channel. The Mansfield Channel and Laguna Madre may be particularly important to juvenile green turtles, which were once commercially exploited in south Texas. A variety of human activities are conducted at the Mansfield Channel (dredging, boating, fishing, etc.).

The National Park Service (NPS), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) need additional information on sea turtles inhabiting the Mansfield Channel, in order to afford these threatened and endangered species adequate protection. Information on the species occurrence, relative abundance, seasonality, residency; breeding colonies of origin, foraging ecology, sex ratios, sizes, and growth of sea turtles at the Mansfield Channel is needed enhance understanding and management activities. Also, information in needed on long-term variations in the numbers of turtles inhabiting this area.

This work will address numerous recovery task priority items listed in Recovery Plans for these species. The objective of this project is to conduct a survey to gather a variety of biological data for sea turtles inhabiting the Mansfield Channel. Sea turtles will be netted at the Mansfield Channel jetties and catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) will be compared between study months and years. A systematic survey is being conducted to gather a variety of biological data for sea turtles inhabiting the Mansfield Channel, located at the southern end of Padre Island National Seashore.