Sea Turtles and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Click here for information printed in August 2003 by NOAA about sea turtles and oil spills.

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil spill occured just ten days before the official May 1 start of sea turtle season along Florida’s gulf coast.

In response the crisis, sea turtle nesting was monitored rigorously throughout Florida's gulf coastline.  Fortunately, Sanibel and Captiva beaches were not directly affected by the spill.

The Gulf of Mexico is full of a diversity of life and is home to five species of sea turtle (loggerhead, green, hawksbill, leatherback, and Kemp’s ridley turtles).  One species, the Kemp’s ridley (Lepidochelys kempii), is most at risk from the impacts of the oil spill.  It spends its entire life in the gulf: hatching on the beaches of Playa de Rancho Nuevo, Tamaulipas, Mexico or along the Texas and Florida coasts, growing and reaching adulthood in the gulf, and returning to Mexico or Texas and Florida to nest.  (Read about the 2011 Kemps nest on Sanibel.)

As the most endangered sea turtle in the world, the Kemp’s ridley has rebounded from a low of only 702 nests in 1985 to over 20,000 nests last year.  This recovery was possible because of the tireless efforts of scientists and conservation workers.

The other species of sea turtle may not spend their entire lives in the gulf, but nest on the gulf’s beaches and utilize the estuaries as nursery grounds where they grow to adulthood and are also facing threats from the spill.  The risks to sea turtles posed by oil include damage to the digestive tract and internal organs from oil-contaminated food, a refusal to nest on oiled beaches, death or inhibited development of eggs exposed to oil, and deformities in hatchlings exposed to oil during incubation.  Oil on beaches can also alter the temperature of the sand (which determines sex in sea turtles), skewing the sex ratio of hatchlings. 

The potential impact of this spill to current and future sea turtle generations is daunting to consider, and while the exact toll of this environmental disaster is currently unknown, it is sure to impact sea turtle populations.

Posted 5/10/10