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Learning to Keep Sea Turtles Alive & Healthy
Just
one block from the Gulf of Mexico, NOAA Fisheries' Galveston Laboratory
occupies 70,000 square feet of offices, library, research labs and aquaculture
space. A high quality sea water system delivers up to 50,000 gallons daily,
making it the largest federally operated marine culture system in the
southeastern United States.
With about 80 staff, the lab conducts fisheries research through three
branches serving the Southeast Fisheries Science Center. The Fishery Management
Branch collects and analyzes data on the shrimp fishery. The Fishery Ecology
Branch focuses on essential fish and coral reef habitats, fishing impacts
and marsh and seagrass restoration. The Protected Species Branch researches
and monitors sea turtle and marine mammal strandings. Strandings may include
turtles that float or wash ashore dead or injured. The Galveston
Laboratory is the only federal facility in the country dedicated to
captive rearing of sea turtles. Its staff has been cited for outstanding
public outreach.
Photos by Jordan St. John
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Biologist Ben Higgins (right) briefs Dr. Samuel Bodman, Deputy
Secretary of Commerce, on sea turtle research conducted at Galveston
Laboratory. The research is focused on reducing incidental sea
turtle capture in commerical fisheries, learning about sea turtle
physiology and behavior, developing tags for hatchlings that
will allow tracking over the turtles' life span, identifying
and describing key habitats, and educating students and the
public about threats to sea turtles and conservation efforts
underway to protect them.
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Scott Gudes,(left) Deputy Under Secretary of NOAA, and Sam Bodman
listen to biologist Shawn Hillen explain how marine organisms
or polychaete worms are identified from sediments in Gulf of
Mexico marshes. The abundance of these organisms is key to providing
food for fish and shrimps using salt marshes as nursery habitat.
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Loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings are being raised for fishing
gear avoidance research. The goal is keep turtles from being
caught in nets and other gear where they become entangled or
hooked and often die. Research techniques are not harmful to
the turtles. At 2-3 years of age the turtles are released into
the Gulf of Mexico. Prior to release, special micro-chip transponder
tags are implanted in to each turtle so they can be identified
and tracked over the course of their lifetime.
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Ben Higgins (left) shows Sam Bodman how a TED, or turtle excluder
device, and a BRD, or bycatch reduction device, work to reduce
bycatch when installed in a shrimp trawl. TEDs physically exclude
sea turtles and large fish from the trawl by means of a selective
barrier, usually in the form of a metal grid. BRDs provide openings
in the trawl where fish have the opportunity to escape but shrimp
cannot. The combination of a TED and BRD, result in less bycatch
and create a more efficient fishery while at the same time conserve
both sea turtles and valuable fish species. The devices are
both products of long-term research by the Southeast Fisheries
Science Center, including the Galveston Lab.
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Sam Bodman examines juvenile fish and shrimps bring studied
by NOAA Fisheries biologist and graduate student Jennifer Doerr.
Studies underway to compare the numbers of juvenile fishery
species using restored vs. natural salt marshes yield information
critical to marsh restoration.
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