(2) Nesting areas. Almost all nesting by Kemp's ridley is 

 concentrated on a few kilometers of beach in southern Tamaulipas, 

 Mexico, in the vicinity of the coastal features of Barra del 

 Tordo, Barra Coma, Barra Calabazas, and Barra San Vicente. 

 However, small numbers nest in the western Gulf of Mexico outside 

 this area, as far north as Padre Island, Texas, and as far south 

 as the coast of central Veracruz. 



Food habits ; Kemp's ridley is carnivorous, and the diet 

 leans heavily towards crabs of many species. Jellyfish, molluscs 

 (including cephalopods) , echinoderms, and fish may also be eaten. 

 This is an aggressive and irascible species, thrashing furiously 

 when caught and turned on its back. In captivity the young show 

 high levels of aggression towards each other and have to be kept 

 separately. 



Reproductive ecology ; Kemp's ridley show some similarities 

 to the olive ridley in that it lays similar numbers of eggs and 

 also frequently nests in successive seasons, depositing 1-3 

 clutches during a season. Inter-nesting intervals are very 

 variable, and nesting emergence is usually precipitated by strong 

 on-shore winds. A unique feature is the exclusively diurnal 

 nesting. Other species, including the flatback, the hawksbill, 

 and the olive ridley, may nest by day at certain times or in 

 certain places, but in the case of Kemp's ridley diurnal nesting 

 occurs exclusively. 



Primordially, Kemp's ridley nested in enormous "arribadas," 

 a nesting aggregation in 1947 having been estimated to include 

 about 40,000 females. In subsequent years, however, with the 

 abrupt decline of the nesting population, the arribada has lost 

 its integrity, and today most of the few hundred females 

 remaining in the population emerge singly or in small groups, 

 although occasionally an arribada of 100-200 individuals may come 

 ashore over several miles of beach. 



Major threats to survival ; Kemp's ridley is considered the 

 most endangered of all sea turtle species, and there is little 

 question that this is so. The population of breeding females has 

 been reduced to a few hundred animals producing fewer than 1,000 

 nests annually. Despite intense patrolling effort on the 

 Tamaulipas nesting beach (and even on the "straggler" nesting 

 beaches of Padre Island and Veracruz) , and the annual release of 

 about 50,000 hatchlings, the annual trend in number of breeding 

 females is progressively downward. The species has been 

 completely protected in the United States and in Mexico for many 

 years, and the great majority of the eggs laid annually hatch 

 successfully and the young are either liberated immediately or 

 "headstarted" and released when nearly a year old. Unless the 

 population is undergoing some kind of natural shift away from the 

 Rancho Nuevo beach area, the conclusions seem inescapable that 



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