Nueces County Coastal Parks explores new turtle incubation facility amid record nesting season

Nueces Co. Coastal Parks plans a turtle incubation facility to support dwindling federal efforts on Padre Island National Seashore.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Several agencies are coming together to fill a gap in efforts to help sea turtles year-round.

Nueces County Coastal Parks is working to built a possible incubation facility that could be used during turtle nesting season.

Nueces County Coastal Parks Director Scott Cross said his department has been spearheading turtle nesting season on North Padre Island.

“As it stands right now, we monitor all nesting and recovery of nests and sea turtle eggs from the northern boundary of the National Seashore all the way up to the Packery South Jetty, and then we do some of that on the north side of Packery,” Cross said.

With Padre Island National Seashore scaling back its operations, Cross said his department is stepping up.

“Among a few of us, we’ve talked about potential funding and the possibility of building another incubation facility on our Kleberg County property,” Cross said. “We’ve identified a potential funding source, but we still need to further discuss the logistics. Those conversations are happening, and we’ll probably get deeper into them this spring.”

A gap Cross and other county leaders say needs to be filled.

“Last year was a record year for our region of the coast,” Cross said. “I think we recovered 14 or 15 nesting sites on our section of the beach.”

Nueces County Commissioner Brent Chesney, who represents Precinct 4, agrees something needs to be done, but said the project may be outside the county’s control.

“This is a federal program, and it’s not in the jurisdiction of Nueces County,” Chesney said. “But I still feel like we need to try. We need to at least facilitate — not take the lead — but help get the right federal agencies and local agencies involved that love and care about these turtles.”

Although the project is still in its preliminary stages, Cross said he hopes it will become a reality.

“The concept is there, and we’re having conversations about where it goes from here and how long it might take,” Cross said. “This could be a three- to five-year process before we get there. We just don’t know yet.”

Cross said more details on the project are expected later this spring.