The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 88, July 1984 - April, 1985 Page: 62
476 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
and butchered on the wharf or turned on their backs and trussed for
shipment. A photograph of the Fulton turtle pen appears in Steven-
son's report on the Texas coast fishery (facing page 373 of the report),
and a map of Rockport and environs depicts a Turtle Pen Point where
Copano Creek enters Copano Bay, the very shallow lagoon about
twelve miles long by six miles wide, west of Aransas Bay.54
In the late 189os the turtle industry dropped off significantly. Over-
fishing seems to have been critical; one report blamed "the vigorous
fishery prosecuted along the Mexican coast." The number of turtle
nets employed by Texas shoremen reached a record 204 in 1897, and
it is unlikely that all of them were being dropped in Mexican waters.
Seine net numbers also grew so that marine resources, including
turtles, were being rapidly depleted.55
Landings in Aransas Bay dropped off considerably. In 1897, fisher-
men there deployed only 48 turtle nets or 23.5 percent of the Texas
total, compared with 155 nets in 189o. They operated 17 nets in the
vessel fishery or 77.3 percent of the state total. Hauls of turtle, how-
ever, declined dramatically-down to 25,340 pounds or 10.7 percent of
Texas's catch, compared with 470,429 pounds seven years previously.56
One reason for this loss of dominance and a shift of turtling to the
south may be the closing of the Fulton Cannery, which was reported
to have moved to Tampico. Data suggest that this facility accounted
for a little more than 50 percent of Aransas County's catch in 1890.
The deployment of scores of special nets and seines is likely to have
produced a surplus of turtles to be shipped by rail or steamer to deal-
ers in Galveston, San Antonio, and other cities. Once the cannery shut
down, probably because of overfishing, incentive for turtling weak-
ened too. In 1897, seines, not turtle nets, were more successful in
54Stearns, "Fisheries of the Gulf of Mexico," 585; Stevenson, "Report on the Coast
Fisheries," 412 (quotation); Donald K. Tressler and James McW. Lemon, Marine Products
of Commerce . . . (2nd rev. ed; New York, 1951), 658-659; Stevenson, "Preservation of
Fishery Products," 341; David Duncan, "Capturing Giant Turtles in the Caribbean,"
National Geographic Magazine, LXXXIV (Aug., 1943), 188; United States, Department of
the Interior, Geological Survey, "Lamar Quadrangle, Texas, Lamar, Tex. N28o7.5-
W9700/7.5," 1979. Scale 1:24,000 lists "Turtle Pen Point."
55Townsend, "Statistics of the Fisheries of the Gulf States [1899]," 161.
S6Ibid., 164-165; Collins and Smith, "A Statistical Report," 175-177; Stevenson, "Re-
port on the Coast Fisheries," 418, for the comparison with 189o. Frederick W. True, "The
Turtle and Terrapin Fisheries," The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United
States: Sect. V-History and Methods of the Fisheries, 498, stated that there were ten
part-time turtlers "at Rockport." "During the first six months of active work about 8,500
pounds of turtle meat were canned."
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 88, July 1984 - April, 1985, periodical, 1984/1985; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101210/m1/84/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.