The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 88, July 1984 - April, 1985 Page: 63
476 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Sea Turtles in Texas: A Forgotten Commerce
Aransas County's shore fishery, a fact that suggests that fishermen were
no longer concentrating on these reptiles.57
The Aransas Bay fishery turned up ten turtles a net in 1889 and
1890, if one uses Stevenson's conservative average of 270 pounds for
each animal. In 1897 the figure had fallen to about one turtle a net
and even below that by 1902, when Aransas County again reported a
record number of turtle nets. By the turn of the century it was not
worth setting turtle nets; only a few animals were captured in the
twenty or so seines for redfish, sea trout, and sheepshead.58
Seven counties reported turtle catches in the late 189os, totaling
237,385 pounds. Nueces County had 49 percent of the total (see ap-
pendix); smaller county percentages came from Calhoun, Cameron,
Galveston, Harris, Matagorda, and Aransas. Shore fishermen, outside
Aransas, snagged about two-thirds of the catch in turtle nets. A small
vessel fishery added Harris County to the list.59
Data suggest that apparatus specifically for sea turtles continued to
be employed heavily in Texas. Landings occurred from Galveston
southward but were focused now on Corpus Christi. In 1898, federal
agent C. H. Townsend studied the wholesale fishery in Texas and
noted that in 1897 the Corpus Christi market had handled 53 percent
(80,620 pounds) of the state total, more than Port Lavaca and Rock-
port combined. He reported that there was "no drying, pickling,
smoking, or canning of fishery products along the Texas coast," which
indicates that the declining stock of turtles was consumed locally or
trussed to be shipped live out of state.G0
In sum, the huge growth in the Texas turtlery was finished by the
early 189os, and the catch declined precipitously after about 1892, so
that, instead of leading Florida as it had done, by 1900oo the Texas in-
dustry amounted to little more than one-third of a similar fishery in
Florida's Escambia, Levy, Franklin, and Monroe counties. Turtles
were becoming scarce in Florida, too. Fisheries expert John J. Brice
57Collins and Smith, "A Statistical Report," 175, 177, 18o; Stevenson, "Report on the
Coast Fisheries," 412; Townsend, "Statistics of the Fisheries of the Gulf States [1899],"
161, 164-165, and for seines, see Report of Fish and Oyster Commissioner of... Texas ...
z895 to . .. 896, p. 3. The suggestion of the move to Tampico comes from Henry
Hildebrand. Hildebrand to R. W. D., Sept. 26, 1981.
58Stevenson, "Report on the Coast Fisheries," 411. For 1902, see Townsend, "Statistics
of the Fisheries of the Gulf States, 1902," pp. 476-477, and Texas, Report of Fish and
Oyster Commissioner of the State of Texas for the Year Ending August 3r, z9o2 (Austin,
1902), 14, which published a figure of 27,000 pounds for Rockport.
59Townsend, "Statistics of the Fisheries of the Gulf States [1899]," 162, 165, 166-168.
60Ibid., 169.
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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/m1/85/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.