The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 88, July 1984 - April, 1985 Page: 65
476 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
Sea Turtles in Texas: A Forgotten Commerce
the Fulton cannery had closed "on account of increasing scarcity of
green turtle on the Texas coast." The plant's annual consumption of
about one thousand green turtles, averaging 250 to 270 pounds each,
for approximately fifteen years, with perhaps as many more again
going to local and distant markets, must have depleted the population."
Circumstantial evidence suggests that the turtle fishery drew on
breeding animals. Stevenson remarked that "green turtle are never
taken with seines on this coast, nor are they usually hunted on the
beaches during the breeding season" (emphasis added). The first part
of this statement was not strictly true because fishermen occasionally
captured small, five-pound and twenty-pound turtles, plus an odd ter-
rapin or two, in bay seines. They hauled these cumbersome nets in by
pulling them into the shallows and to the shore. Stevenson's point was
that most commercial poundage was snagged in turtle nets and that
seines figured more prominently at the close of the turtle era when
such specialized nets had become largely redundant. In 1890, for
example, the twenty-nine seines in Aransas Bay were reported to have
snared 45,000 pounds of green turtle (some of these nets may have
been modified for turtles). This number, however, was a mere 12 per-
cent of the county's turtle catch from its shore fishery. In 1897, all
14,000 pounds for Aransas County shore fishery came from seines.65
Stevenson's comment about fishermen not usually hunting turtles
on beaches is important, not because these were nonbreeding rep-
tiles-experts confirmed repeatedly that large turtles were present in
their summer nesting period-but, rather, because it was more ef-
ficient and practical to snare them with turtle nets or in fish seines.
Men could diversify catches by hauling such nets from boats instead
of walking along uninhabited, snake-infested beaches at night search-
ing for female turtles. If they wanted eggs, they could have followed
the practice of some Florida turtle men who stripped female logger-
heads of their yellow unlaid eggs, which commanded better prices than
newly laid white ones.06
64Townsend, "Statistics of the Fisheries of the Gulf States [1899]," 161 (1st quotation);
Stevenson, "The Preservation of Fishery Products," 539 (2nd quotation). Stevenson,
"Report on the Coast Fisheries," 412, noted that "about goo green turtles" were re-
ported from Fulton in 1890o; and Stevenson, "The Preservation of Fishery Products,"
539, placed the total at "annually about 1,ooo turtles, weighing 250,000 pounds."
65Stevenson, "Report on the Coast Fisheries," 380, 410, 411 (quotation); Townsend,
"Statistics of the Fisheries of the Gulf States [1899]," 167; Collins and Smith, "A Statis-
tical Report," 175, 18o. Stevenson and Collins and Smith differ in their overall numbers;
therefore 12 percent is only a rough approximation reached by using two sets of data
that do not exactly match.
66Brice, "The Fish and Fisheries of the Coastal Waters of Florida," 312.
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Periodical.
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/m1/87/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.