The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 88, July 1984 - April, 1985 Page: 66
476 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
By 1900oo the Texas turtle industry had been virtually wiped out.
Except for an increase in Aransas County's shore catch in 1902, where
240 specialized nets probably cleaned out these marine creatures,
counties showed declines, and the vessel fishery in Harris and Mata-
gorda counties closed. Pressures on the reptiles in Texas had been
inexorable."7
In 1902 data for other Gulf turtle fisheries showed similar declines.
Florida's industry was 3.8 times greater than that in Texas and worth
8.4 times more. Other catches, in Alabama (7,000 pounds) and Louisi-
ana (5,140 pounds), were lower than the catch in Texas (97,060
pounds). Mississippi statistics were not for turtles but for terrapin,
which were more valuable than turtles were in Texas. Although they
had dominated the fishery a decade earlier, turtles from Texas now
made up merely 20.2 percent of the Gulf states' total.68
The Texas sea turtle fishery continued to dwindle. A United States
census report for 1908 ranked Texas eleventh of thirteen states re-
porting turtles; not all of the animals reported were marine turtles.
The Lone Star State was below California, Louisiana, and North
Carolina, with a catch valued at merely $1,ooo; virtually all of the esti-
mated 20,000 pounds were taken in seines."9
Prospects for the long-term conservation of sea turtles in Texas and
in other Gulf states today are limited. Over the past fifty years small
catches have continued to occur. In 1940, a total of 42,100 pounds of
green turtle was landed in Louisiana and Florida. The total had
dropped to 26,000 pounds in 1960. Data from Texas fail to differenti-
ate sea turtles, although 1,500 pounds were taken in shrimp trawls in
1927. Sea turtle expert Henry H. Hildebrand judges that green turtles
inhabit the same Texas bays now, "but in greatly reduced numbers."
The fishery for them developed early and disappeared quickly, leaving
only sparse and fragmentary information about an extractive pursuit
that was a little-known, but integral, part of the coastal fishery in the
Lone Star State.70
67Townsend, "Statistics of the Fisheries of the Gulf States, 1902," pp. 477-478.
68Ibid., 416-417.
69United States, Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of the Census, Special
Reports, Fisheries of the United States, 19o8 (Washington, D.C., 1911), 43, 249, 250.
70United States, Fish and Wildlife Service, "Fishery Statistics of the United States,
1940," Statistical Digest, No. 4 (1943); ibid., 196o; R. H. Fiedler, Fishing Industries of the
United States, 1928, United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of Fisheries, Fish-
eries Document No. 1067 (Washington, D.C., 1929), 549; Hildebrand, "A Historical Re-
view of the Status of Sea Turtle Populations in the Western Gulf of Mexico," 451.
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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/m1/88/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.