Kemp's Ridley Turtle (Lepidochelys kempii)
Kemp's Ridely Turtle
(Lepidochelys kempii)
Credit: NOAA
Kemp's Ridley Range Map
(click for larger view PDF)
Did You Know?
- Since March 2011, a notable increase in sea turtle strandings has occurred in the northern Gulf of Mexico.
- The species is named after Richard M. Kemp, a fisherman from Key West, FL, who first submitted the species for identification in 1906.
- The Kemp's ridley is only one of two species of sea turtles that nest in arribadas (the other is the olive ridley).
- Kemp's ridleys are the only sea turtle species that nests predominantly during daylight hours.
Status
ESA Endangered - throughout its range
CITES Appendix I - throughout its range
Species Description
| Weight: | Adult: 100 pounds (45 kg) Hatchling: 0.5 ounces (14 g) |
| Length: | Adult: 24-28 inches (60-70 cm) Hatchling: 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) |
| Appearance: | grayish-green, nearly circular, top shell with a pale yellowish bottom shell |
| Lifespan: | unknown |
| Diet: | crabs, fish, jellyfish, and mollusks |
| Behavior: | "arribada" nesting, where large groups gather and come ashore and nest all at once |
Adult Kemp's ridleys are considered the smallest marine turtle in the world. Their top shell (carapace) is often as wide as it is long and contains 5 pairs of costal "scutes". Each of the front flippers has one claw while the back flippers may have one or two.
Similar to olive ridleys, Kemp's ridleys display one of the most unique synchronized nesting habits in the natural world. Large groups of Kemp's ridleys gather off a particular nesting beach near Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, in the state of Tamaulipas. Then, wave upon wave of females come ashore and nest in what is known as an "arribada," which means "arrival" in Spanish.
There are many theories on what triggers an arribada, including offshore winds, lunar cycles, and the release of pheromones by females. Scientists have yet to conclusively determine the cues for ridley arribadas. Arribada nesting is a behavior found only in the genus Lepidochelys.
Female Kemp's ridleys nest from May to July, laying two to three clutches of approximately 100 eggs, which incubate for 50-60 days.
Habitat
Adult Kemp's primarily occupy "neritic" habitats. Neritic zones typically contain muddy or sandy bottoms where prey can be found. Their diet consists mainly of swimming crabs, but may also include fish, jellyfish, and an array of mollusks.
Depending on their breeding strategy, male Kemp's ridleys appear to occupy many different areas within the Gulf of Mexico. Some males migrate annually between feeding and breeding grounds, yet others may not migrate at all, mating with females opportunistically encountered.
Female Kemp's have been tracked migrating to and from nesting beaches in Mexico. Females leave breeding and nesting areas and continue on to foraging zones ranging from the Yucatán Peninsula to southern Florida. Some females take up residence in specific foraging grounds for months at a time, leading scientists to suggest that females have a goal-oriented migration, opposed to the suggested wandering strategy employed by olive ridleys. Kemp's ridleys rarely venture into waters deeper than 160 ft (50 m) (Byles and Plotkin, 1994).
Newly emerged hatchlings inhabit a much different environment than adult turtles. After emerging from the nest, hatchlings enter the water and must swim quickly to escape near shore predators. There is strong evidence that many sea turtle species employ an open ocean developmental stage because encounters with healthy, neonate sea turtles are extremely rare in near shore waters. Some hatchlings remain in currents within the Gulf of Mexico while others may be swept out of the Gulf, around Florida, and into the Atlantic Ocean by the Gulf Stream.
Juveniles of many species of sea turtles have been known to associate with floating sargassum seaweed, utilizing the sargassum as an area of refuge, rest, and/or food. This developmental drifting period is hypothesized to last about two years or until the turtle reaches a carapace length of about 8 inches (20 cm). Subsequently, these sub-adult turtles return to neritic zones of the Gulf of Mexico or northwestern Atlantic Ocean to feed and develop until they reach adulthood.
Critical Habitat
On February 17, 2010, NOAA Fisheries and USFWS were jointly petitioned to designate critical habitat [pdf] for Kemp's ridley sea turtles for nesting beaches along the Texas coast and marine habitats in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean.
Distribution
Kemp's ridleys are distributed throughout the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Atlantic seaboard, from Florida to New England. A few records exist for Kemp's ridleys near the Azores, waters off Morocco, and within the Mediterranean Sea.
There is only one confirmed Kemp's ridley arribada in the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico, where nearly 95% of worldwide Kemp's ridley nesting occurs.
Kemp's Ridley Turtle
(Lepidochelys kempii)
Photo: National Park Service
Kids' Times: Kemp's Ridley [pdf]
Credit: NOAA
The three main nesting beaches in Tamaulipas, Mexico are
- Rancho Nuevo
- Tepehuajes
- Barra del Tordo
Nesting also occurs in Veracruz, Mexico, and in Texas, but on a much smaller scale. Occasional nesting has been documented in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida.
Population Trends
The Kemp's ridley has experienced a historical, dramatic decrease in arribada size. An amateur video from 1947 documented an extraordinary Kemp's ridley arribada near Rancho Nuevo. It has been estimated that approximately 42,000 Kemp's ridleys nested during that single day! The video also provided evidence of Kemp's ridley egg collection. Dozens of villagers are seen on the beach excavating the nests and subsequent interviews have suggested that 80% of the nests, about 33,000, were collected and transported to local villages (Hildebrand, 1963).
During the mid-20th century, the Kemp's ridley was abundant in the Gulf of Mexico. Historic information indicates that tens of thousands of ridleys nested near Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, during the late 1940s. The population experienced a devastating decline between the late 1940s and the mid-1980s. The number of nests at Rancho Nuevo was at a record low of 702 in 1985, representing fewer than 250 nesting females. Due to intensive conservation actions, the Kemp's ridley began to slowly rebound during the 1990s. The number of nests increased about 15% each year through 2009. However, since 2010 the number of nests has decreased causing concern that the positive growth in the population seen over the last decades may have stalled or reversed.
This video has also served to measure the species' collapse. In the late 1960s, twenty years after the video was filmed, the largest arribada measured was just 5,000 individuals. Between the years of 1978 and 1991, only 200 Kemp's ridleys nested annually. Today the Kemp's ridley population appears to be in the early stages of recovery.
Threats
Kemp's Ridley Turtle
(Lepidochelys kempii)
Photo: Kim Bassos-Hull,
Mote Marine Laboratory
- incidental capture in fishing gear
- primarily in shrimp and other trawls, but also in gill nets, longlines, traps/ pots, and dredges
- egg collection (historically)
- general threats to marine turtles
Kemp's ridleys face threats on both nesting beaches and in the marine environment. The greatest cause of decline and the continuing primary threat to Kemp's ridleys is incidental capture in fishing gear, primarily in shrimp trawls, but also in gill nets, longlines, traps and pots, and dredges in the Gulf of Mexico and North Atlantic.
Egg collection was an extreme threat to the population, but since nesting beaches were afforded official protection in 1966, this threat no longer poses a major concern.
For more information, please visit our threats to marine turtles page.
Conservation Efforts
The highly migratory behavior of sea turtles makes them shared resources among many nations. Thus, conservation efforts for sea turtle populations in one country may be jeopardized by activities in another. Protecting sea turtles on U.S. nesting beaches and in U.S. waters alone, therefore, is not sufficient to ensure the continued existence of the species.
Sea turtles are protected by various international treaties and agreements as well as national laws:
- CITES: listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, which prohibits international trade
- CMS: listed in Appendices I and II of the Convention on Migratory Species and are protected under the following auspices of CMS:
- IOSEA: Memorandum of Understanding on the Conservation and Management of Marine Turtles and their Habitats of the Indian Ocean and South-East Asia
- Memorandum of Understanding Concerning Conservation Measures for Marine Turtles of the Atlantic Coast of Africa
- SPAW: protected under Annex II of the Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife Protocol of the Cartagena Convention
- IAC: The U.S. is a party of the Inter-American Convention for the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles, which is the only international treaty dedicated exclusively to marine turtles
In the U.S., NOAA Fisheries(NMFS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) have joint jurisdiction for leatherback turtles, with NOAA having the lead in the marine environment and USFWS having the lead on the nesting beaches. Both federal agencies, along with many state agencies and international partners, have issued regulations to eliminate or reduce threats to sea turtles, while working together to recover them.
In the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, we have required measures to reduce sea turtle bycatch in pelagic longline, mid-Atlantic gillnet, Chesapeake Bay pound net, and southeast shrimp and flounder trawl fisheries, such as
- gear modifications
- changes to fishing practices
- time/ area closures
NOAA Fisheries have worked closely with the shrimp trawl fishing industry to develop turtle excluder devices (TEDs) to reduce the mortality of sea turtles incidentally captured in shrimp trawl gear. TEDs that are large enough to exclude even the largest sea turtles are now required in shrimp trawl nets. Since 1989, the U.S. has prohibited the importation of shrimp harvested in a manner that adversely affects sea turtles. The import ban does not apply to nations that have adopted sea turtle protection programs comparable to that of the U.S. (i.e., require and enforce the use of TEDs) or to nations where incidental capture in shrimp fisheries does not present a threat to sea turtles (for example, nations that fish for shrimp in areas where sea turtles do not occur). The U.S. Department of State is the principal implementing agency of this law, while we serve as technical advisor. We provide extensive TED training throughout the world.
We are also involved in cooperative gear research projects designed to reduce sea turtle bycatch in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic pelagic longline fisheries, the Hawaii-based deep set longline fishery, the Atlantic sea scallop dredge fishery, the Chesapeake Bay pound net fishery, and non-shrimp trawl fisheries in the Atlantic and Gulf.
In 1991, NOAA Fisheries and USFWS finalized the recovery plan for Kemp's ridleys in the U.S. Caribbean, Atlantic, and Gulf of Mexico. Since that time, a wealth of new information has been gained regarding Kemp's biology, distribution, and population status as well as threats to the species. Therefore, NOAA Fisheries and USFWS have initiated a revision of the Kemp's ridley recovery plan for the U.S. Caribbean, Atlantic, and Gulf of Mexico. The joint Final Recovery Plan published in September 2011.
The Mexican government has played a vital role in the conservation of the Kemp's ridley. The Kemp's ridley has benefited from legal protection by Mexico since the 1960s. In 1977, a refuge was established at the only known nesting beach and included the Rancho Nuevo nesting beach as part of a system of reserves for sea turtles. On May 28, 1990, a complete ban on taking any species of sea turtle was implemented by the Mexican government. In 2002, the beach at Rancho Nuevo was designated as a Natural Protected Area under the category of Sanctuary; and in February 2004, it was included on the list of RAMSAR 
sites.
Regulatory Overview
The Kemp's ridley turtle was first listed under the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1970 on December 2, 1970, and subsequently under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973.
We implement measures to reduce sea turtle interactions in fisheries by regulations and permits under the ESA and Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. In 1992, We finalized regulations to require TEDs in shrimp trawl fisheries to reduce interactions between turtles and trawl gear. Since then, we have modified these regulations as new information became available on increasing the efficiency of TEDs (for example, larger TEDs are now required to exclude larger turtles). Since the early 1990s, We have implemented sea turtle conservation measures including, but not limited to, TEDs in trawl fisheries, large circle hooks in longline fisheries, time and area closures for gillnets, and modifications to pound net leaders. Click here for a list of our regulations to protect marine turtles.
Taxonomy
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Testudines
Family: Cheloniidae
Genus: Lepidochelys
Species: kempii
Key Documents
(All documents are in PDF format.)
More Information
- Kids' Times: Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle [pdf]
- Sea Turtle Recovery Planning
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Kemp's Ridley Turtle Species Profile
- Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle at Padre Island National Seashore
- More Sea Turtle Related Links
Literature Cited
- Byles, R.A., and Plotkin, P.T. 1994. Comparison of the migratory behavior of the congeneric sea turtles Lepidochelys olivacea and L. kempii. In Schroeder, B.A., and Witherington, B.E. (compilers). Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation. NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-SEFSC-341, p. 39.
- Hildebrand, H.H. 1963. Hallazgo del área de anidación de la tortuga lora Lepidochelys kempii (Garman), en la costa occidental de Golfo de Mexico (Rept., Chel.). Ciencia, México 22: 105-112.
Updated: August 21, 2015
