KempsRidleySeaTurtle_EggGathering&ShrimpTrawling_Hildebrand_Henry_FlowerBluffTX_21February2000_Reel2071.mp3

Henry Hildebrand [00:00:00] Well, originally, I think most of the decline was due to egg-gathering, a good part of it, because the Mexicans would gather the eggs, take them to the cantinas all over Mexico and sell them.

Henry Hildebrand [00:00:21] And if the egg was too far advanced, I mean, had a young turtle in there, then they would feed him to their hogs, not that they purposely dug them up for that purpose, but that's what they, that's the way they disposed of them.

Henry Hildebrand [00:00:47] I did not see it, and I'm not sure that it happened, but there were stories that they were butchering them, but it's kind of hard for them to get meat to those roads out of there. You could see tying sacks on a burro and sending them down the trail.

Henry Hildebrand [00:01:13] But it must have been a little difficult with the transportation methods. I don't think turtle meat would have supported a four-wheel drive Jeep or something like that to get in. And if it rained, you'd stay in, you wouldn't get out.

Henry Hildebrand [00:01:40] So egg-gathering was intense.

Henry Hildebrand [00:01:44] And then the fact that the turtles had to run the gamut of shrimp trawlers from Louisiana to Rancho Nuevo was a problem that they couldn't solve until they got the TEDs.

Henry Hildebrand [00:02:04] And we get reports that the TEDs are fairly successful, but the shrimpers complain bitterly. There's been repeated letters to the editor complaining about the TEDs, how they let all the shrimp escape and so forth.

Henry Hildebrand [00:02:27] Our work indicated the shrimp loss was not very great, but there may be situations where the trash and so forth get in, and the nets are held open and most of the shrimp escape.