It may not be Christmas yet, but visitors to Padre Island National Seashore got an early and extraordinary surprise this week. Around 11 a.m. on Tuesday, beachgoers spotted tiny green sea turtle hatchlings emerging from the sand and waddling toward the waves. Excited, they quickly alerted the park’s Sea Turtle Science and Recovery (STSR) team, which sent its biologists to the scene.
When the team excavated the previously unknown nest on North Padre Island, they discovered even more hatchlings still buried beneath the sand. By examining the nest chamber and counting the leftover eggshells, the biologists estimated that roughly 100 green sea turtles had successfully hatched.
The excavation also uncovered a dangerous situation: seven hatchlings were tangled in discarded fishing line inside the nest cavity. The biologists carefully freed the juveniles and released them to join their siblings racing toward the Gulf.
This nest was remarkable for another reason. It was the 34th green sea turtle nest of the 2025 season and the latest-ever recorded green sea turtle nest in Texas…