697 Nests and Counting: Texas Just Had Its Best Sea Turtle Season Ever

The Kemp's ridley sea turtle — the smallest, rarest sea turtle on Earth — just wrapped up its best nesting season ever recorded on the Texas coast. According to the running tally kept by Turtle Island Restoration Network, updated in late September, 697 nests have been confirmed on Texas beaches in 2026 — up from 449 in 2025, which was itself a record.

A record written in the sand

This one didn't sneak up on anybody. The season started with remarkable timing when the first nest of the year was discovered on April 2 by turtle patrollers from Nueces County Coastal Parks on North Padre Island — the second-earliest Kemp's ridley nest ever documented in Texas. By mid-June, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times reported the statewide count had already climbed to about 600 nests, blowing past the previous high of 449 set in 2025 — with weeks of nesting season still to go. When the sand settled, the tally sheet read like a staircase: 697 nests in 2026, up from 449 in 2025, 340 in 2024, 256 in 2023. That's not a fluke. That's a trend line headed the right way.

Why this one matters

Kemp's ridleys are considered the world's most endangered sea turtle species, and they've been in trouble for a long time — worldwide nesting totals, per NOAA, fell to just 702 in 1985. So a single state nearly matching that old global low with its own record year is a genuinely big deal. And there's a detail in this story that's even better than the raw numbers. Kemp's ridleys were once known for nesting in massive, synchronized groups called arribadas — and they're beginning to show signs of that remarkable behavior again in Texas. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service noted this summer that early signs of renewed arribada-like nesting offer additional hope on top of the record count. In plain terms: there may finally be enough turtles out there to act like turtles again.

This was a whole-coast effort

Nobody gets a record like this by accident. Padre Island National Seashore has led the nation's longest-running recovery effort — locating nests, protecting eggs, and incubating them to improve hatchling survival. This year, Coastal Program staff joined Fish and Wildlife Service teams, the Texas General Land Office, and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to support hatchling releases across miles of protected shoreline. The nests themselves stretched nearly the whole coast: North Padre Island led the way, with nests also confirmed on South Padre, Mustang Island, Boca Chica Beach, San Jose Island, Galveston Island, Surfside Beach, and the Matagorda Peninsula. From Galveston to Boca Chica, that's basically the entire Texas shoreline pitching in — patrollers, park staff, beachgoers who called in tracks in the sand. If you've got sand in your boots and salt on your tailgate, this is your win too. It's the kind of story our Texas collection exists to celebrate.

Go see it next spring

The 2026 season is wrapped, but this is an annual show. Sea turtles come ashore on Texas and Mexico beaches every April, May, and June to lay their nests, and Padre Island National Seashore holds public hatchling releases in the summer months — small crowds, early mornings, tiny turtles scrambling for the Gulf. Put it on the calendar, drive down, and keep your distance if you spot tracks or a nesting turtle (report it to beach patrol instead). June on Padre is no joke, heat-wise — wear something honest about it, like our Hot in Texas Tee, bring water, and watch a species claw its way back one nest at a time.

Common questions

What is a Kemp's ridley, and why is it such a big deal?

It's the smallest sea turtle and the world's most endangered sea turtle species. It nests almost exclusively on the Gulf coasts of Mexico and Texas — which makes Texas beaches some of the most important turtle real estate on the planet.

How do we know 2026 was a record?

Texas has kept reliable nesting-season counts since 1980, and Turtle Island Restoration Network's coast-wide tally confirmed 697 nests in 2026, well past the 449 confirmed in 2025.

Where's the best place to see the turtles?

North Padre Island. It led the state with the most confirmed nests this year, most of them inside Padre Island National Seashore, which is also where the long-running recovery program hosts its hatchling releases each summer.

Reported by Turtle Island Restoration Network. Details as published at the time of writing.