On July 19, 2023, the sun rises over the Gulf of Mexico and the Padre Island Sea Turtle Science and Recovery beach camp at Padre Island National Seashore in Texas. The Padre Island seashore is the site of a 45-year program to form a secondary nesting colony as a safeguard against extinction. Kemp’s ridley nest almost exclusively in the western Gulf of Mexico, with the epicenter of nesting at Rancho Nuevo, Mexico which is responsible for “ninety-five percent of the worldwide Kemp’s ridley nesting populations,” according to government data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA. Between 1978 and 1988, 22,507 eggs were transported from the beaches in Mexico to Texas.

National Park staff from the Padre Island Sea Turtle Science and Recovery Department records biological data from an adult female Kemp’s ridley in the process of laying her eggs on May, 27, 2023 at Padre Island National Seashore, Texas. According to Dr. Donna Shaver, Chief of Sea Turtle Science and Recovery for the National Park Service at Padre Island National Seashore, from 2013-2023 they documented an average of 219 Kemp's ridley nests in Texas.

On May 27, 2023 on Padre Island National Seashore in Texas, volunteers with the Padre Island Sea Turtle Science and Recovery Department careful remove Kemp’s ridley eggs from the sand to transport them to the hatchery facility on the beach. The eggs are placed in the cooler with well packed sand and the team monitors the moistness and temperatures 24 hours a day until they hatch.

Under red light from headlamps, as to not disturb the hatchlings sensitivity to white light, the baby Kemp’s ridley push their way out of the sand nest and into the night on July 17, 2023 inside the National Park Service corral on Padre Island National Seashore in Texas. A hatching nest is called a boil, because they bubble up from the sand all together.

Dr. Donna Shaver, Chief of Sea Turtle Science and Recovery for the National Park Service at Padre Island National Seashore, right, places Kemp’s ridley hatchlings into a container held by a Park Service staff member, left, to be transported to the beach for release on July 18, 2023 inside the Sea Turtle Science and Recovery Department facility on Padre Island National Seashore in Texas. Because of decades of work and big picture thinking, today, Padre Island is the most important nesting beach for Kemp’s ridley sea turtles in the United States

During the early pre-dawn hours on July 19, 2023, a staff member of the Sea Turtle Science and Recovery Department for the National Park Service at Padre Island National Seashore in Texas, places hatchlings on the beach at Padre Island National Seashore. Stated in the 2011 United States – Mexico recovery plan for Kemp’s ridley, the standard demographic criteria for down-listing from endangered to threatened status are to maintain a population of at least 40,000 nesting females per nesting season, distributed among Mexico and the U.S. As stated on the National Parks Service page for Padre Island, "the current 2023 estimates include 5,500 females nesting in Mexico and about 55 females nesting in Texas annually.

Under red light as too not interfere with the turtles sensitivity to white light so it can find the moon over the water, a Kamp’s ridley hatchling swims for the first time in the ocean on July 17, 2023, at Padre Island National Seashore in Texas. “Endangered species conservation is the long game,” says Shaver Dr. Donna Shaver, Chief of Sea Turtle Science and Recovery for the National Park Service.

Bill Allan, Wellfleet Bay volunteer, rescues a young endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle who washed up hypothermic on First Encounter beach on Cape Cod in November of 2020. “I have been doing this for 20 years. Once I found my first one I was hooked. It was a life changing event. Even now every one is exiting,” says Allan. Every summer sea turtles visit Cape Cod bay, however if the turtles do not migrate out in time they get stuck and disoriented as they start to slowly freeze to death. The amount of stranded turtles is increasing due to the doubled edge sword of both successful conservation efforts on nesting beaches and climate change which makes the Gulf of Maine one of the fastest warming bodies of water in the world. This allows the turtles to stay a dangerously long into the fall when the ocean temperatures drop dramatically.

On June 17, 2021, the far eastern hook over Provincetown Cape Cod rounds back into the bay towards the Massachusetts southern coastline creating an almost spiral shape cradling the inner beaches of Cape Cod Bay.

On November 20, 2020, Krill Carson, President and Founder of the New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance and volunteer with Mass Audubon since the 1980’s, finds a cold-stunned juvenile Kemp’s Ridly sea turtle at Cold Storage beach on Cape Cod after the sun sets on a cold November evening.

Veterinary staff at the New England Aquariums Rehabilitation facility in Quincy Massachusetts examine an injured Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle in December.

Lauren Jaeger, left Intern with the New England Aquarium and Kristen Luise, right Clinical Intern with the New England Aquarium, listen to the heartbeat of a hypothermic Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle at the New England Aquariums rehabilitation center in Quincy in November.

120 cold-stunned endangered sea turtles, most of which are Kemp’s Ridleys, are packed into a plane and are flown to several locations in Texas from Massachusetts by the nonproffit organization Turtles Fly Too in December. This is the largest private flight transport in the nation to date.

In March 21, 2021, at Padre Island National Seashore in Corpus Christi Texas a volunteer carries an endangered Kemp’s Ridley to the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico for release after months of rehabilitation from almost freezing to death on the shores of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Logan Maxwell, research scientist with the saltmarsh habitat and avian research program, SHARP, and the University of New Hampshire, collect biological data from and band saltmarsh sparrows in a marsh near Wallis Sands State Beach in New Hampshire. Without intervention, the saltmarsh sparrow – the only bird species that breeds exclusively in the salt marshes of the Northeast U.S. and found nowhere else on earth – could soon face extinction due to rising seas. More than four out of every five saltmarsh sparrows have disappeared in the last 3 decades, with an estimated population decline of 87 percent.

Talia Kuras, Master student at the University of New Hampshire Saltmarsh Habitat & Avian Research Program (SHARP) walks out in the early morning to some of the previously located nests to see who survived the night after the looner high tide at the Eldridge Road Marsh in Wells, Maine. These surveys will help update population size and trend estimates for this species that will be combined with surveys completed at the same locations in 2011 and 2012, the current basis of the saltmarsh sparrow population understanding and projections.

Biologists with the Saltmarsh Habitat & Avian Research Program and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service takes biological data from saltmarsh sparrow chicks at the Rachael Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Wells, Maine.

A drowned saltmarsh chick is in its nest after the full moon high tide at the Lubberland Creek Preserve, New Hampshire. More than half of the United States’ salt marshes have been farmed, ditched, drained, or developed for centuries by humans, with only 5% of salt marshes remaining truly intact from Virginia to Maine. As a result heavily human manipulated marshes became more wet. Across the world, salt marshes and coastal wetlands are disappearing faster than nearly any other ecosystem. Healthy salt marsh ecosystems protect coastal communities from the effects of climate change which include flooding, storm surges and rising seas.

A flooded saltmarsh sparrow nest with four dead eggs floating in the nest cavity at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. Because of slowly sinking land masses, melting ice and warming oceans, regional rates of sea level rise have been as much as 50% greater than the global average over past decades.

An adult saltmarsh sparrow sits a top of a tall brush to sing at the Kent Street Marshes in Scituate, Mass. The bird is currently under consideration for protection under the Endangered Species Act, but a network of scientists, agencies, land managers and others are already implementing new and innovative techniques to rebuild and restore salt marshes – actions that will help all those, human and wildlife alike, that live near the marsh.

Biologists with the Saltmarsh Habitat & Avian Research Program and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, set up mist nets during sunrise at the Rachael Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Wells, Maine. The population estimates from this study will help determine the status of the Saltmarsh Sparrow both nationally and state wide. In 2023, Maine listed the species as endangered.

Biologists with the Saltmarsh Habitat & Avian Research Program and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service collect data from a Saltmarsh Sparrow at the Rachael Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Wells, Maine. Starting in the 1960’s the Rachael Carson wildlife refuge is the longest running data set on the saltmarsh sparrow and sits inside the narrow hybrid zone between the saltmarsh sparrow and the nelsons sparrow of only 200 kilometers wide in northern New Hampshire and southern Maine.

Biologists with the Saltmarsh Habitat & Avian Research Program and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service takes biological data from saltmarsh sparrow chicks at the Rachael Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Wells, Maine.

a failed nest which flooded during the high tide sits precariously between two pools of water at the Eldridge Road Marsh in Wells, Maine. These birds build their nests low to the ground in the marsh, leaving them at the mercy of rising tides that can drown newly hatched chicks and eggs in the nests. Scientists and organizations are working on restoring the natural hydrology of salt marshes from Maine to Virginia, which aligns with the Saltmarsh Sparrow breeding range.

On June 6, 2022, an adult Saltmarsh Sparrow sits a top of a tall brush to sing at the Kent Street Marshes in Scituate, Mass. The bird is currently under consideration for protection under the Endangered Species Act, but a network of scientists, agencies, land managers and others are already implementing new and innovative techniques to rebuild and restore salt marshes – actions that will help all those, human and wildlife alike, that live near the marsh.

Homes on a tidal channel surrounded by the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, New Jersey. With a healthy saltmarsh coastal communities would be more protected against the effects of climate change such as sea level rise, string storm surge and flooding. the U.S. Supreme Court decided to significantly curtail the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the nation's wetlands and waterways. It was the court's second decision in a year limiting the ability of the agency to enact anti-pollution regulations and combat climate change. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined the court's three liberal members, and said that by narrowing the act to cover only adjoining wetlands, the court's new test will have quote "significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States."

On June 6, 2021, biologists with the Saltmarsh Habitat & Avian Research Program and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service take the weight of a Saltmarsh Sparrow chick at the Rachael Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Wells, Maine. Starting in the 1960’s the Rachael Carson wildlife refuge is the longest running data set on the saltmarsh sparrow and sits inside the narrow hybrid zone between the saltmarsh sparrow and the nelsons sparrow of only 200 kilometers wide in northern New Hampshire and southern Maine.

On August 16, 2021, Adrienne Kovach, Associate Professor of Natural Resources at the University of New Hampshire, left and Logan Maxwell, research scientist with the saltmarsh habitat and avian research program, right, collect biological data from and band saltmarsh sparrows in a marsh near Wallis Sands State Beach in New Hampshire.

A Saltmarsh Sparrow is scanned for any existing pit tags at Chapman's Marsh, New Hampshire. As researchers band and tag both adult and chick saltmarsh sparrows in this range, they are also gathering biological data to determine hybridization and overall genetics of the individuals. Although the hybridization is not a direct result of climate change, it could mean the continuation of the saltmarsh sparrow genetics if it were to go extinct because of sea level rise.