Illegal fishing kills dozens of sea turtles

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — Dozens of sea turtles have been killed recently off South Texas waters due to an illegal fishing practice by Mexican fishing vessels.

In December, 49 dead sea turtles were found off the South Texas beaches of South Padre Island and Boca Chica Beach, Wendy Knight, executive director of the nonprofit organization Sea Turtle Inc., told Border Report.

Necropsy reports done on the juvenile green turtles found that they died due “to forced submersion, which is drowning,” Knight said.

The Padre Island National Seashore Division of Sea Turtle Science & Recovery posted on its Facebook page photos of the turtles with the green plastic gill-netting choking the amphibians around the neck and fins.

“Biologists hypothesize that some or all were captured due to illegal gill netting in nearshore Gulf of Mexico waters off the South Texas coast. The U.S. Coast Guard and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department capture several vessels illegally entering U.S. waters from Mexico for fishing each year, and those numbers have increased in recent years,” according to the Dec. 30 post.