Signs Grow Of Oil Spill Effect On Turtles

BROWNSVILLE - A computer model shows that as many as 7,000 young Kemp's ridley turtles may have been in oil-coated areas during the 2010 BP oil spill, according to one of several presentations by turtle scientists gathering in Brownsville to discuss the fate of the world's most endangered sea turtle. About 5,000 turtles, a year old or younger, from the main nesting grounds in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas would have drifted into the oil spill, according to the computer model presented by Andrew Coleman, a researcher at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, Miss.