Padre Island National Seashore's highly acclaimed sea turtle recovery program is to be scaled back by the National Park Service, which says it's too costly/Rebecca Latson file.

Editor's note: This adds National Park Service comments, reaction from the Center for Biological Diversity, along with additional details from the review report.

A National Park Service review of the renowned Kemp's ridley sea turtle recovery program at Padre Island National Seashorein Texasis calling for substantial funding cuts and programmatic changes that would greatly hamstring the program and amount to "conservation malpractice," Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility charged Thursday.

Thecuts are called for in a June report that reviewed the history of the recovery program. While the review noted the Sea Turtle Science and Recovery Program has drawn widespread acclaim for its work in boosting numbers of Kemp's ridley turtles, the most endangered of the five species of sea turtles, it said that funding for the program "is disproportionately high compared to the number of partners involved and the percentage of the turtle population being addressed."

"The program should not rely on additional parkwide base fund allocations or short-term project funding to cover long-term operational costs," it added.

The report also questioned how the program has been run, called for a "formal 5-year strategic plan," and said the recovery program should focus on protecting turtle nests and not an incubation program. It also expressed concern about the amount of overtime accrued by the program staff, and said that fuel charges constituted "possibly as much as half of the parkwide fuel used in a season."

Dr. Donna Shaver, who long has overseen the program and is considered one of the world's leading sea turtle experts, was under a gag order and could not discuss the review or the funding cuts.

At the National Park Service's Intermountain Region Office in Denver, which signed off on the review document and its recommendations, spokesperson Vanessa Lacayo said the recommendations will improve the turtle program.

"The National Park Service review not only underscores the importance of this program to the park, but also outlines goals to strengthen its mission, clarify its priorities, and expand opportunities for the programs shared stewardship," she said in an email. "The National Park Services only plan forward is to strengthen the program, which is built by the support of our employees and volunteers."

That perspective was dismissed by Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity.

"Slashing the National Park Services sea turtle research and conservation program is a disaster. Totally unacceptable," said Suckling. "There would be no Kemps ridley sea turtles in the United States were it not for Park Services incredibly successful, incredibly popular reintroduction program starting in 1978. The Kemps population is steadily growing and has started to expand into Alabama, but its still endangered with just 262 nests in Texas this year. The Park Service should be increasing its sea turtle budget to get the Kemps turtle over the line to full recovery, not pulling back."

"The bureaucrats argument that they need to slash the budget now, when funding is healthy, because funding might decline in the future makes no sense at all," Suckling added. "Its a cover for the Trump administrations attack on science and conservation within all federal agencies."

PEER said it was acting on Dr. Shaver's behalf by filing a legal complaint under the federal Information Quality Act demanding that the review of the sea turtle program "be retracted due to many misleading findings, inaccuracies, and actions that violate law as well as NPS policy. One of many issues is new restrictions placed on the scope of sea turtle research, in violation of the agencys Scientific Integrity Policy."

The National Park Service has 60 days to respond to the complaint and Dr. Shaver may appeal any denial of her demand for retraction.

Within its 28-page complaint PEER said the review's recommendations to scale back the turtle recovery program are contrary to the Park Service's mission to work to recover species listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

The Kemp's ridley sea turtle has been listed as endangered since 1970. The green and loggerhead sea turtles, which also appear at Padre Island National Seashore, also are listed as endangered.

"NPS personnel have a duty to proactively protect these species with practicesthat are proven to be successful here and elsewhere in the world, contrary to the conclusions ofthe review," PEER's filing said.

The review, however, maintained that the national seashore's practice of incubating eggs from green and loggerhead sea turtles at the seashore and then releasing them into the Gulf of Mexico isn't warranted and should be discontinued.

"There seems to be no conservation reason tomaintain this practice, and no (environmental assessment), (Biological Opinion), or other directive exists to support this managementaction. The majority of organizations interviewed suggested that this practice should stop," said the 51-page document signed off on by Michael Reynolds, the director of the Park Service's Intermountain regional office.

The document also said the turtle recovery program's$2,196,055budget represents nearly a quarter of the national seashore's entire annual budget, to the detriment of other programs.

"The Science and Resources Management divisions budget ($248,670 in FY20), which isused to manage all other natural and cultural resources science and stewardship, planning andcompliance, and Native American relations, is only 4.3 percent of the parks base budget," it noted. "The perception of some park staff is that most natural and cultural resource managementprograms have been largely ignored as a result of the intense and disproportionately highallocation of financial and staff resources applied to the sea turtle program."

Although the turtle program has a 20-year record of successfully landing grants and other funding, the review document said those sources can't be expected to continue forever and so the program's budget should be reined in by 30 percent. At the same time, the document suggested the park look to friends groups and outside non-governmental organizations for financial support.

Padre Island is cannibalizing one of its best and most important programs for bureaucratic reasons having nothing to do with the recovery of sea turtle populations, said Jeff Ruch, PEER's Pacific director. The steps Padre Island is now pursuing will result in many needless sea turtle deaths.

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UPDATED | Funding Cuts Imperil Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle Program At Padre Island National Seashore - National Parks Traveler