Distribution, Abundance And Habitat Utilization Of Sea Turtles In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, With An Emphasis On Coastal Mississippi

Authors

• Theresa Rose Madrigal, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Advisor(s)

Thane Wibbels

Committee Member(s)

Andrew Coleman
Ken Marion
Moby Solangi

Document Type

Thesis

Date of Award

6-4-2026

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

School

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Biology

Abstract

The Gulf of Mexico represents important habitat for a variety of sea turtle species. This includes habitats for the various life history stages ranging from the oceanic stage of hatchling and post-hatchling turtles, neritic subadults, to the adult foraging and reproduc-tive stages. In contrast to many areas of the Gulf of Mexico, there has been a limited amount of data reported on sea turtle nesting as well as sea turtle foraging and develop-mental habitat in the north central Gulf of Mexico. This thesis includes two studies which investigate the importance of the coastal areas of Mississippi as sea turtle habitat. In the first study sea turtle encounters compiled from stranding and incidental capture data in Mississippi were documented over a fifteen-year period and analyzed relative to species, size, types of encounters, condition status, and annual and seasonal trends. Significant seasonal variation was detected during all years with the majority of encounters occurring in spring and summer with few encounters occurring during the cooler winter months. The results indicate that the coastal areas of Mississippi are utilized as habitat by a variety of sea turtle species. This area appears to be of particular importance as foraging and de-velopmental habitat for Kemp’s ridley sea turtles. In the second study, sea turtle nesting activity was monitored over two nesting seasons on a major barrier island in coastal Mis-sissippi. The results indicate that this area is used as nesting habitat by the critically en-dangered Kemp’s ridley and by a genetically distinct group of loggerheads. Collectively the results of this thesis document the importance of coastal Mississippi as critical habitat for various life history stages for multiple sea turtle species.

Keywords

Mississippi;Nesting;Recreational Fishing Piers;Sea Turtles;Stranding

Recommended Citation

Madrigal, Theresa Rose, "Distribution, Abundance And Habitat Utilization Of Sea Turtles In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, With An Emphasis On Coastal Mississippi" (2026). ETDs from 2020-2029. 207.
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/etd-2020s/207