Ila Loetscher changed the face of coastal conservation By Haley Dawson
It often takes something
spectacular to spark a worldwide interest in change, and for the conservation
of the endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, that spectacular something — or
someone — was Ila Loetscher (1904-2000), who founded South Padre Island’s Sea
Turtle Incorporated in the 1970s. Many people first learned of the turtles’
plight during Loetscher’s daily sea turtle shows, where she both amazed and
educated her audiences.
Barely standing five feet
tall, Loetscher would scoop a 90-pound sea turtle into her arms and coo into
its bonnet-covered ear before leading it across a stage with a few of its
similarly clothed companions. Though her methods seem antiquated by today’s standards,
Loetscher dedicated her life to the turtles’ appreciation and preservation,
and with her turtle “fashion shows,” she aimed to instill public awareness of
their precarious position.
Ila Loetscher, born Ila Fox,
grew up in Iowa. Her family spent frequent winters in Texas’ Rio Grande
Valley, and they took occasional trips to the South Texas seashore. But at
the time, Ila Fox’s head was in the clouds, literally. Flying fascinated her,
and as a young woman, she spent time interacting with the pilots at the
airport in Davenport, where she eventually took flying lessons. In 1929, Fox
became the state’s first licensed female pilot and soon joined an elite group
of female pilots called The Ninety-Nines, whose first president was Amelia
Earhart.
In the early 1930s, Ila gave
up flying to move to the east coast with her new husband, David Loetscher.
According to biographer Evelyn Sizemore, when David died of cancer in 1955, Loetscher
decided to return to her childhood vacation spot in the Rio Grande Valley.
She soon moved to South
Padre, where she learned of the sea turtle poaching occurring on the beaches
of Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, some 225 miles south of the United States-Mexico
border. At the time, this was the only major nesting spot of the Kemp’s
ridley sea turtle, and poachers were harvesting nearly 100 percent of the
population for their skin, shells, and eggs. In 1966, Loetscher joined forces
with Dearyl Adams, a Brownsville contractor heading up Project Ridley, an
experiment to increase turtle nesting in Texas.
Together with other
scientists working on the project, they transported the eggs from Rancho
Nuevo to South Padre Island, where they could be monitored and protected
until they hatched, imprinted on their new home base in Texas, and swam out
to sea. Then, the scientists waited. If the plan worked, the female turtles
would return as adults to nest at South Padre Island. Because sea turtles can
take up to 10 to 15 years to mature and return to nest, they knew the wait
would be a long one. But in 1974, a lone turtle returned to the beach of
South Padre Island to lay her eggs. Loetscher and others were hopeful that
this adult turtle was one of the original South Padre Island hatchlings, though
there was no way to be sure. After 52 days of protected incubation, a member
of the next generation emerged from the nest in the sand and headed out to
sea. The cycle continued.
As the scientists continued
to monitor the turtles’ activity, they would sometimes discover injured
turtles, and they would send them to Loetscher, who nursed them back to
health in her backyard. Soon, she became known as “The Turtle Lady.”
Loetscher’s influence made an
international impact. She campaigned tirelessly for recognition of the plight
of the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, making television appearances on Late Night
with David Letterman, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and Ripley’s
Believe it or Not!. Despite her lack of scientific background, she gave sea turtles a voice during a time when
conservation was not a household word.
“Ila was a champion at
creating public endorsement,” said Jeff George, Curator of Sea Turtle
Incorporated. “She did it in unorthodox ways at times, but she made a
splash.”
In 1978, the United States
and Mexican governments joined forces to further Adams’ and Loetscher’s
efforts, transporting eggs from Mexico to Padre Island National Seashore,
some 70 miles north of South Padre Island. In 1979, the program’s first
turtles were released into the Gulf of Mexico. Donna Shaver, Chief of the
Division of Sea Turtle Science and Recovery at Padre Island National
Seashore, who has led efforts since 1986 to detect, investigate, and protect
turtles that return here to nest, explains how Loetscher contributed to sea
turtle recovery efforts.
“She educated a lot of people
and inspired a lot of people to care about sea turtles,” Shaver says. “It was
very important at a time when awareness of sea turtles was much less than it
is today.”
Thanks to conservation
efforts, the sea turtle population—the Kemp’s ridley in particular—has made a
significant comeback since it dropped to near extinction in the mid- 1960s,
but the work is far from done.
“Thanks to efforts of many,
many people working very hard, the numbers are increasing,” Shaver says. “It
looks promising for the eventual recovery of the species, but we need to
continue our conservation measures to try to help continue that increase.”
Ila Loetscher died in 2000 at
age 95, but the staff and volunteers at Sea Turtle Incorporated have made it
their mission to carry on her legacy. Visitors can tour the facility Tuesday
through Sunday to see rehabilitating turtles of several species and to learn
more about ocean habitat.
“Every penny we generate goes toward sea turtle
conservation,” says Patrick Burchfield, Chairman of Sea Turtle Incorporated’s
advisory board. “Sea Turtle Incorporated was built and dedicated for one
purpose and one purpose only, and that was to conserve the Kemp’s ridley and
other sea turtle species.”
Ecologist and sea explorer
Jacques Cousteau once called Ila a “wave maker.” And just as a wave’s ripples
grow as they continue from their origin, so does Loetscher’s influence on
marine conservation.
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