GALVESTON — An endangered species of sea turtle laid 109 eggs on a Galveston beach Thursday afternoon in front of an audience of biologists and onlookers. It was the first such nesting logged this year on the island.

The Daily News

A Kemp’s ridley sea turtle finishes covering its nest in a sand dune near 39th Street and the seawall on the beach. The turtle laid 109 eggs, which will be incubated at a facility near the Padre Island National Seashore.

It was once unusual to spot Kemp’s ridley turtles on the island, but last year, nine laid eggs in Galveston, prompting scientists to think the endangered sea turtle is making a steady comeback, said Shanna Kethan, a biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

The Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, listed among the federal government’s endangered species since 1970, laid eggs just west of the lifeguard station on the 39th Street in a sand dune formed by recent heavy winds, Kethan said.

On his way to lunch, County Treasurer Kevin Walsh spotted the turtle from his SUV.

The turtle was crawling along the beach and rock groins.

He stopped his vehicle, shooed away a gaggle of children trying to touch the turtle and called Texas A&M University at Galveston.

“It was pretty cool,” Walsh said.

“The turtle just went about its business and did its thing and it wasn’t bothered by anybody.”

Within minutes, association staff members arrived just in time to watch the turtle dig her nest and lay eggs, Kethan said.

When the turtle finished laying eggs, Kethan and other biologists captured her and brought her back to the National Marine Fisheries Sea Turtle Facility on Avenue U.

They equipped her with a microchip and satellite transmitter before releasing her back into the waters from which she emerged, Kethan said.

The biologists excavated the eggs and will ship them, packed in sand, to hatch in an incubator at a sea turtle rescue center on South Padre Island.

Kemp’s ridley turtles nest from May to July.

The females tend to return to their hatching beaches to nest.

The adults are found only in the Gulf of Mexico and they typically choose to nest on a remote stretch of beach in Tamaulipas, Mexico, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Increasingly during the past several years, the ridley’s have been nesting along the upper Texas Gulf Coast.

A retired science teacher hunting treasure on the Bolivar Peninsula last week instead found the first nest produced this year on the upper Texas coast.

The 96 golf-ball-size turtle eggs were dug up and delivered to an incubation laboratory.

A record 128 nests were discovered in Texas last nesting season, 15 on the upper Gulf Coast, but those numbers are tiny when compared to the 6,000 nesting females counted on the main nesting beach in Rancho Nuevo, Mexico.

The turtles started disappearing between 1947 and 1966.

Their eggs, considered a delicacy, were collected from nesting beaches before they were protected in 1966.

The turtles’ shallow-water habitat also leaves them vulnerable to being trapped in shrimp nets, according to NOAA.

The association urges those who find turtles to leave the nest alone and call 1-866-TURTLE5.