"The Kemp's Ridley sea turtle, Lepidochelys kempi is an endangered species. The National Marine Fisheries Service's Head Start program is part of an international operation to save the turtles from extinction. Under the Head Start program, eggs from the Ridley's only known wild nesting beach at Rancho Nuevo in Mexico are transported to Padre Island on the Texas coast to be hatched. The hatchlings are then reared in the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Southeast Fisheries Center, Galveston Laboratory, until the age of about one year before their reintroduction into the wild (Fontaine et al. 1985). This "head start" enables the turtles to develop a survival advantage"--Introduction, paragraph 1.

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