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PORT BOLIVAR, Texas—Scientists are hoping the recent discovery of nests along the lower Texas Gulf Coast is another sign that Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, once on the brink of extinction, are continuing their comeback.

A dozen nests of the sea turtle were discovered Friday, most of them on North and South Padre islands, said Andre Landry, director of the Sea Turtle and Fisheries Ecology Research Laboratory at Texas A&M University at Galveston.

The first nest in Texas this season was found on South Padre Island about a week ago, Landry said.

Eddie Trapp, a 62-year-old retired science teacher, was hunting for treasure on Friday but instead found the first nest produced this year on the upper Texas Gulf Coast.

The 96 golf-ball-size turtle eggs discovered by Trapp were dug up by Landry and graduate student Christi Hughes, then placed in plastic foam coolers to await delivery to an incubation laboratory on South Padre Island.

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.

Landry said the species will be downgraded from endangered to threatened if at least 10,000 nesting turtles are counted during the nesting season, which runs from April 1 to July 15, for several years running.

But a hurricane could easily destroy the main nesting grounds and send the population reeling back toward extinction, Landry said.

Landry says the number of nesting females has been increasing by 14 percent per year and he is hoping for a similar increase this year.

Hughes asks anyone spotting a nesting turtle or turtle tracks phone a turtle patrol formed last year to hunt for nests at 1-866-TURTLE5.