Six endangered sea turtles glide onto new U.S. stamps June 11 at Texas State Aquarium

By Charles Snee

Six United States commemorative stamps featuring photographs of six sea turtles listed and protected under the 1973 Endangered Species Act will debut in a pane of 18 June 11 at the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi, Texas.

An official U.S. Postal Service first-day ceremony will celebrate the new nondenominated (68¢) Protect Sea Turtles forever stamps beginning at 11 a.m. Central Daylight Time at the aquarium, located at 2710 N. Shoreline Blvd. in Corpus Christi.

Attendees who register themselves and their guests online will receive free entrance to the aquarium, the USPS said.

Each attendee may invite up to nine additional guests.

The Postal Service said that the number of free tickets to the aquarium is limited.

David Camp, USPS district manager for the Texas 2 District, will serve as the dedicating official.

Joining Camp on the stage for the unveiling of the stamps will be Eric Brunnemann, superintendent of the National Park Service’s Padre Island National Seashore; Linn’s editor-in-chief Jay Bigalke; Jeff Fleming, deputy regional director for the southwest region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and Shannon Bettridge, chief of the office of protected resources of the marine mammal and sea turtle conservation division of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

A vertical strip of the six stamps is illustrated here. From top to bottom, the stamps feature photographs of a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, green sea turtle, leatherback sea turtle, loggerhead sea turtle, hawksbill sea turtle and olive ridley sea turtle.

These six sea turtles and the flatback sea turtle, which is not pictured on a stamp, represent the seven known species of these graceful reptiles that lay their eggs in nests they dig ashore in the sand.

As shown nearby, a loggerhead is also pictured in the wide selvage at the top of the pane. The names of the six sea turtles are listed to the right of the loggerhead in the same order as they appear in the strip of six.

Two pictorial first-day postmarks for the Protect Sea Turtles stamps are available from the Postal Service.

Collector-submitted envelopes for first-day covers will receive a black postmark featuring a stylized rendition of a sea turtle swimming through water.

The black postmark can be applied to a maximum of 50 envelopes at no charge. Each additional postmark over 50 costs 5¢.

The digital color postmark for the Protect Sea Turtles stamps illustrates (from left to right) three of the six turtles on the stamps: hawksbill, leatherback and loggerhead.

Full color pictorial first-day cancels are found on covers marketed by the Postal Service and others prepared by various cachetmakers.

All orders for these first-day cancels must be postmarked by Oct. 11.

This is an abbreviated version of the story published in the June 10 issue. To read the full article, subscribe to Linn’s Stamp News.

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