Off and Running Like A Herd of Turtles: 3rd prize!

Woo-hoo! Champiro made a last minute surprise dash to get the bronze - she cam in 3rd! Go team Chelonia! :)

Get This Widget!Great Turtle Race

It's another day in the Great Turtle Race. And I found some links to the group that tagged the turtles with their satellite backpacks. They are called TOPP, which is short for Tagging of Pacific Pelagics. TOPP also runs a census of sea creatures.

As you can see, the show has picked a turtle named Champiro to win the race. Why her? Because she is doing her best to preserve the leatherback turtle species: she's laid more eggs over her lifetime than the others have. She has come up from 7th to 4th place in about as many days. Information on her place in the race, the depth she is swimming at, and how far she is from hitting the finish line, is on the little graphic, in the top corner of this post. Champiro also has her own blog, with this alarming entry! Playa Grande beach, the last Pacific nesting site for the turtles is in trouble - people want to build condos on it! :-(

TOPP says the Great Turtle Race was conceived of as a way to protect and conserve the "critter highway" in the ocean that runs between the Galapagos and Central America, that is needed to preserve wildlife. Animals use transport corridors just like we do, to get from breeding and mating zones to nesting places, etc. etc. They use resources just like we do. And they need all of these things to raise their families - just like we do.

TOPP has a blog which they call On TOPP of the World. :)