Racing Leather Clad Females of the Pacific

The sun, the sea... the sands of Playa Grande.



Wait a minute! This is a science blog. What's with *that* title - it sounds like a cheesy badly written grindhouse flick. But it isn't. There isn't a film - this is real time. And they are female. They are swimming in the Pacific (or at least hanging out in the surf after having been on the tropical beaches of Playa Grande in Costa Rica). And they really are clad in leather, at least on their backs, sort of. And they really are 'racing' to their island getaway.

But they are almost certainly the wrong species for you - they are herptiles. Which means they have scaly skin, among other things. But hey, this is a race. Who cares if they are the wrong species?

What are they? Turtles. leatherback turtles to be specific. There are less than 100 of them left in the wild in some places! Marine turtles need all the help they can get.

In order to raise awareness of the need for sea turtle conservation, and the precarious existence of the leatherback sea turtle conservation agencies and several businesses have organized something they're calling the Great Turtle Race.

It features 11 sea turtles 'racing' as they migrate from their nesting sites in Costa Rica across the pacific just over about 500 miles to the Galapagos Islands (a place of which you may have heard, because Charles Darwin and how he came to his theories).

The turtles are wearing gear that allows a satellite to pick up their position, speed and other things like depths, in REAL TIME folks - and then this is beamed back to a computer where the data is updated every 10 minutes. So you can see how the turtles are doing! Plus you can pick a turtle to cheer on. It's actually kind of fun - you can sign up for updates.

The Great Turtle Race started this Monday and goes to the 29th of April.

Check out Dr. Turtle, based at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Also, at least one of the turtles has a blog. But Drexelina, as she is called, doesn't seem to be moving off the ebach very fast!

You can pick a turtle and cheer it on, and donate to help save the critically endangered and very cool leatherback sea turtles so there will be some around for your kids or grand kids or grandkids grandkids.

Which would be a good thing.