Turtle Power
| Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 | --Sean |
I recently saw TMNT -- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles -- in the theaters (which was a fantastic movie, by the way, no matter what the critics say). Not to spoil the ending for you, but these mean green fighting machines end up saving the world from certain destruction. Question is, who will do the same for the turtles?
Well, we're doing what we can. By racing turtles for money and using the proceeds to protect the turtles' nesting ground!
No, seriously.
The Great Turtle Race is a smoothly interactive website designed to raise awareness about the plight of the leatherback turtles. There are only around 4,000 left in the Pacific Ocean, and as the tagline of the site states, "they are going faster than you think." Using data from satellite backpacks, the site tracks the migration of the turtles from their nesting grounds in Costa Rica over to their, I dunno, summer lodges in the Galapagos Islands. Corporate sponsors (including Yahoo!, Drexel University, and Stephen Colbert) have donated $25,000 each towards protecting those nesting grounds, and hopefully the site will collect a bit more as word gets out. Anything to help those cute, endangered giant turtles with ninja skills and an overwhelming love of pizza.