Great Turtle Race Set to Launch from Costa Rica
The Great Turtle Race, a unique international sea turtle conservation event bringing corporate sponsors together with conservation organizations, will take place from April 16 to April 29 in a global bid to raise awareness and funds for the critically endangered leatherback turtle.

The sponsored turtles have been equipped with satellite tags and are “racing” toward feeding areas south of the Galapagos Islands after nesting at Playa Grande in Costa Rica’s Las Baulas National Park, the primary nesting area for leatherbacks in the Pacific.

The leatherback is a 100 million-year-old, massive sea animal that outlived the dinosaurs but is now dangerously close to extinction.

Leatherback numbers have decreased at Playa Grande from thousands of nesting turtles 10 years ago to fewer than 100 in the last five years.

This online event will raise funds to protect Playa Grande and raise awareness about what individuals can do—no matter where they live—to help protect sea turtles in our daily actions.

“It’s time for people to rally around these ancient creatures and to understand that the actions we take — as individuals, as governments, as businesspeople — can have either a negative or positive effect on the ocean.” said James Spotila, president of The Leatherback Trust.

“One of the wonderful things about this event is that it allows us to engage the public in conservation with upbeat messages,” said Roderic Mast, vice president of Conservation International and co-chair of the IUCN—World Conservation Union’s Marine Turtle Specialist Group. “It also just so happens that when we eradicate threats to leatherback turtles, we eradicate threats to countless other species of marine wildlife.”