World turtle day

Today it's the world turtle day, a day was started to increase the respect and the knowledge of the turtles. It was started by the organisation American tortoise rescue . It's a non-profit organisation wich aim is to work for the protection of all species of turtles and tortoises. The day was started ten years ago and is slowly getting more and more celebrated.
Here I will link you up to some different webpages that will tell you more about the celebration and what is happening around the world, or has happened already. Since all I find comes from the net, there will off course be a lot lot more of ways to celebrate the day. I will also mention webpages or blogs that also talk about the celebration of the turtles.

First I will mention the organisation that I shall work for this summer, Archelon. When I search the webpages of theirs I find a logo for the day, but nothing about what's gonna happen. To bad, really to bad. I still hope and also think they are doing something. As I also now the turtle nesting season is on it's way, I'm not sure if they have the capacity to celebrate it all over. The daily work for the turtle protection is indeed more important.

The sea turtle restoration project has focused on two ways to celebrate the day. They organise a beach clean up at San Francisco and they also focus on the plastic bags that are so much of a danger for the turtles. So they arrange a make your own re-useable shopping bag.

 

In australia several enviromental organisations has joined their forces in an attempt to focus on the flatback turtle. Around the country they try to make people make sand versions of turtles. Then take a picture of it and send it to enviromental turtle. The wilderness society is one of the organisations participating in this attempt.

Even if it already have started during the winter,  the Emirates Wildlife Society-WWF have started a turtle-tracking project as part of the world turtle day. The project is a cooperation between the Emirates and 4 other countries in that area; Oman Quatar, Saudi-Arabia and Iran. The main-species of the project is the critically endangered Hawksbill turtle. Read more about it here; golfturtles.com

I was disappointed during my search for the celebration of the "World turtle day", the three above-mentioned activities were all that I found. But the day is mentioned in many places and some have done it really well. the Human Society of the USA have listed twelve things that we can do for the turtles and the tortoises. They have also made an article about the celebration.

A blog that's celebrating the "world turtle day" is MINTdegradable. In the blog she is also telling about her personal experiences with the magnificent turtles and what we can do to help them. She's also using it as some kind of advertisement as she says she's working for a company that has made some plastic that's degradeable.

What most worried me when I was searching the net for is that there are also many petfriendly pages with turtepets that talks about the "World Turtle Day". I don't like it. I want all the trade with turtles forbidden. There are enough problems for the turtles and tortoises so we don't need them as pets.

Anyway, go out, enjoy the "World Turtle Day"