The easiest way for you to help our work with the turtles at Tecolutla is to donate to the Tecolutla Turtle Preservation Project. They are run entirely by volunteers and work tirelessly to raise funds for projects that help protect and understand Kemp’s ridley turtles, particularly the work of Vida Milenaria. You can make a one time or a monthly donation at their website. You can also let your online purchases help! Amazon has a great program called “Amazon Smile”. When you make purchase through Amazon Smile 0.5% of the purchase price is donated to the charity of your choosing. There are so many wonderful and deserving charities it is very hard to choose but you can change your designated charity whenever you want so consider making Tecolutla Turtle Preservation Project your charity for at least a month of online purchases. It can collectively make a huge difference. To sign up, simply go to smile.amazon.com and look for the box under “choose your own charitable organization”. Simply type in “Tecolutla” and it will find TTPP!

There are other ways that you can help Kemp’s ridley turtles, and sea turtles in general. Most importantly, be sure to let your congressional representatives know that you support continuing to fund marine turtle research and conservation programs through the Marine Turtle Conservation Fund. This program is part of the US Fish and Wildlife Services “Wildlife Without Borders” program and funds projects on non-US beaches. Without these funds, many marine turtle conservation projects around the world would cease to exist.

You can also support conservation organizations like the Nature Conservancy, which was primarily responsible for purchasing the land that they then donated to the USFWS to become the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge (ACNWR). The ACNWR is approximately 20 miles of undeveloped beachfront property on the east coast of Florida and hosts the most significant loggerhead sea turtle nesting population in the western hemisphere, the most significant green turtle nesting population in North America, and has a rapidly expanding nesting population of leatherback sea turtles. Without the Nature Conservancy, this property would not have been acquired and would have likely been developed just like most of the beaches surrounding it.

There are many other organizations that support marine turtle research and conservation including most of the well known ones as well as lesser known organizations like the Sea Turtle Conservancy.

The Sea Turtle Conservancy also has a list of “simple actions” that you can do to help sea turtles.

 

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