CivicActions

The Great Turtle Race is a partnership between TOPP (Tagging of Pacific Predators), Conservation International, the Leatherback Trust, and MINAE (Costa Rica's Ministry of the Environment and Energy).

The race was organized to raise awareness of the plight of leatherback turtles, whose population has been declining dramatically due to multiple factors including pollution, the fishing industry, human interference with nesting habitat and others.

The race follows 11 leatherback turtles, tagged with sensors that broadcast data on their location, speed, water temeprature, depth and other data to a central repository. Turtles were sponsored by businesses including Yahoo, Dreyer's Ice Cream, and West Marine, and by schools including Drexel University and Bullis Charter School.

CivicActions implemented an innovative flash-based race page for the site, "widgets" for each turtle to support viral messaging and has been working closely with TOPP and the GTR team on their social networking and viral messaging strategy. GTR has been featured on the Stephen Colbert Report twice (when Drexel University named a turtle for him, and more recently a race update.)