The Great Turtle Race

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 temperature, 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.)

About TOPP

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Tagging of Pacific Predators is a project of Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Institute, which works closely with the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California. TOPP was launched as part of the Census of Marine Life, a multi-species tagging project based in the North Pacific, and consisting of a partnership among many organizations and research facilities. TOPP's work enables scientists and website visitors to learn about the mysterious depths of the world's largest ocean through the eyes of the creatures who live primarily in the zones offshore. Data transmitted through the tags is transmitted to a live-access server, which is displayed in a collection of detailed maps. To date, TOPP researchers have tagged more than 2000 animals from 23 species, including leatherback turtles, giant tuna, squid, and albatross. CivicActions work with TOPP includes development of the Great Turtle Race site, as well as a temporary jump page from the race, and coming soon, a newly designed and interactive website.