The non profit organizations dedicated to protecting endangered wildlife, SEETurtles and SEEtheWILD, have created a petition to protect the endangered loggerhead sea turtles and they plan to send it to various Mexican government authorities this week.
The loggerhead sea turtle migrates thousands of miles across the entire Pacific Ocean through deadly longlines and plastic pollution from their nesting grounds in Japan to feed on the abundance of red crabs along the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. Too often they are met at the end of this arduous journey by an invisible wall of death – hundreds of gillnets stretched across Baja’s coast. Last summer a horrific 600% increase in dead sea turtles was observed in Gulf of Ulloa along Baja’s Pacific coast, an area famous for its friendly gray whales and an important eco-tourism destination. A stunning 483 loggerheads washed up dead on 40 km of shoreline in just the month of July, and scientists estimate over 2,000 loggerheads were killed last year in gillnets alone off of Baja’s coast.
As a travel partner of SEEtheWILD, we at Journey Mexico lend our support and believe that the President of Mexico must respond immediately to protect these sea turtles.
SEETurtles’ first action in bringing attention to this devastation is to send a letter to the Mexican Secretary of Tourism and to the officials of the Baja California Sur state government. With the support of 27 tourism organizations and tour operations, including Journey Mexico, there is hope it will make the economic case to the government for strong action to protect the turtles.
We invite you to get involved as well. Below is a link to a petition to the Mexican government.. Please feel free to share that in any way– we must encourage solutions to this pressing problem!
Sign the petition to protect endangered loggerhead sea turtles here
