Dear supporters and friends of the TURTLE FOUNDATION
It's nearly eight years now that we have been fighting for the protection of sea turtles. Thanks to our efforts just on the small island of Sangalaki in Indonesia more than 2 million baby turtles were able to hatch and reach the sea. Since last year we have been planning to extend this successful project to four additional islands. By now we are just about to send our park rangers to those islands and protect their beaches from egg poachers. From then on the total number of hatchlings in this area will be above one million annually.
Recently the TURTLE FOUNDATION has taken the decision to initiate another project on the islands of Cape Verde in the Eastern Atlantic. We became aware of the fact that on Cape Verde hundreds of sea turtles coming ashore to lay eggs are killed brutally each year. Still alive, they have their flippers chopped off first and their body cut apart between the upper and the lower bodyshell thereafter. It is hard to believe that someone can be that brutal but it is real!
The female turtles literally crawl directly into the arms of their butchers who have been waiting for them impatiently. The slaughterers do not even postpone their bloody work until the mother turtle has laid her eggs. Not only is the mother killed, but all her progeny as well. The TURTLE FOUNDATION will try its best to stop this brutal killing on Cape Verde. As a first step we plan to set up a protection camp for one large highly frequented nesting beach on the island of Boavista.
By now the TURTLE FOUNDATION is represented in Germany, Switzerland, the United States of America and Indonesia. In all these countries we are officially recognized as tax exempt charity. Donations to the TURTLE FOUNDATION are tax deductable in these jurisdictions.
In order to continue with our successful projects in Indonesia and in order to stop the killing in Cape Verde we are in need of additional funding more than ever.
TURTLE FOUNDATION (... because extinct means for ever!)
December 2007