Billion Baby Turtles on Indiegogo

Short Summary

Billion Baby Turtles was founded by two lifelong turtle conservationists, Dr. Wallace J. Nichols and Brad Nahill, who have spent decades working with community-based conservation programs in Mexico and Costa Rica. This initiative is part of SEE Turtles, a non-profit project that supports sea turtle conservation through travel and education. Billion Baby Turtles and SEE Turtles are sponsored by The Ocean Foundation and all donations go through this organization.

We believe conservation should have concrete outcomes. For every dollar that we raise, we will save at least one turtle hatchling by providing the funds needed to hire people to patrol nesting beaches, build hatcheries that keep the eggs safe until hatching, and support educational programs. Since the project launched in April 2013, we have helped save more than 120,000 hatchlings at ten important turtle nesting beaches in Latin America. With your help, we can save another 5,000 endangered sea turtle hatchlings through this campaign.

Under natural conditions, scientists estimate that just one out of a thousand turtle hatchlings survive until adulthood. Add in poaching, getting caught in fishing gear, and other threats and its not surprising that six out of seven species are threatened or endangered. Our goal for Billion Baby Turtles is to reverse that trend and fill the oceans with turtle hatchlings, raising the odds for sea turtle survival. 

(photo: Neil Ever Osborne)

What We Need & What You Get

We have a really big goal, to put a billion hatchlings into the ocean to help restore sea turtle populations. With your help, we can put another dent in that goal while helping to support deserving community-based turtle conservation projects around the world. Our goal for this campaign is to raise at least $5,000 which we will provide to organizations around Latin America to pay for their teams to protect important nesting beaches and build hatcheries where turtle eggs are protected until hatching. The result from this campaign will be at least 5,000 hatchlings protected in 2014. 

With the help of our friends and sponsors, we are offering a wide range of incentives including eco-friendly items like Klean Kanteens, sea turtle themed items like flags, postcards, and glass turtles, and a plastic-free pack. For our larger donors, we can offer unique sea turtle experiences and the campaign's largest donor will receive a beautiful turtle print by artist Gloria Clifford.

The Impact

Healthy oceans and coastal communities need sea turtles. They help to keep prey like jellyfish under control and their nests help stabilize beaches. They help coastal communities by providing a great ecotourism attraction and many indigenous cultures celebrate them. Watching a sea turtle come ashore to lay its eggs is an extraordinary experience that everyone should be able to have.

Billion Baby Turtles more than doubled its goal of saving 50,000 turtle hatchlings in 2013 with a total of 106,000 saved at 10 nesting beaches across Latin America. With your help, we’ll pass our goals again in 2014! 

(photo: Alejandro Arenas Martinez / Flora, Fauna y Cultura)

Other Ways You Can Help

Donations are great but aren’t the only way you can help. The more people we reach, the more successful we will be so please help share the word with friends and family, on Facebook and Twitter, by email or dinnertime conversation!

Want to see sea turtles in person? We can help set you up to volunteer or visit a sea turtle conservation project where your time and energy will be put to good use. Learn more at SEEturtles.org.