Great Turtle Race tracks endangered leatherbacks

Biologists will switch on satellite trackers strapped to the backs of 11 female leatherback turtles on Monday, starting what conservationists have dubbed the Great Turtle Race to raise awareness of a species threatened with extinction.

Environmentalists say 90 per cent of the leatherbacks have vanished and the species may disappear within 10 years because of illegal poaching of their eggs, ocean contamination and development near their nesting grounds.

Sponsored by U.S. and Costa Rican environmental groups and businesses, the race will track the turtles on their annual 2,000-kilometre journey from Costa Rica's Pacific coast to the Galapagos Islands.

Internet users can follow the journey, read about the turtles and then track them over the next two weeks as they complete their migration to the islands off the Ecuadorean coast, according to the event's organizers, headed by Washington, D.C.-based Conservation International.

Most of the competing turtles are expected to be in the water by Monday after laying their eggs on the beach at Playa Grande in Costa Rica.

The website features virtual trading cards with caricatures of the turtles with names like Freedom, Windy and Stephanie Colburtle after U.S. comedian Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central fame. It also has statistics on their egg-laying history.

Numbers in sharp decline

The leatherbacks, which can grow to be more thantwo metres and weigh as much as900 kilograms, are the world's largest turtles and are found throughout the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, ranging from Alaska to as far south as the Cape of Good Hope.

Scores migrate to Playa Grande to lay their eggs each year, but officials at Las Baulas Marine Park said only 58 female leatherbacks arrived this year, down from 124 in 2006.

Scientists estimate that worldwide, the female population has fallen from an estimated 115,000 in 1980 to fewer than 43,000 today. Besides various threats to their habitat, the leatherback population is threatened by floating plastic bags or sheets that they mistake for jellyfish a staple of their diet.

Ten race sponsors including Yahoo Inc., Plantronics Inc., Philadelphia's Drexel University and Dreyer's Ice Cream donated $25,000 US each to purchase the tracking equipment and protect nesting areas from development.