Save A Turtle and Knock A Last-Minute Gift Off Your List!

Playa Viva, an eco-resort on Mexico’s Pacific Coast, is sponsoring a program to re-introduce endangered turtles, and you can help for just $20.

Attention last-minute shoppers! Busy still adding a few names to your list, realizing you forgot the work colleague who doesn’t quite merit a bottle of Dom but maybe deserves more than a Starbucks card… And then there’s worldly Uncle Theo who’s on his fifth passport and third wife and has seen and done it all… Not to fear, we have a cool at-the-buzzer item that can be purchased with the click of mouse, sent just as easily and actually does the world some good!

For just $20 and the click of a mouse, you can help an important cause and knock another gift off your list by helping to save endangered sea turtles along the broad sandy beaches of Mexico’s state of Guerrero. This worthy effort, called La Tortuga Feliz, or Happy Turtle in Spanish, is being sponsored by a lauded eco-resort, Playa Viva, which has partnered with an all-volunteer staff from the nearby community of Juluchuca, located about an hour from Zihuatanejo.

The group has created a sanctuary on the southeast corner of Playa Viva, staffed by fisherman and farmers who recognized the damage being done to the local turtle population and decided to take action. The volunteers obtained training from the Mexican Department for the Protection of Endangered Species and set up camp at the edge of the estuary here because it’s close to the seasonal breeding grounds of endangered Ridley, Leatherback and Black turtles, and has access to fresh water, which is used to keep the nests damp. La Tortuga Feliz has made a big difference, collecting over 100,000 turtle eggs this year alone and releasing over 340,000 baby turtles over the last three years.  With your support, the group can continue their important work and rescue thousands of more turtles, enriching and strengthening the marine environment for everyone to enjoy.

Better yet, visit Playa Viva yourself, and enjoy their sultry casitas, delicious food, idyllic location and myriad activities, including helping out the volunteers of La Tortuga Feliz. You’re welcome to join them on their night patrols down the beach, searching for turtle tracks that lead to large green turtles laying their eggs. You’ll help them collect and count eggs, then return with them back to the sanctuary where they are buried in a safe nesting place. The next morning, you’ll help collect the hatched turtles from each nest, count them, and take them down the beach where predators are less likely to find them. The baby turtles will instinctively scamper into the waves, toward their new lives of roaming the open ocean.

Sounds like a happy holiday to us…