EnglishWatch, track, and protect sea turtles…LIVE!
In early 2014, two eight-year-olds (Jonas & Matson) came to us with the vision of creating an app to broadcast the life cycle of sea turtles in the Pacific. They called it “Turtle Friend” and their goal was to create an education and fundraising tool for sea turtle conservation.
What is it?
An app & website that:
- broadcasts live nesting events, sea turtle egg hatchings, and other important parts of the life cycle of sea turtles.
- tracks sea turtles via satellite transmitters and displays their location in the ocean
- provides biological information on sea turtle species
Why Turtle Friend?
Sea turtles have been living on this planet for over 100 million years! But now, because of human impact, they are struggling to survive and some are near thebrink of extinction.
The Pacific coast of Nicaragua has some of the most important sea turtle nesting beaches in Central America. In a single night, thousands of female olive ridley turtles crowd the beach to lay their eggs in one of the greatest natural events on the planet. The nonprofitPaso Pacifico and community partners are working together to protect these and other threatened turtle species.
Turtle Friend will help tell this story….LIVE! By bringing the global community’s attention to the importance of these animals in a new and engaging way we can help protect this important piece of our natural history.
Okay, how does Turtle Friend work?
To realize Jonas and Matson’s dream, Turtle Friend will be both an app and website where you will be able to watch (LIVE) sea turtles at various stages of their life cycle and track them via satellite transmitters on their migrations through the Pacific.
Live Stream: Imagine watching a live stream of THOUSANDS of sea turtles coming to shore to lay their eggs in one of the greatest nesting events on the planet. Turtle Friend will broadcast events like these using HD video cameras connected to the Internet live streaming via Ustream. Ustream is one of the leading video streaming platforms and will provide us with the technology to share these live broadcasts worldwide.
Satellite Tracking: Turtle Friend will also track sea turtles via satellite transmitters on their migration throughout the Pacific ocean. Paso Pacifico’s team in Nicaragua have extensive experience attaching these satellite transmitters to the backs of sea turtles. Once attached, these transmitters will send a signal via satellite to a web-based tracking system. The Turtle Friend app will then display these turtle’s location, distance traveled, and biological information.
What’s this gonna cost?
Funding goal: $25,000
– $9,000 – website & app development and maintenance for 3 years
– $5,500 – 3 years of staff time for broadcasting & maintenance.
– $3,500 – 3 year livestream account via U-Stream.
– $3,000 – cameras
– $1,500 – perks
– $1,250 – Kickstarter fee
– $1,250 (ish) – credit card processing fee
Total = $25,000.00