• Magnificent Turtles
    A small compilation of videos,
    in which the efforts of the volunteers are shown.

Welcome to Cancun Turtles

The Sea Turtle Protection Program in Cancun - Mexico

This website is dedicated to the volunteers participating in the Sea Turtle Protection Program by the Municipal Department of Ecology and Urban Development on the Beaches of Cancun, Mexico.

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General Sea Turtle Information

Sea Turtle Species & Facts

Sea turtles are one of the most ancient animals on our planet. They have navigated throughout the world's oceans for 100 to 150 million years, since dinosaurs inhabited earth.

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Video compilation of the volunteer efforts

Latest Content

The Lost Years (the Lost Decade) in the life of Sea Turtles

The Lost Years in the Life of Sea Turtles

When they first emerge from the nest, the sea turtle hatchlings may not see the water. Yet, unless confused by artificial stimuli, they usually move directly toward the ocean. The tiny turtles figure out the direction of the ocean in one of three ways. On a…
Sea Turtle Information
Below the Shield – Sea Turtle Anatomy

Below the Shield – Sea Turtle Anatomy

The turtle’s most obvious physical attribute is its shell. Other prehistoric reptiles developed similar shells, but for whatever reason did not survive and diversify in how turtles did. The shell which in most turtles comprises two hard plates, protects the…
Sea Turtle Information
A fossil Toxochelys from about 75 million years ago

Sea Turtle Origins and Ancestors

The evolutionary origin of turtles has been called one of the great unanswered questions of evolutionary biology. The scientific community does not know from what group of primitive reptiles’ turtles descended.
Sea Turtle Information
Sea Turtles and Humans - The Dilemma

Sea Turtles and Humans - The Dilemma

Over 200 million years after the first turtle appeared on the earth (compared with half a million years for humans), and after surviving one or more great catastrophes that wiped out most life on the planet, sea turtles face a very precarious future. Several…
Sea Turtle Information

Literature Quotes

"I am affected by the thought that the earth nurses these eggs. They are planted in the earth, and the earth takes care of them; she is genial to them and does not kill them. It suggests a certain vitality and intelligence in the earth, which I had not realized. This mother is not merely inanimate and inorganic. Though the immediate mother turtle abandons her offspring, the earth and sun are kind to them. The old turtle on which the earth rests takes care of them while the other waddles off. Earth was not made poisonous and deadly to them. The earth has some virtue in it; when seeds are put into it, they germinate; when turtles' eggs, they hatch in due time."

HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Journals, vol. 7

"He had no mysticism about turtles although he had gone in turtle boats for many years. He was sorry for them all, even the great trunk backs that were as long as the skiff and weighed a ton. Most people are heartless about turtles because a turtle's heart will beat for hours after he has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too."

ERNEST HEMINGWAY
The Old Man and the Sea