The Heartbreak Turtle Today, a documentary

Ever since I started my internship here at STRP I have been primarily working on outreach for this educational documentary, The Heartbreak Turtle Today. On day 1 of my internship I watched this film 2 or 3 times, and began work on a press kit to be sent along with DVD copies to PBS stations across the country. Since then we've sent it out to 14 PBS stations in Washington, Oregon, California, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi, as well as 4 local access stations in Florida. And I've still got 60 more local access networks to contact that I haven't gotten around to yet.

I literally just got off the phone with a producer for one of the local PBS stations here in CA, and he said that he wants to show The Heartbreak Turtle Today on the anniversary of the BP oil spill. Which is AWESOME :) !!!!!

I think it really shows that community and local efforts can make a huge difference. Really touching stuff. I don't want people to think that they have to be in the Gulf of Mexico to make a difference when it comes to sea turtle and marine life conservation. Even if you are in the landlocked Midwest (hello, mi familia) you still have a tremendous impact on important conservation matters such as fossil fuel use, plastic use and recycling. So don't think you aren't important! Everyone matters!

Here's a bit more info on the movie:

You can see a preview here.

The Heartbreak Turtle Today is the story of the dramatic recovery of the endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico. Kemp's ridley sea turtles are the smallest and most critically endangered of all seven species of sea turtles in the world. In 1985 it was estimated that there were about 500 nesting females in the Gulf of Mexico, and now conservation efforts have helped their population grow to about 8,000 nesting females. Such a great improvement!

This documentary was produced by the Sea Turtle Restoration Project and Sunset Productions in order to show the efforts being made to help bring this population of sea turtles back from near extinction. The BP oil spill occurred in the middle stages of film production, and we get a closer look at the devastating after-effects through this moving documentary.

If you are in the Northern SF Bay Area and want to see this film, we've got a public premiere showing happening on March 29 at 7:00 pm at the Bay Model Visitor Center. The film will be followed by an interactive Q&A sesh and presentation on more local CA conservation efforts, it should be fun! So come join us!

Hopefully you'll see The Heartbreak Turtle Today on your local PBS station soon! :)