May 23rd is World Turtle Day and is celebrated throughout the globe by people who appreciate turtles and their hard-shelled cousins.

Turtles, including terrapins and tortoises, are reptiles belonging to the Order Testudines and first appeared on earth about 200 million years ago. There are about 12 types of turtle, all of which are threatened in some way but no more so than the sea turtle. Sea turtles face numerous threats, mainly from fishing activities, poaching and destruction of their habitats, and rate among the most endangered species on the planet.

Full Story via ecotourismlogue

  Some local fishermen in the town of Turgutreis, near the Aegean resort town of Bodrum, rescued a loggerhead sea turtle Sunday, which had been seriously wounded and blinded in one eye.

  Muıstafa Sürgün, who was one of the first to see the animal offshore, said a boat probably hit the turtle. “I saw the animal lying still on the water. It was exhausted,” said Sürgün. “I informed the Coast Guard immediately, and they arrived very quickly and saved the turtle. The location where it was found is on the route of daily yachts tours. The turtle might have been hit by one of them.”

Full Story via turkishdailynews

The flora and fauna on North Island, one of the 650 million-year-old inner granite islands of the Seychelles, were devastated by the arrival of humans in the late 18th century. The colonists cleared the island of its vegetation in favour of cash crops such as coconut and cinnamon. By the 1970s, it had been abandoned and overrun with cats, rats and mynah birds. The diversity of endemic species across the whole archipelago is relatively limited, but due to its remote location – the closest neighbour is Madagascar, about 1,000km away – several, such as the Aldabra giant tortoise and magpie robin, cannot be found anywhere else on earth.

Full Story via independent.co.uk