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Pacific leatherbacks are threatened with extinction over the next 50 years! Your help is needed to save this species. The Leatherback is the largest, deepest diving, and most migratory and wide ranging of all sea turtles. The adult leatherback can reach 4 to 8ft in length and 500 to 2000 lbs in weight. This giant of the sea faces extinction because of current fishing methods, poaching and sand mining. Please support ANET (A division of the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust) with their efforts to save one of the last colonies of the Leatherback Sea Turtle on the Andaman and Nicobar islands. Currently the Andaman and Nicobar Islands support the last pristine nesting beaches for the Leatherback sea turtle population in the Northern Indian Ocean region. Monitoring results and surveys on the Great Nicobar Island since 2000 clearly show that Leatherbacks nesting in the Nicobar Islands is not only important for the Indian Ocean region but also are globally significant. Several confirmed nesting sites in the Andamans have been destroyed due to sand mining. During the last 2 seasons the Leatherbacks have been tagged with PIT tags which provide valuable information on inter-nesting interval for this species. There is a urgent need to continue this effort.
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