2 weeks worth it all. I promise to be back!

For a project that just started this year, their achievements so far are quite impressive, especially their ability to identify individual turtles without needing to refer to their database of turtle photos. I've been photo-identifying the tails of North Atlantic humpback whales for a year and I still need to go through the whole catalog of whale tail photos to find a match. Maybe it is because the turtle photo database has only less than 60 individuals while the humpback whale catalog has more than 8000 individuals. However, I believe it is because the ones who were photo-identifying the turtle photos and the ones who took the photos are the same people - they were actually there and personally interacted with the very turtles they are trying to protect. Furthermore, as the project is situated right next to two resorts, it makes it easier for them to reach out to tourist and raise awareness about the importance of sea turtle conservation. As the project has just started, it is hard to say how much of an impact they have really made. But I believe that if they continue on this path, with some power-ups along the way (more funding, better software to catalog and photo-id), I'm sure they will eventually achieve their goal. But I hope the project and the staff (along with their friendliness and enthusiasm) will still be there whether the goal has been achieved already or not because I did promise to come back :D