I am a veterinarian and worked with this project, CENAQUA (National Center of Queloneos from Amazon), for two years. I was based at the Araguaia River in the Goias State, and the Guapore River in the Rondonia State. I got involved with this project because I took a course about wild animals and I really enjoyed that, because I love animals.

In Brazil since 1979 our governmental agency for environmentalism, named IBAMA, created a project CENAQUA to preserve the turtles that live in fresh water rivers, because those species, Podocnemis expansa (tartuga) and Podocnemis unifilis (tracaja) were about to become extinct.

In the summer season the female turtle goes to the beach and makes a hole in the sand. She then lays the eggs, covers them and goes to the river again, and leaves her nest alone. Two months later the baby turtles are born. They are fragile in their environment. The mother comes back only the next season to lay her eggs again.

There are many natural enemies that eat the eggs and eat the little babies too. When they are born, fish, lizards, alligators, falcons, vultures, and many other predators eat baby turtles.

Someone must care for the beaches during the period of time when the female turtle lays her eggs. On average, 100 eggs are born to each female. The babies are born only two months later. They must be kept in a safe environment after they are born. If humans do not protect those baby turtles, only one baby turtle out of 1000 will survive.

The project has 115 beaches to protect. In the past 27 years, 55.3 million little baby turtles have been released to a safe place due to the efforts of the CENAQUA project.