Learn more about this day & how you can celebrate

This is an annual celebration of all the turtles that we share the planet with. This includes sea turtles, freshwater turtles and land tortoises. The World Turtle Day was created by the American Tortoise Rescue organisation in 2000 to spread awareness and knowledge about turtles. 

This day provides everyone with the opportunity to celebrate the diversity and conservation of turtles, including helping others to understand why it is so important to protect these species from threats and further decline. Many organisations and groups around the world mark this important day by delivering various awareness raising events and educational activities to the public. 

In the coming days (leading up to World Turtle Day), the 1 Million Turtles team will be sharing cool turtle facts and putting our a 'Call To Action' (CTA) that anyone could get involved in. We will also be launching an exciting ‘Whacky and Wonderful’ competition where you will get to vote for your favourite Whacky and Wonderful turtle by liking, sharing and commenting on their posts. The turtle with the highest number of interactions will be crowned as the victorious winner of 2023.

All activities will be via our Facebook page. So keep your eyes peeled turtle lovers!

Absolutely!  If you are keen to play a part in saving our awesome turtles and would love to do this in the comfort of your home - no worries! We got you. 

This World Turtle Day, you can play a part in saving our shelled friends by looking through your phones or desktops for any old or recent turtle photos that have not been previously submitted to TurtleSAT. With a few simple steps, you can now upload bulk upload your turtle images to TurtleSAT. How cool is that! 

Read the next few sections to learn how you can do this. 

This year, the 1 Million Turtles team have come up with a perfect 'Call To Action' (CTA) that anyone with a phone, a laptop or desktop with old or recent freshwater turtle photos could take part in.

TurtleSAT has a new feature called 'Bulk Image Upload' which makes it easier to submit your turtle photos. The team at 1 Million Turtles work tirelessly to come up with ways to make it easier for the turtle lovers out there to play a part in their conservation. 

Before you begin, let's do a quick check to get you ready. 

Do you always take photos on your phone with the location service switched on? Why is this important? When you use the bulk image upload feature on TurtleSAT, it automatically extracts data such as the location, date and time when the photo was taken. Once all the photos have been uploaded, you will see a list of the photos uploaded and the 'Submit' button becomes visible. However, if any photos are missing the location data - these photos will be excluded from the upload. 

Are the photos on your phone saved externally? For example, photos taken on an iPhone gets saved on iCloud that can be accessed on a laptop or iPhone and photos taken on an Android phone on Google Photos. For easy upload, you can login to your photo storage platform and drag the relevant turtle photos to the bulk upload page on TurtleSAT. We have included a video below to help you get started.  

For iPhone users: Are your turtle photos saved in HEIF format? The bulk image upload feature on TurtleSAT does not support this image format. However, when the images are saved on iCloud - they are automatically transformed into 'JPEGs' making the process  easier and faster.

As long as your location service was switched on your phone, every photo you have taken would have automatically captured data such as the location, date and time. By uploading your images via the new bulk image upload feature on TurtleSAT, you no longer have to do a single data entry for each photo. All you need to do is drag and drop all your turtle photos via the bulk image upload page, select if you are uploading nesting or sighting photos, then select live or dead turtle, and finally click 'Submit'. That’s it - you are done! If have only one turtle photo, but feel that you cannot recall much detail about it – you can also use this feature to submit that photo. 

To successfully submit your photos via this bulk image upload feature, all your photos must have location, date and time data attached to it. Photos consisting with only date and time data, upon uploading it to TurtleSAT - you will see an error message highlighted with a faded red row. When you click 'Submit', the photos with missing information will be excluded from the upload. See below for an example. 

• For Android Phone Users: 0:00:16
• For iPhone Users: 01:57
• Bulk Image Upload: 03:45 

You will also see these timestamps in the video's description section and you can click on the timestamps to go directly to the relevant sections.

Most iPhones save photos as HEIF instead of JPEG. This can be undone via settings on your phone. Unfortunately, TurtleSAT does not accept photos saved in this format. 

However, when you download photos from iCloud or email the photos to you - the photos are automatically transformed to JPEG. 

In the video above, you would noticed that the iPhone portion explains that photos downloaded from iCloud will be saved to your Windows Explorer. If you have an iPhone and use an iMac - your photos will be saved in your Finder instead. 

Sometimes, TurtleSAT can display differently on different platforms or devices. Should you find yourself in such a situation, here are other ways to access the bulk image upload feature on TurtleSAT. 

(1) Click on 'Map Turtles' > How to Get Involved > Bulk Image Upload

(2) Or you can also click on the three vertical white lines (located on the top right corner) > How to get involved > Bulk Image Upload

No matter which way you access it, please ensure that you are logged in. 

Some of us prefer to have our location services switched off on our phones. If this is the case, the photos that we take on our phones will be missing the location information. When you try and upload any photos with missing information, TurtleSAT will highlight this with a slightly reddish tinted row with an error message (next to the specific photo file name) stating that this image is missing information (see example screenshot image above video).

In such a case, when you click on submit - any images with missing information will be excluded from the upload. TurtleSAT will proceed to upload all other photos with no missing information.

The video above describes instructions for users who utilise backup systems such as iCloud or Google Photos. If you are not using either one, but would still like to upload your photos - follow the instructions below.

• On your phone, select the photos that you wish to upload to TurtleSAT.
• Then, email these photos to yourself. 
• From your email, you can download these photos to a folder and upload them to TurtleSAT via your laptop or desktop.
• If you are an iPhone user, all your HEIF photos will be transformed to JPEG when attached to an email. 

We are always here to help! If you are feeling stuck or have a question, reach out at 1millionturtles@1millionturtles.com