Though the selling of endangered sea turtles is a criminal offense in a court of law, it has not stopped poachers and traffickers from stealing their eggs. So, to not only stop these offenders but also catch them red-handed, a team of conservation researchers has now developed GPS-enabled ‘decoy eggs’ (or fake eggs) inspired by criminal TV shows such as Breaking Bad and The Wire.
One of the Paso Pacifico scientists, Kim Williams-Guillen was the one who came up with the idea of these fake eggs and she is the one who designed these eggs. She calls them “InvestEGGator” and well, that’s a cool name for an egg.
Now, the team’s lead author, Helen Pheasey says that they have already confirmed that placing the decoy eggs in the turtles’ nests did not damage any of the incubating eggs of the turtles. Hence, the researchers went ahead with the project as there wasn’t any potential risk.
