Yahoo! News - Environmentalist campaign takes aim at illegal turtle trade As many as 35,000 sea turtles are poached every year along the Baja California coast, Several thousand of those are taken in the weeks leading up to Easter because Catholics who gave up meat for Lent view turtle as fish, Dedina said.
The Vatican hasn't responded to requests by the Sea Turtle Conservation Network of the Californias to declare turtle meat off-limits, but organizers hope the Pope will address the issue when he visits Mexico in July.