Hey there!

Quick quiz: why do you think green sea turtles are called green sea turtles?

Most people guess the shell.

Nope. Their shell is brown, olive, or grey, depending on age and habitat.

Green sea turtles got their name from the color of their fat: the inside of a green sea turtle is greenish, and it's greenish because of what they eat…

As greens are the only herbivorous sea turtle.

Help clean sea turtle habitats with Kemp's Ridley Bracelet of the Month >>

They spend their days grazing on seagrass meadows and algae beds, the same way a cow grazes on grass. Adult greens can weigh up to 440 pounds, can live for over 80 years, and need a lot of seagrass to keep that going.

That diet is also why green sea turtles are some of the most important reef and seagrass gardeners in the ocean.

By cropping seagrass like an underwater lawnmower, they keep the meadows healthy and productive. Without greens, those meadows overgrow, crowd out other life, and collapse.

So when plastic shows up in their feeding grounds, the damage doesn't stop with one turtle. It spreads to the whole ecosystem they hold together.

Pull plastic from the waters where they graze >>

The June Bracelet of the Month is the Kemp's Ridley sea turtle bracelet. Every one pulls a pound of plastic and trash from the ocean, rivers and coastlines where sea turtles live.