The contestants are chunky to say the least, but to their celebrity coaches and sponsors they are things of beauty: 11 endangered leatherback sea turtles, competing to be the first to swim from their chilly feeding grounds off the Canadian Atlantic coast to their breeding grounds in the Caribbean.

The Great Turtle Race starts April 16, but the handicapping began early, with boosters for massive entrants Nightswimmer and Backspacer boasting that they were sure to win.

“Our turtle, Nightswimmer — huge, beautiful,” said Mike Mills, bass player with alternative pop/rock group R.E.M., which is sponsoring the big male racer. “Of course with (former U.S. Olympic champion swimmer) Janet Evans as coach I really don’t see how we can lose.”

Evans said that as a distance swimmer, she can relate to Nightswimmer’s challenge. Because he weighs 970 pounds, she said, “I’m going to try to get him to use his size to move through the water quickly and to conserve some energy, because he really has a long way to go.”

Olympic swimmer Eric Shanteau is coaching female competitor Backspacer, sponsored by alternative rock group Pearl Jam. He had nothing but praise for her training regimen.

“She’s bulked up on jellyfish to a stout 825 pounds, but that being said she is in her peak aerobic shape,” Shanteau said on a telephone conference call promoting the race. “You guys try swimming 4,000 miles down the coast and doing it all lugging around a 1000-pound shell!”

To show what good condition Backspacer is in, Shanteau said, “She’s almost able to do her first sit-up, which for a turtle I think is pretty good … I’ve got faith in our girl. She’s put in the work, she’s put in the training, she’s going to come out on top.”

The competitors should complete the 4,000 mile journey in about 14 days, though the general migrating period lasts four to six months. They’ll be tracked as they swim with satellite transmitters attached to their leathery backs, which will let scientists and fans know not just where they are but how cold the water is and how deep the turtles are diving.

Organized by National Geographic, Conservation International, the race aims to raise awareness of the leatherbacks’ endangered status. This is the first time the event has taken place in the Atlantic; the previous two turtle races have taken place in the Pacific.

Photo: The Canadian Sea Turtle Network (Leatherback turtle with satellite transmitter, off Halifax, Nova Scotia, July 24, 2008)

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said on Tuesday that several leading scientists have called on Florida Governor Charlie Crist to curtail the commercial hunting of freshwater turtles in his state.

“Florida’s freshwater turtles are being harvested at an unsustainable rate to supply East Asian food and medicinal markets. New rules recently implemented by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) do not resolve this issue,” the scientists said in a letter.

In September, the FWC had voted to allow commercial fishermen to catch 20 softshell turtles a day.

“Although this was an improvement, as previously there were no catch limits, the limit is still too high,” said Anders Rhodin, Chair of IUCN’s Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group. “Two fishermen working five days a week could take 200 animals or three-quarters of a ton of turtles a week. That is not adequate protection for Florida’s wild turtle populations.”

The 32 turtle experts recommended that the FWC makes a rule that allows individuals to take no more than one turtle a day from the wild.

The FWC maintains that most turtles exported from Florida are farm raised but experts say many wild-caught turtles wind up in shipments to Asia, where rapid ecomomic growth has stoked demand for a range of wildlife products from ivory to fish.

We have reported before on the plight of freshwater turtles in Texas, which are also harvested for markets in Asia, where the meat is highly prized and is believed to have medicinal benefits as well. Last year the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife estimated that over 90,000 turtles a year were taken by dealers, mostly for export outside the state. In Texas experts have warned that overharvesting could lead to the collapse of the populations of some species – just as unsustainable catches have decimated a number of fisheries.

Texas has many man-made dams so its wild turtle population may be artificially high, but overall the critters in the U.S. South and globally face many threats, ranging from pollution to development. Human harvesting adds more pressure to their numbers not least because they are generally easy to catch.

What do you think? Should there be bans on the commercial harvest of freshwater turtle populations in America and elsewhere? Or should the wild harvest be strictly regulated? Or is that possible to enforce?