In what the biologists as terming as one of the most ambitious wildlife nest relocations ever attempted, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, FedEx and hundreds of volunteers are trying to save a generation of turtles, by digging up over 70,000 turtle eggs on the oil-spill-mired Gulf shore and transporting them to the oil-free beaches of Cape Canaveral, Florida.

In Cape Canaveral, the transported turtle eggs will be hatched in a warehouse and, subsequently, released into the ocean.

Noting that the massive effort being undertaken to save the turtles was a “grand experiment,” Michelle Pico, the director of marine programs at the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, said: “This is the largest egg translocation ever done in the US, and possibly in the world.”

Under the plan, aimed chiefly at preventing widespread deaths of five threatened and endangered turtle species, hundreds of turtle nests will be dug up on the Florida Panhandle and Alabama; with each of the nests containing nearly 100 ping-pong-sized eggs.

The eggs, layered with wet sand and placed in Styrofoam coolers, are loaded onto special, shock-absorbent wood pallets that are transported hundreds of miles in a huge FedEx truck.

However, there is no surety that the overall effort will yield positive results since it includes several risks like – breakage of the fragile eggs due to truck vibrations; detachment of embryos from the eggs; turtles’ poor response to the Cape Canaveral warehouse environment; and the chances of the hatchlings being eaten up after they are released into the Atlantic.