DORISMAR TURTLE CAMPAIGN/ARIZONA REPUBLIC

ARIZONA REPUBLIC

MEXICO CITY - Conservationists are teaming up with a Playboy model for a racy new campaign aimed at stopping a Mexican tradition: swallowing raw sea turtle eggs as a sexual aid.

"My man doesn't need to eat turtle eggs," says one magazine ad, as Argentine model Dorismar unbuttons her shirt for the camera. Behind her, two baby sea turtles scoot along a beach.

Other ads show her in a revealing swimsuit, leaning back while superimposed over a turtle nesting ground. "Sea turtle eggs DO NOT increase sexual potency!" the ads exclaim.

Smokey Bear it isn't. Two U.S. wildlife groups have refused to support the campaign because of its sexy content, organizers said.

"They don't understand. We have to speak to people in their own language," said Ivan Zuñiga, director of Mexico's Environmental Education Fund. The group is sponsoring the program along with San Diego-based Wildcoast.

Starting in June, the ads will appear on billboards in Mexico City and Jalisco, Michoacan, Guerrero and Mexico states. They'll also be on buses, in magazines and . . . um . . . pictorial publications with titles like Succulent Temptations, Zuñiga said.

Mexican band Los Tigres del Norte has joined the campaign, and organizers plan to distribute posters and postcards at its shows.

That has prompted tongue-in-cheek headlines: "Dorismar to take care of Tigres del Norte's eggs," snickered the Univision Web site, using a Spanish slang term for part of the male anatomy.

Dorismar, who appeared on the March 2003 cover of Playboy, posed for the ads free, organizers said.

Raids on nesting sites

The campaign follows a spate of high-profile egg raids at turtle nesting grounds in western Mexico.

At one six-mile stretch of beach near Petatlán, 110 miles northwest of Acapulco, at least 100,000 eggs have disappeared since last summer, conservationists say.

Except in the state of Oaxaca, the eggs aren't usually used as food, Zuñiga said.

Instead, they're cracked open, mixed with lime juice and a little chili powder, and swallowed raw two or three at a time. Each egg costs about $1.

It's illegal to consume, sell or even disturb the eggs. But at the Sonora Market in Mexico City, known as the "witches' market" for its herbs, magic candles and folk remedies, everyone knows the dosage: two eggs every three days for a month.

"I've never done it myself," police Officer Jesús Silva said. "But I know people who have taken them, and they say it works better than Cialis."

"Oh, they work. But you can't take them for too long because it's very bad for your body," one herb vendor said.

"Why's that?" he was asked.

"Too much cholesterol," he said.

'A horrible myth'

Fay Crevoshay, a spokeswoman for Wildcoast, called the libidinous effects "a horrible myth." Hundreds of thousands of the eggs disappear down the gullets of hopeful men every year, she said.

"They think of it as a medicine, like Viagra. But Viagra costs 150 pesos (about $14) a pill in Mexico, while the eggs are 30 pesos (about $2.70)," she said.

Wildcoast approached two well-known environmental groups for help with the campaign but was turned down, said Aida Navarro, director of wildlife protection programs for Wildcoast. She would not identify them for fear of jeopardizing future projects.

"They had this kind of feminist point of view, that we were denigrating women," Navarro said. "But all companies sell through women, so why not have a woman carry the message directly to the men who are eating these eggs?"

Helping big turtles, too

Since 2001, Wildcoast also has run an annual campaign against the sale of sea turtle meat during Lent. Roman Catholics abstain from eating meat during the 40 days before Easter, but turtles are considered seafood, not meat.

About two-thirds of the 35,000 sea turtles killed each year in Mexico are eaten during Lent, Crevoshay said.

This year, the group put up billboard ads in Mexicali, La Paz, Tijuana, Hermosillo and Culiacan urging people not to buy the meat.

"Would you eat a panda?" the billboards asked.

The rock group Maná also has taken up the cause of sea turtles. Its Selva Negra foundation runs centers that watch over the nesting beaches.

Wildcoast says Mexicans are slowly becoming more protective of sea turtles because of such efforts. In the Sonora Market, the lovemaking power of sea turtle eggs already has its doubters.

"Speaking as a woman, I can tell you they don't work," said Sandra Rodríguez Pérez, 27.

Said Oscar Benítez Hernandez, a 31-year-old candle seller: "I tried them, put the lime on it and everything.

"All it gave me was a stomachache."

Reach the reporter at chris.hawley@arizonarepublic.com.

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