Quick Links 🐠
Turtle Tracks and Shells Offered on Thursday, Friday, Saturday mornings in June, join us for seashell identification and a beach walk to look for sea turtle tracks. Sign up link opens here starting May 13.
Paid Summer Internship Opportunity For Virgin Islands students ages 18+, who are interested in outreach experience at Sandy Point. Read more here and apply by 5 May!
2024 Outreach Programs Announcement We announced our 2024 programs for the community at Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge on DPNR’s Science Saturday on 10 February. Watch the presentation here.
Discover our Sea Turtles. Are you a St. Croix teacher who would be interested in having our Outreach Specialist make a visit to your classroom? Please let us know your interest by filling out this form. Visits to take place in March-June. This is a free program.
Adopt a nesting sea turtle. Name your turtle and support our conservation efforts 💕
Track Mahogany here Friday 18 November 2022, Mahogany – the loggerhead rescued by STAR and rehabbed by Coral World, was released. Mahogany Press Release.
Volunteer signup (We’ll contact you as positions need to be filled).
St. Croix Sea Turtle 2024 Nesting Totals (27 beaches: updated 28 April 2024)
Leatherbacks: 31 (incl 1 on St. Thomas)
Hawksbills: 15
Green turtles: 2
We had our first sea turtle activity of 2024 in the refuge on 7 January. Weekly updates to St. Croix nest counts will be posted here. You can find Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge totals on the top of the page (and on the sign at the refuge gate). Please check back often here or follow us on Facebook (@stxleatherbacks) and Instagram (#stxturtles) for regular postings.
Our Sandy Point nest numbers for 2023: 17 leatherback, 1,576 green and 239 hawksbill nests. A record year for greens and hawksbills.
For 2022: 59 leatherback, 1,141 green, and 185 hawksbill nests. For 2021: 94 leatherback, 1,399 green, and 234 hawksbill nests in the refuge❤️
DONATIONS KEEP US GOING! Our project operates completely on grants and donations. We are happy to receive any amount to help our conservation and sea turtle monitoring work. Donations from the public directly support young conservation students, volunteers and graduate students and are tax-deductible.
Take a look around our website. You’ll find information about the intensive sea turtle research and conservation that has been going on since 1977 at Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge. The main focus of the work has been leatherback turtles, but green and hawksbill turtles also nest on these critically important beaches. The St. Croix Sea Turtle Project studies and protects sea turtles in collaboration with the US Fish and Wildlife Service in St. Croix. We are funded by major research grants, private donors and fundraising activities. We provide extensive support for students and volunteers assisting with these projects, including field experience and training, conference attendance and costs, and mentoring during independent research projects.
Other projects of the St. Croix Sea Turtle Project include collaborative sea turtle studies in Pacific Mexico, on US mainland beaches and throughout the Wider Caribbean. We are excited to share with you our discoveries and progress 🙂
GET IN TOUCH You can contact us at stxturtles @ gmail.com or follow us on Facebook and Instagram. We look forward to hearing from you.
**Above. Sandy Point Youth Conservation Corps summer students Jahsendi (left) and Yaira (right) measure Rosie, the biggest turtle of 2021, late one June afternoon ❤️
The St. Croix Sea Turtle Project is sponsored by The Ocean Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization, in cooperation with US Fish and Wildlife Service at Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge, St. Croix, US Virgin Islands.
The St. Croix Sea Turtle Project 