The St. Croix Sea Turtle Project

The time is just flying by already! We have identified 11 individual turtles at Sandy Point since 31 March and we now have 30 nests on the island (since 6 March). Each night we head out at dusk to see who else we can find! The weather has been a bit warmer and the winds more calm than we would expect for early April, but the turtles don’t seem to mind that.

Here’s a summary of who we’ve seen so far! Thank you to everyone who has named a turtle for this season – we are now in need of more names! If you are interested in adopting a leatherback and getting to name her and follow her, please check out this page.

Our first turtle was seen on 31 March. She’s now named Barnacle4 because she was seen as she slipped into the water, and so we only caught the last digit of her flipper tag (the rest of the tag was covered by a barnacle) and we noticed that she had only a partial rear flipper. We saw her again this week for her second nest. She is a beast at 170 cm in length (our average size is ~155 cm).

Jillene has nested once, she’s our next biggest turtle at 166 cm, and has been nesting at Sandy Point since 1995! She was named by Peter and Jill White.

MaryLisa is a perfect looking turtle! She was first tagged in Culebra, Puerto Rico before 2008. She was named by Tim Mauney and family.

Our teeniest turtle at 144 cm is Amy-Lee, named by Mike McKay and Amy Semple. She’s been her for two nests now and was originally tagged in 2012.

Joasia has also been nesting since 2012. She was named by Mike Stiell and Joasia Pyrz.

Another big and strong turtle (164 cm), Rose was first tagged in 2007, and has some pink scars on her shoulders that she’s recovering from. She was named by Dave and Debbie Bucholtz.

Jumbie was named by Molly Murray, a long-time visitor to Cottages by the Sea. Jumbie has been nesting since 2004.

Our very first brand new turtle (never tagged) is Tassi. She showed up on 5 April and got some tags so we will be able to identify her when she returns. She was named by our volunteer Louisa Porter, in honor of her pup.

Our great supporter (and mug and fridge magnet artist!), Carrie Althouse named our ninth turtle Laurel! Laurel has been nesting faithfully at Sandy Point since 2005.

We have two additional turtles that need names! One of those is an old turtle (AAV522), nesting since 2000, laying over 50 nests at the refuge, and another is a turtle that was first tagged in 2009 (YYX054). Help us name them!