The St. Croix Leatherback Project

International Women’s Day is a perfect opportunity to celebrate the outstanding contribution to science by the young female marine biologists who work on our turtle projects! Our research team in St. Croix is made up mainly of women, in the early stages of their professional lives in Marine Biology and Conservation. They are a bright … More Great showing of St. Croix research at the International Sea Turtle Symposium!

At the end of the 2018 leatherback season, our colleagues at the New England Aquarium and ATMAR (Amigos de las Tortugas Marinas – Maunabo, Puerto Rico), attached special GPS tags to nesting leatherbacks in Puerto Rico so they could follow the turtle migrations once the nesting season was over. One of those turtles was Enid … More Enid Fern is still on the move!

Excitement this morning during morning turtle patrol! Our first two activities were recorded at Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge, and our season is now underway! We had heard reports that leatherbacks had started showing up around the region – in Puerto Rico, Grenada, Florida, and Colombia, and now St. Croix. It’s a bit early to … More Leatherback season has started!

Dana’s poster at the upcoming Sea Turtle Symposium investigates the differences we saw in hatching success of leatherback eggs in nests at Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge in 2017, before Hurricane Maria, and then in 2018, after the storm. She found interesting changes after the storm. Leatherback nesting season overlaps with hurricane season between 1 … More Understanding hurricane effects on hatching of leatherback eggs at Sandy Point

Each year, sea turtle researchers, students, volunteers and enthusiasts gather at the International Sea Turtle Symposium to share information, learn what’s new and get invigorated for upcoming sea turtle nesting seasons! This year the meeting will be in Charleston, South Carolina from 1-9 February. Our team has a lot to share from our Sandy Point … More Countdown to the Symposium!

Before we roll on into 2019, we didn’t want to miss the chance to thank all our followers, donors, volunteers, and supporters! Our Twelve Days of Turtles was a massive success, and we raised over $3,200 toward our next season, which starts in March! Amazing! We had several volunteers sign up, 17 turtles adopted for … More Bye bye to 2018!

We made it to our last day of the Twelve Days of Turtles! Today, we encourage you to follow us next season as we track some leatherback turtles around St. Croix and through the Northern Caribbean. Last year our turtle Enid Fern (a new nester at St. Croix) ventured over to Maunabo, Puerto Rico where … More Twelfth Day! Follow our Turtles!

In 1984, after much lobbying and hard work by local agencies, volunteers and departments, Sandy Point officially became a National Wildlife Refuge created specifically for the protection of the Leatherback Sea Turtle (scientific name: Dermochelys coriacea) (the first refuge created for sea turtles), and is managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The recognition of … More Eleventh Day of Turtles – The History!

Come see us this Sunday 9 December 2018 for Christmas Spoken Here at the St. George Village Botanical Garden on St. Croix. We will be answering questions about The Leatherback Project, and we’ll have some fun surprises and games for you to play. We will also have some small gift items for sale, as well … More Christmas Spoken Here for Tenth Day of Turtles!

Name a nesting turtle – Each season we see dozens of individual female turtles and while they have flipper tags, we like to give them names to remember them better as the season goes on. For example, SPP056 is one of our special turtles. She nested twice in 2016 and one of our team members, Dana, … More Name a turtle on the Ninth Day of Turtles!