The St. Croix Sea Turtle Project

USVI Students! We would love to see your artwork showing how sea turtles are important to the Virgin Islands Art contest is now open until 3 September 2022 (Sandy Point opening day). Full rules, eligibility and how to submit your art maybe found on this page – Art Contest Rules and Eligibility! It’s free to … More Art contest now OPEN!

Beach cleanup! It’s nearly time to give the beach back to the leatherback turtles, and we want to make sure it’s welcoming for them! Please join our cleanup on Saturday 26 March, from 7 to 9 am at Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge. For more details and to sign up (great prizes for participating), please … More Tidy up for the Turtles!

Mona, are you returning to us? This month’s update has us excitedly wondering where Mona is headed Mona is halfway between Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Windward Islands, could she be returning to nest this year? (Leatherbacks generally skip a year or two after nesting). We’ll have to see if she … More Is Mona coming home?

What an amazing response to our Leatherback Contest! We had 168 entries with over 500 guesses! Out of those entries, FIVE people chose the correct date (21 February) and the correct beach (North Beach). To choose prizes, we drew random entries of the winners! Prizes are as follows (we’ll follow up with each of you) … More Leatherback Contest Winners!

Are you a high school student with a passion and interest for the environment and do you enjoy spending time outside? We have a PAID summer job opportunity for you! Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge is excited to be offering paid summer positions through the Youth Conservation Corps Program for students ages 15-18! This program … More Summer Job Opportunity!

Guess the correct date and location of Sandy Point’s first leatherback nest and win! Every year, once we get into February, our team starts to speculate amongst ourselves when and where the first leatherback nest of the season will be. This year we thought we’d share this fun game with you so you can play … More Leatherback Contest!

Our volunteers are really valuable to our programs and projects! Volunteers help with everything – and every day is different! Assignments may include patrolling for sea turtle nests or nesting turtles, conducting nest inventories, releasing hatchlings, rescuing nesting turtles, responding to strandings around the island, planting native trees or removing invasive vegetation, and data entry. … More Volunteer with us!

Help us, we’re stuck! These hatchlings were rescued yesterday during a routine nest inventory (we dig up hatched nests to count hatched eggs and rescue hatchlings). In the nest was a big conch shell and at first, seemed harmless. But Claudia’s sharp eye caught some movement inside the shell! When she investigated, she found that … More Amazing hatchling save!

We are anxiously watching one of our GPS-tagged leatherback turtles* – Leona Nicole – with our colleagues at the Canadian Sea Turtle Network! We tracked her after the nesting season to Canadian waters, where she spent a good amount of time foraging around Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. In late September, she moved into the Gulf … More Where is Leona Nicole?