Volunteers can assist researchers in saving the turtle eggs and hatchlings at several nesting locations, including St. Croix. You have the chance to participate in the longest-running, continuous study of a leatherback population anywhere in the world, and one that continues to reap scientific and conservation benefits. The leatherback turtle is one of the oldest animals on earth, having existed almost unchanged for 120 million years. But that long reign may be ending. Leatherback populations are dropping at a critical rate, largely as the result of poaching, pollution, land development, and fishing practices.
The leatherback sea turtle is the largest reptile on earth, with males exceeding one ton in weight. It is the only animal to live entirely on jellyfish. It is the deepest diving vertebrate animal scientists know of. On two of the largest nesting beaches in the world, the turtle populations have dropped more than 99 percent in less than 20 years.
On the island of St. Croix, leatherbacks have a long-established nesting beach, and it, like most others, suffered from massive poaching. When this research project began over 20 years ago, poachers and beach erosion were taking 85 percent of all the eggs laid, and the population was in steep decline. But Earthwatch volunteers began monitoring the turtles, patrolling the beaches, and convincing local people to protect their turtles. Today, poaching is all but nonexistent, and the turtles are returning in record numbers. But the work goes on. Help is needed to document the turtles' nesting behaviors, track nesting success, save nests threatened with erosion, and to further shed light on this remarkable creature.
Mike Evans, Manager of the Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge said they have had good cooperation from the general public staying away from closed-off beaches where hatchlings emerge. "Definitely we are seeing less of a threat to the turtles from human activities, but we must insist that people continue to stay away from those areas and to avoid taking animals onto the beaches," he said. "At Sandy Point, we know for a fact that this year is the second best for the past 20 years since records have been kept," said Evans. By mid-summer, a total of 107 individual leatherbacks had nested at Sandy Point, creating a combined total of 460 nests. Last year, 99 leatherbacks nested on the Point, laying 398 nests. "We had a record 118 leatherbacks that nested at Sandy Point in 1997," Mike said. Some 720 nests were used during the five-month nesting period that runs from February to August. That year also saw a 110-percent jump in turtle nestings over the previous high recorded in 1994. This year, according to Evans, about 60 percent of all the leatherback turtles that have nested are young females nesting for the first time. "This is very encouraging," he said, noting that once leatherbacks begin nesting at one particular place, they normally return there for the rest of their lives. The figures do not include hawksbill and green sea turtles that have just begun to show up at the wildlife refuge.
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