you know for me there's nothing more relaxing than coming to a secluded beach like this one and spending a few hours either sunbathing walking the beach or taking an easy swim and while this is the case for many virgin islanders and visitors of saint croix rarely do we stop to think about the species that we share the water and sand with i mean just off below the sea level there are hundreds of different fish species and buried below the sand i'm sure you'll find a few types of crabs scrambling around well on this episode of rediscover saint croix we'll be focusing on endangered and threatened species that use beaches around the island like this one as nesting sites and we'll be tagging along with the national park service during one of their more busier seasons to see how much work and effort goes into ensuring the survival and population health of several sea turtle species most divers will probably tell you that this is their favorite underwater scene a sea turtle swimming through the coral reef foraging for food this turtle we see here is a hawksbill turtle it's one of four sea turtles that migrate to saint croix to nest it's also one of the more endangered sea turtles from april to august the nesting activity on and around the island it's at its peak saint croix is an incredibly special place for sea turtles in the caribbean it's one of the few places that four species of sea turtles return here seasonally to nest and all four species maybe not so much loggerhead but the green the leatherback and the hawksbill are all nesting on saint croix and on buck island and what these animals are doing here is well saint croix is a unique island it sits in the caribbean it's one of the few islands it's truly in the caribbean sea um the main island of saint croix you know we still have a place where we have dark beaches where we have the right kind of sand and vegetative shoreline mix which is what the hawksbills want they nest in the forest we've got sandy point with the big open sand beaches and buck island's got some of that too in the big sand spit again the four species of sea turtles that come to saint croix are the leatherback hawksbill loggerhead and green turtles now according to some oral and written accounts sea turtle nesting activity was so prevalent that a person could literally walk the length of a beach on the shelves of turtles and not touch the sand however today it's rare to catch sea turtles nesting this is where zandy and the national park service along with other agencies like the u.s fish and wildlife service come in they patrol beaches designated as nesting sites during the season to monitor nesting turtles and ensure safety to their clutches the stories tell us when columbus first came to the caribbean 500 years ago there were so many green turtles that they couldn't move their boats through them because you know as the turtles were turning to the to the beach to nest there was just turtle everywhere well leather backs are now endangered green turtles are threatened species both here in the virgin islands and in florida and what we've spent most of the last 20 years studying are the hawksbill sea turtles they are the most highly endangered in the eastern caribbean we're out here we're spending an enormous amount of taxpayers dollars uh to be here for three and a half months of the year with these turtles seven nights a week and our job is to improve that hatch success to improve the chances for the species survival here in the virgin islands and throughout the eastern caribbean according to zandy most of the nesting activity takes place between 11 pm and 4 am on this night members of the national park service are on buck island national monument patrolling and monitoring the area for nesting females first the boat ride and then then unloading all the equipment and coming ashore on the dock and we get staged there and the the first activity is to set up your patrols for the night so one of our research assistants will head off into the south shore turtle bay patrol which is about a 15-minute walk in one direction and the other uh research assistant will go off and do the west beach and north shore patrol about 20 minutes both of these patrols are conducted by foot you're wearing your backpack your headlamp you're using a red colored lens so that you can see but it really is not a bright visual distraction to any uh nesting turtle that's coming out of the water so one way down the beach when you get to the end of the beach you make a radio call back to the third person and the person we call the rover they're sitting on the pier waiting for uh to assist somebody who might encounter a turtle on each of those patrols if they're no turtles basically you'll say that the beach is clear and you'll wait for about 15 minutes after that 15-minute period you'll walk back again again looking for any nesting turtles that have emerged since your last you know passing by if a turtle is encountered the research assistant's job is to identify that female it's a saturation tagging program which means that every animal that comes to this beach to buck island to nest on any of the four uh sections of the beach that we will know who she is and we will be able to accurately identify her every time she comes to nest and this is done for the entire patrol ship lucky for us on this night research assistants came across a hawksbill and a green turtle that came up on the beach to lay eggs green turtles get their name from the color of their shells they normally live in waters around the seagrass beds which provides food for them they can grow to be four feet in length and weigh in excess of 400 pounds like this turtle that has come up this night to lay her eggs green turtles will nest in sandy areas actually they also nest in slightly vegetative areas during the season green turtles will nest every 14 days and can nest five to seven times a season laying as many as 120 eggs at a time wow that's a lot of eggs as previously mentioned the other turtle nesting on this night is a hawksbill hawksbills are the smallest of the four sea turtles growing to be three feet in length they mainly nest in the vegetative areas right off the sand hawksbills normally nest every other season but what's interesting is that they return to the same beach each and every time to nest and can lay up to 200 eggs a night three to five times during the season have a very colorful shell which makes them prime targets for poachers a main reason why they are most endangered their shell is where tortoiseshell comes from doesn't come from tortoises it comes from hot steel no it's okay you do this in my sleep absolutely magnificent very tough very durable the japanese have created the beko society which is a group of artisans that take the material they take this material and they turn it into inlay for furniture you can't do it anymore as for its name well you can see the hawksbill has a hawk-like beak now i must state that bright lights can confuse the expecting female turtle and lead her away from her target nesting site that's why these red lights are being used it's quite interesting to see the nesting process of a sea turtle once she has found the ideal area to lay her eggs the female turtle digs a clutch or pit she uses her hind flippers like shovels to dig up sand and soil and clear it away this process does take a while but when the clutch is deep enough the female finally lays her eggs turtles are said to go in a trance-like state when laying eggs it's during this time that researchers and rangers tag the turtles and gather information and data about the animal this is what a sea turtle flipper tag looks like and it's actually the same tag that's used for marking um like a pig's ear this is actually made out of a metal called inconel and you can see there that has a unique code three letters rry and three numbers four seven seven it's pretty sharp so it actually pierces very easily through the flipper this is a tagging tool and you lock it right into place and it's ready to go so she'll receive four metal tags you know one in the left front right here and one on the right front here and there's actually three scales three very large scale pads that are located here on the trailing edge of the flipper and we usually tag for the one closest to the body on both sides and then here we go up the flipper comes up underneath here and we actually go for a spot in the tissue way up underneath we don't want to tag in the hind flipper way out here where there are some very large scale pads because this is the digging end of the flipper this is where she's doing all of the work to dig that nest and if there's a metal tag here it could potentially snag on roots or actually even cut the flipper so we tuck it away way up underneath a passive integrated transponder is also embedded into the turtle's shoulder this is scanned every time the turtle returns to the nest in addition to tagging and information gathering researchers and rangers many times have to relocate nest sometimes turtles lay eggs too close to the shoreline which leaves the nest susceptible to rising tides to ensure a higher hatch rate eggs are moved to a safer location buck island is a very dynamic place where the sands shift constantly and regularly throughout the season but also they shift dramatically during large cyclonic storm events so what we're asking is when turtles nest in locations that will be eroded whether due to normal erosion inter-season erosion or from stochastic storm events when do we relocate those you know how far from the water line is far enough and is that uniform throughout the island or does it change pertaining to which location you're at and while there are many questions they're answered before any turtle comes up onto the beach to lay eggs before the patrols start their shifts lundgren walks the beach identifying ideal nesting and relocation areas the entire island is mapped and markers are placed throughout the beach to help researchers and rangers make a sound decision regarding whether or not to relocate eggs and where to place them we're only relocating nests that would otherwise be inundated by tidal fluctuation or erosion so these nests are ones that would be um decimated entirely if we hadn't if we hadn't moved them there's a time window uh if you if you don't get there soon enough then the embryo actually attaches to the inside of the egg and if you go to move them once that has occurred then the the embryo will dis dislocate from from that egg lining and and it will die so you have to do it immediately that's why we try to do it at deposition we try to actually catch the eggs and and move them from there that way it's almost immediate and there's no ill effects from the relocation we use a protocol that was published uh in in 2000 um and approved by u.s fish and wildlife service what we do is we will either actually catch the eggs as the female drops them if she's in a location where we can actually get to the eggs if not um after she finishes laying her clutch we'll gently lift her hind over to an to uh just lift it over a couple centimeters so that she's not on top of the nest anymore and then we'll collect the eggs place them in a trash bag using sterile technique and um and then we'll we'll relocate them to a safe a safe spot here's an interesting fact the eggs take 60 to 70 days to hatch the warmer the core temperature inside the clutch the more female hatchlings however if the temperature in the clutch is too warm the eggs may not hatch my my hypothesis is that larger soil particles uh are more beneficial for hatchling success and more shading is beneficial for hatchling success now the only problem is the larger particles are found uh closer to the water line which obviously has no shading so i expect to find that the most optimal conditions are is a mixture between the two right at the interface of the beach forest and the open beach habitat that the hotter the temperature the more female hatchlings so for many many years on buck island especially after hurricane hugo when we lost a lot of tree cover we had a lot of hotness producing a lot of females but we also had a lot of hatchling mortality because when the nest gets to be too hot you've got a loss of oxygen so the hatchlings actually can suffocate they can actually cook in their own nest in both cases this night researchers and rangers had to relocate the turtle's eggs over 250 eggs in all were relocated even with all the excitement we didn't get a chance to see any leatherbacks or loggerhead turtles while leatherbacks occasionally nest on buck island they primarily nest on sandy point they are the largest of the four sea turtles growing to be six feet in length and can weigh up to twelve hundred pounds as for loggerheads well rangers have recorded only one nesting female on buck island in the past 20 years loggerhead is very unusual and rare to be nesting here in the caribbean again i only for my previous 20 years working here at buck island on sea turtles i only knew about loggerhead in the virgin islands from the prehistoric record in our museum collection so eight years ago we documented the first loggerhead turtle returning to nest on buck island so that's a super super great uh happening for the virgin islands i had an amazing time watching those sea turtles lay their eggs it's an experience that i'll always remember and one that was made possible in large part to organizations like the national park service and people like zandy thank you and thank you for joining me on this amazing season of rediscover saint croix it's truly been quite an adventure and an eye-opening experience seeing our familiar island home in a new way and just in case you missed an episode or two here's a look back at this season of rediscovery do oh me oh uh so so do do i must say i enjoy being a part of each and every show i learned so much and i can't wait to see what else is out there just waiting to be rediscovered so until next time always remember to cherish your home this beautiful island of ours but most of all cherish and take care of each other oh yeah get out and rediscover your island you