DPNR Tipline
Interactive Zone Map

Ways to Get Involved

The Park also offers the opportunity to get up close and personal with St. Croix’s natural habitats and creatures through three citizen science programs.

Turtle Patrol

Turtle Patrol is one of the Park's oldest volunteer programs. The marine park borders approximately 17 miles of shoreline, which includes about 12 bays that provide essential habitat for nesting sea turtles. The Park's nesting population is predominantly comprised of Green Sea Turtles (Chelonia mydas) and Hawksbill Sea Turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) with the occasional Leatherback Sea Turtle (Dermochelys coriacea); the largest of the three species.  Volunteers with Turtle Patrol monitor the Park's nesting beaches during the peak of nesting season  from July through November. Information collected through this citizen-science based data collection program allows the park to identify key nesting beaches, possible threats to the nesting population and assess nest success through excavations. If you are interested in sea turtle conservation and have a favorite beach within the park, this may be the perfect opportunity for you!

Seagrass Patrol

Seagrass Patrol, and its volunteers, strives to educate the St. Croix community on the importance of this marine habitat by hosting quarterly seines and water quality testing. During the volunteer and Marine Park-led seine a wide variety of organisms are caught, identified, catalogued and safely released.

Coral Patrol

The Marine Park in partnership with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) installed it’s demonstration coral nursery site at Cramer’s Park in 2019. Located on a small patch reef known as Sweepers’ Knoll, the demonstration site showcases, on a small scale, some of the reef restoration efforts taking place in the Virgin Islands. Coral Patrol was established to allow park volunteers interested in coral reef restoration to assist and gain experiences in nursery maintenance, transplanting coral from the nursery tables to the nearby patch reef, assisting with snorkel tours and vessel grounding response.

You can be a Friend of the Park anytime you help protect the marine environment on the East End, whether it is by picking up trash on your beach walk, reporting something unusual to the DPNR Tipline, or calling STAR (Sea Turtle Assistance and Rescue) at 340-690-0474 for any sea turtles in distress.

We also have occasional needs for volunteers to help setup for events, paint signs or walls and other small projects, so join our email list and we’ll let you know when there’s something happening.

Check out this citizen science video to see whether any of these programs focused on turtles, seagrass and corals are for you!
Got an awesome idea for something that will help the Park reach a wider audience or maintain the quality and health of our marine environment? Want to contribute other skills? Looking for non-profit experience? Get in touch!
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