Berkel, J.

St. Eustatius Sea Turtle Conservation Programme - Annual Report 2010

The St Eustatius National Parks Foundation (STENAPA) established the Sea Turtle Conservation Program following concerns that the island’s sea turtle populations were being threatened by anthropogenic disturbance and destruction of nesting beach habitats through sand mining, joy riding and pollution.

A community outreach campaign was organized in 2001 to begin raising public awareness about sea turtle conservation issues. Subsequent to this initiative, a beach monitoring program was started in 2002 in affiliation with the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST). The first two years of the program saw very sporadic monitoring of the index beach due to a lack of personnel. In 2003 however, regular night patrols were conducted following the introduction of the Working Abroad Program, which brings groups of international volunteers to assist with projects in the National and Marine Parks. By 2004 the program had expanded to include morning track surveys on several of the island’s nesting beaches, with a dedicated vehicle and a full- time project coordinator during the nesting season.

Data from the Sea Turtle Conservation Program have shown that three species of sea turtle regularly nest on St Eustatius; the leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea), the green (Chelonia mydas) and the hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata), all of which are classified as either endangered or critically endangered by the IUCN. There was also an unconfirmed 2004 report of nesting by a fourth species, the loggerhead (Caretta caretta), which IUCN classes as threatened. In the 2010 season, two Loggerhead nests were excavated confirming for the first time that species’ use of Statia’s beaches.

The ultimate objective of the St Eustatius Sea Turtle Conservation Program is to promote long-term survival of the sea turtle populations on and around the island. This goal is achieved by safeguarding critical sea turtle habitats, conducting research to provide policy and decision makers with current, relevant data on the status of sea turtles in the region, and limiting environmental impacts on nesting beaches and near-shore waters. One of the most important factors to ensure the success of the project is the direct involvement of the local community in the program to promote a better understanding of the importance of long-term conservation, not just for sea turtles but for other locally threatened species.

The aims of this Annual Report include the following:

  • Summarize the activities of the 2010 Sea Turtle Conservation Program.
  • Review the accomplishments and deficiencies of the program in 2010.
  • Suggest recommendations for the 2011 program.
  • Provide a summary of the data from 2010 research initiatives.
  • Present information locally, regionally and internationally about the research and monitoring program on the island.
  • Produce a progress report for the Island Government, potential program funding organizations, the local community and international volunteers. 
Date
2010
Data type
Research report
Geographic location
St. Eustatius
Author

St. Eustatius Sea Turtle Conservation Programme - Annual Report 2012

The St Eustatius National Parks Foundation (STENAPA) established the Sea Turtle Conservation Program following concerns that the island‟s sea turtle populations were being threatened by anthropogenic disturbance and destruction of nesting beach habitats through sand mining, joy riding and pollution.

A community outreach campaign was organized in 2001 to begin raising public awareness about sea turtle conservation issues. Subsequent to this initiative, a beach monitoring program was started in 2002 in affiliation with the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST). The first two years of the program saw very sporadic monitoring of the index beach due to a lack of personnel. In 2003 however, regular night patrols were conducted following the introduction of the Working Abroad Program, which brings groups of international volunteers to assist with projects in the National and Marine Parks. By 2004 the program had expanded to include morning track surveys on several of the island‟s nesting beaches, with a dedicated vehicle and a full- time project coordinator during the nesting season.

Data from the Sea Turtle Conservation Program have shown that three species of sea turtle regularly nest on St Eustatius; the leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea), the green (Chelonia mydas) and the hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata), all of which are classified as either endangered or critically endangered by the IUCN. There was also an unconfirmed 2004 report of nesting by a fourth species, the loggerhead (Caretta caretta), which IUCN classes as threatened.

The ultimate objective of the St Eustatius Sea Turtle Conservation Program is to promote long-term survival of the sea turtle populations on and around the island. This goal is achieved by safeguarding critical sea turtle habitats, conducting research to provide policy and decision makers with current, relevant data on the status of sea turtles in the region, and limiting environmental impacts on nesting beaches and near-shore waters. One of the most important factors to ensure the success of the project is the direct involvement of the local community in the program to promote a better understanding of the importance of long-term conservation, not just for sea turtles but for other locally threatened species.

The aims of this Annual Report include the following:

  •  Summarize the activities of the 2012 Sea Turtle Conservation Program.
  •  Review the accomplishments and deficiencies of the program in 2012.
  •  Suggest recommendations for the 2013 program.
  •  Provide a summary of the data from 2012 research initiatives.
  •  Present information locally, regionally and internationally about the research and monitoring program on the island.
  •  Produce a progress report for the Island Government, potential program funding organizations, the local community and international volunteers. 
Date
2012
Data type
Research report
Theme
Research and monitoring
Geographic location
St. Eustatius
Author

The lionfish culling program in Sint Eustatius island, dutch caribbean

Msc. thesis

Research questions:

  • →  Does the culling program significantly reduce the lionfish population in St Eustatius? The aims of this question are: (i) to prove the efficiency of the removal effort, while describing any evolution of the lionfish population, (ii) to bring out the site where it is necessary to focus the culling program, (iii) to make recommendations to improve the efficiency of the current culling program.
  • →  What can we learn with the culling program data about the lionfish and its behavior? This second part aims to learn more about the lionfish on Statia and to compare the results with other data due to (i) the identification of the diet composition and feeding behavior of the lionfish by analyzing their stomach content and (ii) the determination of the size distribution of the lionfish on Statia. 

Please contact STENAPA (research@statiapark.org)

Date
2015
Data type
Other resources
Theme
Research and monitoring
Geographic location
St. Eustatius

Raw data of turtle observations on St.Eustatius 2004-2016

Raw data of turtle observations, both nesting and in-water surveys. Information includes: nest identification, species, weather, moonphase, size of carapace, number of eggs, number of hatchlings, etc; location of in-water transect, dive time, visibility, water temperature, etc.

Please contact STENAPA for more information.

Date
2016
Data type
Raw data
Theme
Research and monitoring
Geographic location
St. Eustatius
Author
Private Document

Raw data of terrestrial bird observation on St.Eustatius from 2009-2015

Raw data of terrestrial bird observation on St.Eustatius by STENAPA. Observation include habitat, observer, plot, transect/point observation, species, number of individuals, heard/seen the bird, distance, etc.

Please contact STENAPA for more information.

Date
2015
Data type
Raw data
Theme
Research and monitoring
Geographic location
St. Eustatius
Private Document

St. Eustatius Sea Turtle Conservation Programme - Annual Report 2014

The 2014 Sea Turtle nesting season continued in the up and down trend of busy and slow years. It was a year with less than 50 activities per species. With 8 recorded leatherback activities it was a small improvement as the past years have seen only 1 or no nesting activity by that species. A greater effort was made to perform excavations as soon as possible and this year every confirmed nest was excavated and checked for outcome. One nest was lost to Tropical Storm Gonzalo and 1 nest was destroyed by a cliff fall.

Date
2015
Data type
Other resources
Theme
Research and monitoring
Geographic location
St. Eustatius
Author

St. Eustatius Sea Turtle Conservation Programme - Annual Report 2013

The 2013 Sea Turtle nesting season was a varied season whereby there was as in previous years not much in the way of leatherback activity but towards the end of the season there was a marked increase in hard shell activity. There were also at least 22 sightings of sea turtles during 50 odd hours of night patrols thereby giving the program a “catch” per unit effort of just under 50%.

The objective of the St Eustatius Sea Turtle Conservation Program is to promote long-term survival of the sea turtle populations on and around the island. This goal is achieved by safeguarding critical sea turtle habitats, conducting research to provide policy and decision makers with current, relevant data on the status of sea turtles in the region, and limiting environmental impacts on nesting beaches and near-shore waters. One of the most important factors to ensure the success of the project is the direct involvement of the local community in the program to promote a better understanding of the importance of long-term conservation, not just for sea turtles but for other locally threatened species.
The aims of this Annual Report include the following:

  • Summarize the activities of the 2013 Sea Turtle Conservation Program.
  • Review the accomplishments and deficiencies of the program in 2013.
  • Suggest recommendations for the 2014 program.
  • Present information locally, regionally and internationally about the research and monitoring program on the island.
  • Produce a progress report for the Island Government, potential program funding organizations, the local community and international volunteers

 

Date
2014
Data type
Other resources
Theme
Research and monitoring
Geographic location
St. Eustatius
Author

Sand temperatures for nesting sea turtles in the Caribbean: Implications for hatchling sex ratios in the face of climate change

A 200-year time series of incubation temperatures and primary sex ratios for green (Chelonia mydas), hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) and leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) sea turtles nesting in St. Eustatius (North East Caribbean)was created by combining sand temperature measurementswith historical and current environmental data and climate projections. Rainfall and spring tides were important because they cooled the sand and lowered incubation temperatures. Mean annual sand temperatures are currently 31.0 °C (SD = 1.6) at the nesting beach but show seasonality, with lower temperatures (29.1–29.6 °C) during January–March and warmer temperatures (31.9–33.3 °C) in June–August. Results suggest that all three species have had female-biased hatchling production for the past decades with less than 15.5%, 36.0%, and 23.7% males produced every year for greens, hawksbills and leatherbacks respectively since the late nineteenth century. Global warming will exacerbate this female-skew. For example, projections indicate that only 2.4% of green turtle hatchlings will be males by 2030, 1.0% by 2060, and 0.4% by 2090. On the other hand, future changes to nesting phenology have the potential to mitigate the extent of feminisation. In the absence of such phenological changes, management strategies to artificially lower incubation temperatures by shading nests or relocating nest clutches to deeper depths may be the only way to prevent the localised extinction of these turtle populations. 

Date
2015
Data type
Scientific article
Theme
Research and monitoring
Geographic location
St. Eustatius

Green and hawksbill turtles in the Lesser Antilles demonstrate behavioural plasticity in inter-nesting behaviour and post-nesting migration

Abstract
Satellite transmitters were deployed on three green turtles, Chelonia mydas, and two hawksbill turtles, Eretmochelys imbricata, nesting in the Lesser Antilles islands, Caribbean, between 2005 and 2007 to obtain pre- liminary information about the inter-nesting, migratory and foraging habitats in the region. Despite the extremely small dataset, both year-round residents and migrants were iden- tified; specifically, (1) two green turtles used local shallow coastal sites within 50 km of the nesting beach during all of their inter-nesting periods and then settled at these sites on completion of their breeding seasons, (2) one hawksbill turtle travelled 200 km westward before reversing direction and settling within 50 km of the original nesting beach and (3) one green and one hawksbill turtle initially nested at the proximate site, before permanently relocating to an alter- native nesting site over 190 km distant. A lack of nesting beach fidelity was supported by flipper tag datasets for the region. Tagging datasets from 2002 to 2012 supported that some green and hawksbill individuals exhibit low fidelity to nesting beaches, whereas other females exhibited a high degree of fidelity (26 turtles tagged, 40.0 km maximum distance recorded from original nesting beach). Individual turtles nesting on St Eustatius and St Maarten appear to exhibit behavioural plasticity in their inter-nesting behav- iour and post-nesting migration routes in the eastern Carib- bean. The tracking and tagging data combined indicate that some of the green and hawksbill females that nest in the Lesser Antilles islands are year-round residents, whilst oth- ers may nest and forage at alternative sites. Thus, continued year-round protection of these islands and implementation of protection programmes in nearby islands could contrib- ute towards safeguarding the green and hawksbill popula- tions of the region. 

Date
2015
Data type
Scientific article
Theme
Research and monitoring
Journal
Geographic location
St. Eustatius