Hawksbill Turtle Project Launches Second Survey on St. John

ST. JOHN — Almost a year after the first survey near St. John, the Hawksbill Turtle Project began its second survey of the species in the area on July 1, collecting important data on the under-researched population. Last year’s study documented 17 hawksbill turtles over two weeks of field research in June and July of 2023. This year, the organization hopes to find some of the same turtles they came across during the initial study to evaluate their growth over the past year, as well as hopefully discover new hawksbills in the area.‌ “Last year we saw three turtles in this facility and we caught two of them so we’d love to see the ones we didn’t catch and the ones we did,” Scott Eanes, founder of the project, told the Consortium during the first research day near Cruz Bay. Mr. Eanes said he hopes to capture the biometric data of the young turtles found in the previous year so that he and his team can compare their sizes and other biometric data a year onwards.‌ Researchers also record...