Tagging Turtles Where Nobody Agrees They're Disappearing

The Association of Reef Keepers (ARK), a Tortola nonprofit, carries on in-water turtle tagging in the BVI and runs a sea turtle stranding response and the SEE Turtle Survey, which asks charter and dive visitors to report sightings. An MSc analysis of all BVI in-water tagging data from 2003 to 2023, completed under the Marine Conservation Society's Darwin Plus project, found that hawksbill catch per unit effort declined while green turtles increased. Between April and September 2023 ARK completed 11 tagging days, tagging 22 new turtles and logging 4 recaptures, and recorded 9 leatherback nesting activities and roughly 48 hawksbill nesting activities on Virgin Gorda. The STEEL project, run with MCS, the University of Exeter and the Government of the Virgin Islands, pairs this monitoring with surveys of turtle fishers and consumers, a national turtle database and at least ten school visits a year.