Buck Island Reef National Monument ⓘ

People have come to Buck Island to enjoy the island’s beaches, waters, fish, and other wildlife, for nearly 2,000 years. By ca. A.D. 400, Amerindians living on St. Croix, who had arrived to the region via the Lesser Antilles and the Lower Orinoco River and Guyana coastal areas, began to visit Buck Island to fish, hunt lobsters and large land crabs, gather conch and possibly gathering sea turtle and bird eggs. Archeology has revealed that they camped in the beach forest, leaving behind pieces of pottery and their campfires, or hearths. Buck Island has been called many names over the years - Cabrit , Cabrito , Burre , Goat, Vert , Holm , Gedeøen Frederiksgave , Pockholz , Pocken Eyland , and Bocken Eyland . On early maps dating to the 1600s, Buck Island is called Isle Verte , or Green Island, and what is today called Green Cay was called Isle a Cabrits . By the 1700s, Buck Island was labeled on maps as Pocholz or Pocken Island, and later it became known as Buck Island. It is believed that the change in name is due to a map maker's error, but the name "pockholz" is a historic name for Lignum vitae , or the ironwood tree, which used to grow on the island and was an important resource used by Europeans. When St. Croix was taken over by the French in 1650, many plantations were established across the main island. However, there is no evidence that people lived here on Buck Island during this time. Historic maps dating from 1650-1690 do not show any buildings. In 1754, the first person is listed as managing or owning Buck Island – Johann Deidrich, the town clerk of Christiansted; the estate was referred to as Deidrich’s Plantage. He ran the island until 1773. It is known that between 6 and 12 enslaved Africans lived on the island at any time during Deidrich’s tenure; in 1772, three enslaved people were listed as living here. Deidrich reportedly built a house high on the island, to view the shipping lanes. In 1789, the Danish government built a signal station on the highest point of Buck Island. This station alerted the guards stationed at Fort Christiansvaern (in Christiansted) of arriving ships by raising a flag. The position of the signal keeper changed hands often over the years. In 1822, Buck Island became a possession of the Danish Crown, through landskassen , the act by the land treasure to appropriate rural lands by the government for their protection. In the 1850s, the Danish landskassen of St. Croix were controlled by the colonialskassen , the colonial land treasury.

Sea Turtles The Virgin Islands provide critical nesting, foraging, and developmental habitat for three species of sea turtle, the leatherback ( Dermochelys coriacae ) and hawksbill turtle ( Eretmochelys imbricata ) both endangered species, and the green turtle ( Chelonia mydas ), a threatened species. Loggerhead turtles ( Caretta caretta ) are transitory and only occasionally seen in the islands.

The Leatherback Sea Turtle ( Dermochelys coriacea ) Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge, on the western end of St. Croix, is the main nesting beach for leatherback turtles in the Northern Caribbean. Tagging studies have shown movement by females between regional nesting beaches in Puerto Rico, Anguilla, and St. Croix. This long-term tagging program provides essential information on leatherback turtle population trends available nowhere else in U.S. properties. Since 1981, 342 leatherback turtles have been tagged, with anywhere from 18 - 55 females nesting each year. Prior to protection efforts, it is possible that 100 percent of the nests laid at Sandy Point were either poached or lost to beach erosion (seasonally 50 to 60 percent). The research program at Sandy Point protects the beach, and nests threatened by erosion are relocated, reducing the loss of nests to less than five percent every year. It is possible to speculate that the increase in numbers of females nesting per season, given an average age to maturity for leatherbacks of 10 to 15 years, is a direct result of beach protection and nest relocation.

The Green Sea Turtle ( Chelonia mydas ) Observations of green turtle nesting populations have been collected incidentally by both leatherback and hawksbill turtle research programs in the Virgin Islands since 1980s. In 1993 and 1994, daytime beach surveys were conducted for green and hawksbill turtles on St. Croix. The Virgin Islands have never been an important place for green turtle nesting, but is an important foraging ground for juvenile turtles. The number of green turtle nesting activities remains low for all the islands, but since the 1970s there seems to be gradual increase in numbers of juveniles observed in the foraging grounds. The only island that still supports any amount of green turtle nesting is St. Croix, with an average of 100 nests per year (1980 - 1990). The largest concentration of green turtle nesting activities occurs on St. Croix's east end beaches averaging 15 nests per year. Buck Island Reef supports between 1 to 3 green turtles per season, with between 8 and 10 nests per year.

The Hawksbill Sea Turtle ( Eretmochelys imbricata ) There are very few places in the Caribbean where any large numbers of hawksbill turtles remain. In the Virgin Islands, hawksbill nesting occurs on St. Croix (Buck Island Reef, and the beaches on the eastern end of St. Croix), and on a few isolated beaches on St. John, St. Thomas (mostly on the offshore cays).

The most important concentrations of hawksbill turtle nesting activities remaining in the Virgin Islands occurs at Buck Island Reef National Monument and the beaches on the eastern end of St. Croix (Jack's/Isaac's/East End Bays). Buck Island and St. Croix's east end beaches are supporting two remnant populations of 20 - 40 nesting hawksbill turtles per season. Since 1988, 200 individual hawksbill turtles have been tagged nesting on Buck Island Reef National Monument. Hawksbill turtles return to nest every 2 to 4 years, indicating high degree of nesting beach fidelity. Of these remigrants, between 50 to 80 percent have returned to nest in subsequent years representative of the high survivorship of adult sea turtles. Prior to 1996 annual recruitment of first time nesters at BUIS was less than 15%; in 1996 and 1997, the number of recruits increased to 50% of the nesting population. In 1994 a saturation-tagging program was initiated on St. Croix's east end beaches, where 14 hawksbill turtle were tagged. In 1996 & 1997, the first intraseasonal movements of two hawksbill females were recorded. A Buck Island nesting female nested in Jack’s Bay and a East End tagged hawksbill female nested on BUIS twice.

Throughout their range, hawksbill turtles nest in low density, normally between a few dozen and, at most, a few hundred individuals.

The smallest of the three species of sea turtle nesting in the Virgin Islands, hawksbill turtles are the most seriously endangered throughout their range. They are omnivorous, living and feeding in coral reefs and mangroves. They are best known for their beautiful shell, “tortoise-shell”, which has been prized for jewelry throughout the world -- also the cause of their present endangered status.

Lizards Buck Island provides very important habitat for two endemic lizards, the St. Croix anole and the cotton ginner dwarf gecko. Since the island-wide rat and mongoose eradications, Buck Island now also provides a suitable environment for the reintroduction of the endangered St. Croix ground lizard ( Ameiva polops ) which probably existed on Buck Island prior to the introduction of the mongoose around 1912.

Subtropical dry forest covers much of the landmass of St. Croix, but this is a relatively recent development. Prior to the arrival of European colonists, much of the northern (windward) side of the island would have been covered in semi-evergreen rain forest, while the southern (leeward) side, receiving less rainfall, would have likely consisted of subtropical dry deciduous hardwood forests. These forests consisted of species like water mampoo ( Pisonia subcordata ), dogwood ( Piscidia carthaginensis ), wild lime ( Adelia ricinella ), limber caper ( Capparis flexuosa ), ginger thomas ( Tecoma stans ), gumbo-limbo ( Bursera simaruba ), pigeonberry or bodywood ( Bourreria succulenta ), ironwood or lignumvitae ( Guaicacum officinale ), and white manjack. The only remnant of the semi-evergreen rainforest is located in the northwest mountainous region of the island; however, these mountains are not high enough in elevation to generate cloud forests as on Puerto Rico and Jamaica. Plants found in the rainforest include kapok ( Ceiba pentandra ), Jamaican caper ( Capparis indica ), black mampoo ( Guapira fragrans ), West Indian mahogany ( Swietenia mahogoni ), and spiceberry ( Eugenia rhombea ), with an understory that includes limeberry ( Triphasia trifolia ), hairy wild coffee ( Psychotria pubescens ), and painkiller ( Morinda citrifolia ).

Buck Island’s Barrier Reef's underwater scene taxes human perceptions with the abundant variety of shape, patter, color, texture, and movement. It’s barrier reef ranks among the Caribbean’s best. It’s thick branching elkhorn corals push their sheer mass to 30-foot heights. Like fortress walls corals rise off the sea floor and dominate the underwater world. The irregular arc of reef surrounding Buck Island’s northern and eastern shore creates a lagoon between reef and island. Wide and shallow lagoon waters seldom exceed 12-feet deep, and the protecting reef moderates the wave action. In the calmer waters of the lagoon, brain corals grow larger, nearly reaching the surface. Seaward of the barrier reef, elkhorn and star coral patch reefs occur around the island, except to the southwest.

Coral Reef Tiny colonial animals called coral polyps build reefs by extracting calcium carbonate from seawater. Coral reefs are home to many animals and plants, forming what has been called the “rainforest of the sea”, the second most complex and biologically diverse ecosystem on Earth.

The reefs you see today at Buck Island were formed within the past 7,000 years. Elkhorn coral, Acropora palmata , is the major builder of the barrier reef surrounding the island. Coral polyps live in partnership with algae called zooxanthellae, which provide corals with their vivid colors and some of their food. Coral reefs live in nutrient poor, tropical waters within a narrow temperature range (70 - 85 °F). They grow slowly and are vulnerable to pollution, sedimentation, overfishing, warming of the seas, and boat damage.

Within the past few decades, coral diseases and hurricanes have significantly impacted Buck Island’s reef system. Its regrowth is now being closely monitored.

Buck Island ’s geological story is long and complicated. St. Croix and the other islands of the Greater Antilles are actually the remains of an extinct volcanic ridge that began forming between two tectonic plates – the Caribbean and North American plates – nearly 145 million years ago (during the Cretaceous Period). The North American plate was subducted (forced down), which pushed up the earth’s oceanic crust and created the islands of the Greater Antilles . This period of mountain building stopped sometime between 54-38 million years ago, when this Greater Antilles Ridge collided with the North American continental plate. St. Croix and Buck Island were created at the southern end of this Greater Antilles Ridge. Sedimentary layers, or layers of rock deposited by water, formed on top of older volcanic layers, beginning around the end of the Cretaceous Period, around 60 million years ago. The Cretaceous was a period of warmer climates that today, and had high eustatic sea levels. Movements of tectonic plates pushed these layers to the east, tilted and squeezed them up and over.

Little Cinnamon Bay, Virgin Islands National Park Anne Finney Christiansted National Historic Site

Besides our other wonderful national parks throughout the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, be sure to check visit these special places:

Cannons pointed out to the Caribbean Sea to protect the Danish colony's port town of Frederiksted. Photo by N2theBlue, CC BY-SA-4.0 (Wikimedia Commons) Fort Frederik , located in Frederiksted, St. Croix, is the other main fortification on the island. Built between 1752 and 1760, it was reportedly the first foreign fortification to salute the newly established United States (1776). This National Historic Landmark is managed by the Government of the Virgin Islands' Department of Planning and Natural Resources-Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums.

Sandy Point's small size (327 acres) belies its importance as the largest nesting beach in the U.S. and its Territories for the world's largest sea turtle, the leatherback. US Fish and Wildlife Service Fort Frederik, located in Frederiksted, St. Croix, is the other main fortification on the island. Built between 1752 and 1760, it was reportedly the first foreign fortification to salute the newly established United States (1776). This National Historic Landmark is managed by the Government of the Virgin Islands' Department of Planning and Natural Resources-Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums. Located at the southwestern tip of St. Croix, Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge , is the primary nesting habitat for leatherback sea turtles. It is also the location of one of the oldest archeological sites on the island. Green Cay National Wildlife Refuge is a small, 14 acre refuge that protects the endangered St. Croix ground lizard. It also preserves bird nesting habitats. East End Marine Park , with its headquarters in the historic buildings at Estate Great Pond, is the U.S. Virgin Islands’ first territorially designated and managed marine protected area. It protects roughly 60 square miles of significant coastal and marine resources along 12 miles of shoreline, stretching from Green Cay on the north side of St. Croix to Great Pond, on the south side. The Estate Whim Museum is owned and managed by the St. Croix Landmarks Society. It is the only sugar plantation museum on St. Croix, and its restored 18 th century buildings tell the tales of the hopes and dreams of Europeans seeking financial success, and the skills and labor of enslaved Africans that built the houses, windmills, and other structures, and worked the fields. The museum houses an extensive rare book library and archives that is open to the public for scholarly research. Remember: federal and territorial law prohibits taking of plants, animals, seashells, rocks, or artifacts from federal or territorial lands or waters.