Our Wild Lives
Our Wild Lives takes listeners into the heart of wildlife conservation, sharing compelling stories from wildlife professionals doing critical work around the world. Your hosts Katie Perkins and Ed Arnett, of The Wildlife Society, bring you thought-provoking conversations with leading experts and emerging voices. Each episode dives into the wild lives of diverse species, explores complex ecosystems, and unpacks the urgent issues facing wildlife conservation.
Our Wild Lives
Conservation Trouble in Paradise
The U.S. Virgin Islands is a picture of paradise, with pristine beaches, and postcard views of green hills and turquoise waters. But their name and the beautiful landscape disguise the fact that islands like St. Croix have experienced massive ecological change over the past few centuries. Invasive species like feral cats, mongoose and a number of introduce plants have driven many of St. Croix’s endemic species to extinction while others are barely hanging on. But some wildlife managers are working hard to turn back the destructive tide born from a legacy of colonialism.
Learn speaks with Nicole Angeli, director of the USVI Division of Fish and Wildlife, Jennifer Valiulis, executive director of the St. Croix Environmental Association, Olasee Davis, an assistant professor in the School of Agriculture at the University of the Virgin Islands, and Yaira Ortiz, an undergraduate student finishing her degree at the University of Miami who volunteers to survey endangered wildlife.
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[00:00:00] Katie Perkins: From the name alone, the US Virgin Islands conjure up images of clear turquoise water and pristine beaches, tropical birds, sea turtles, and jungle shrouded hills. They promise mystery, seclusion and exploration in a little known corner of the United States. But while the name may suggest untouched nature, the truth is colonizers have had a heavy impact on the unique biodiversity of the islands.
For hundreds of years, European settlers have destroyed native habitat to build plantations. As ships came and went carrying Virgin Island sugar to Europe, they brought rats and other invasive species that completely changed the local ecosystem. Meanwhile, offshore fishing and climate change have brought more recent problems.
These challenge both the endemic species of the island and the migratory birds and sea turtles that often find themselves ashore. In today's episode of Our Wild Lives, The Wildlife Society's Associate Editor, Joshua Rapp Learn takes us to St. Croix to find out what wildlife managers are doing to protect this delicate ecosystem.
[00:01:33] Joshua Learn: Walking back through this path, I just crossed, uh, two St. Croix ground lizards, uh, speeding in front of me. This is a 9-year-old Josh's dream walking around surveying an endangered species of a lizard on a beautiful Caribbean island.
The US Virgin Islands have a really unique history. It was one of the first places visited by European explorers in the Americas.
Christopher Columbus stopped here briefly on a second voyage across the Atlantic, and centuries that followed the area changed hands and number of times between countries like Denmark, Spain, France, and even the Knights of Malta.
We'll see if I can find my way back or if I'm lost on an island that's probably about
six city blocks in total size. I've just got back to where I left my bag and there's several ground blizzards here that have taken over the area. Sorry guys. I'll take my water and be on my way. You can have the camp back. Just don't steal my sandals.
The US finally bought St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix from Denmark in 1917 for $25 million, they became the US Virgin Islands.
While the administration of the islands may have changed, colonial exploitation remained constant from the time of the first European settlers. Settlers used slavery to keep their sugar mills operational when slavery was outlawed in 1848 by the Danish governor, plantations on the Virgin Islands imported and exploited laborers from South Asia.
They also imported the small Indian mongoose as a form of pest control in the 1880s. Here's what Nicole Angeli, the director of the US Virgin Islands Division of Fish and Wildlife has to say about it.
[00:03:21] Nicole Angeli: There was a lot of cross pollination for sugar plantation and tea plantation owners between the Indian subcontinent and the Caribbean.
And so that's why in the 1880s, for example, uh, plantation owners and what's now Myanmar, we're saying like, what's have mongoose who are killing rats in our sugar cane fields? You want some, they brought them to Jamaica Jamaican planters said. To St. Uh, St. Croix planters like, do you want these? Like we, and we had a parade in Frederiksted to introduce mongoose, small Indian mongoose, Herpestes auropunctatus, from Myanmar to the island of St. Croix. Now we have one of the most dense populations of mongoose in the entire Caribbean.
[00:04:04] Joshua Learn: Naturally, nothing went according to plan. Rats are active at night while mongoose are daytime hunters. Instead of eating rats, the mongoose began to eat small native creatures like the St. Croix ground lizard. They weren't the only invasive imports, cats, dogs, goats, chickens, and rats also continued to destroy native habitat and eat native species.
Meanwhile, plantations were still operating on the island by the 1950s, Angeli says that 97% of the forest on St. Croix was gone. Reptiles, like the greater and lesser St. Croix ground skinks haven't been seen in years. The St. Croix ground lizard was last seen on the main island in 1969. Recently, I was on the small island of green key surveying St. Croix ground lizards to better understand the work conservationists St.
[00:04:57] Yaira Ortiz: Do you see? You see it, sir?
[00:04:58] Joshua Learn: He was moving. There he is. There he goes. Oh, yay. But I didn't do this alone. Of course, I had survey partners like Yaira Ortiz, a third generation Crucian and an undergraduate student finishing her degree at the University of Miami.
Ortiz is one of several volunteers who came to the island to help track how lizard numbers are doing on Green Cay.
[00:05:20] Yaira Ortiz: It is an endemic lizard only found in St. Criox and it was once found in main island. But now because there have been so many mongoose and rats that you know, they eat the lizard. And so that has, has competition and actually pretty much made them extinct in the main Island.
So now they're only found here on in Green Cay and Buck Island. I believe there's also a population in Rus Cay which are all offshore cays and islands,
[00:05:50] Joshua Learn: Because there's no mongoose on those islands, right?
[00:05:53] Yaira Ortiz: Yeah. So because of the efforts of, um, you know, the USDA and the fish and wildlife service, they have pretty much eradicated the mongoose on that population.
Oh,
[00:06:04] Joshua Learn: there's one just moved. It's behind the stick there.
The lizard was listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1977. The government created the United States First Wildlife Refuge to conserve a lizard at Green Cay. That's one of two small offshore islets where the ground lizards persisted because mongoose never made it there.
[00:06:28] Yaira Ortiz: So that one looks like it could be a juvenile.
The juveniles have a bright blue too, and they are smaller than adults. So this one looks like he's alert. He can saw before he was walking, so we would actually note their behavior as we see them. Okay. I think thats an adult His tail is not as blue. The juveniles are really bright like neon blue and right now he's foraging and pretty so, chilling and also digging at the same time, so we note their behavior.
[00:07:09] Joshua Learn: Hardworking wildlife managers also eliminated rats from Green Cay. The trouble is nature interfered
[00:07:18] News Cast: a powerful category four storm maria is hitting with 155 mile an hour winds, torrential rain, the strongest storm this island has faced in nearly a century,
[00:07:28] Joshua Learn: HUrricanes Maria and Irma tore through the islands.
The storms destroyed homes for humans and habitat for wildlife. They also blew rats right back onto Green Cay. The rodents likely sailed over on floating debris. In the years since wildlife managers like Jennifer Valueless kicked the rats off Green Cay once more.
[00:07:48] Jennifer Valiulis: That is a rat trap. Yeah. They have to make sure any rat trapping is set up in a way that the ground lizards aren't gonna be able to access it.
So it's gotta be off the ground and in a box.
[00:07:59] Joshua Learn: Thanks to all this hard work, green Cay and a few other Cays might be lizard paradise, but Angeli hopes to bring lizards back to the mainland one day with the help of the St. Croix Environmental Association. Before chasing lizards on Green Cay, I visited the Southgate Coastal Reserve with them.
There I saw some of their efforts to tackle the mainland threats to native wildlife on St. Croix.
[00:08:22] Jennifer Valiulis: So I'm the Executive Director of the St. Croix Environmental Association, um, here in St. Croix. And we are a small, small nonprofit, um, that focuses on education, conservation, and advocacy here on St. Croix. Today we are at, um, one of our major conservation projects, which is called the Southgate Coastal Reserve. So it's a hundred acre nature reserve. Um, that was, and we've had for about 20, 20, 25 years. And it was originally protected because of a huge salt pond that we're gonna visit in a little bit, um, that is a hotspot for bird diversity. It's a important bird area designated by Bird Life International.
Um. It is maybe arguably, um, one of the most important spots on St. Croix for bird diversity. It was gifted to us by a anonymous donor that is a, was a birder and wanted it to be protected 'cause there was threat of development. And as we explored the property and learned more about it, um, there's about a, almost a kilometer long beach, uh, front. And it's a sea turtle nesting beach. We've got three species of sea turtles that nest there. Um, and mangrove. Uh, areas. Wetland areas. But we also have all this area where we're standing right now. Um, that is highly disturbed, invasive species dominant, upland area.
So at one time this would've been a dry forest. Long ago, but St. Croix was almost entirely cleared for agriculture. Um, and because of that we have this grassy area. This is Guinea grass and this, um, shrubby dry stuff called tantan. You can see there's tons and tons of seed pods on that, and those seeds just persist in the soil for so long,
[00:10:11] Joshua Learn: Small Indian mongoose may prey directly on native birds and lizards. But invasive plants change the whole ecosystem of the island. Here's Nicole Angeli again.
[00:10:21] Nicole Angeli: Call these our colonial legacy species. The tantan, the mangoes, which are good. Mm-hmm. Not invasive. Yeah. The guinea grass is invasive.
The daughter, you'll see lots of daughter vine everywhere as you go around the island that was introduced as well as cattle fodder.
[00:10:39] Joshua Learn: Where taller dry forests, once covered parts of St. Croix, you now see blankets of guinea grass. This has changed the microclimate on the ground, making it less suitable for ground lizards.
At one point, more than 90% of the native ecosystem on St. Croix was cleared for plantations. Many of these plantations were eventually abandoned. But the introduced species like tantan and guinea grass gobbled up the land too fast. Native plants couldn't compete. The St. Croix Environmental Association is now working to restore this area, partly through grants and partly through volunteer work.
Whatever way they can really. Fighting Guinea grass and tantan directly is like fighting the tide. Instead, Valiulis and her colleagues try to restore native plants in growing patches piece by piece. The native habitat starts to regrow and conditions become more suitable for birds and reptiles again.
[00:11:33] Jennifer Valiulis: Most of us don't have the luxury of focusing in on just birds or just lizards.
We have to kind of do a little bit of everything. And so even if we're coming together under the, you know, umbrella of Birds Caribbean, we're talking about plant restoration. We're talking about lizards, we're talking about bats. Um,
[00:11:50] Joshua Learn: and all these things affect us too. Most, for the most part, right?
[00:11:52] Jennifer Valiulis: Exactly, exactly.
I mean, it, it's not a reach to say that they're connected.
[00:11:57] Joshua Learn: Many of the ecological problems on St. Croix are part of a colonial hangover, but modern issues also contribute to ongoing challenges for conservation. Domestic cats and their feral cousins have caused problems for centuries. They prayed directly on small native wildlife. But many Crucians are still resistant against any efforts to control feral felines.
[00:12:18] Nicole Angeli: In 2015, we had a meeting of, um, mostly ornithologists and veterinarians about the free roaming cat problem that we have here. We mapped 19 cat feeding colonies across the island, and most of them are adjacent to or at wetlands.
And if you think about it logically, why are cats flocking to wetlands? Because. There a ton of birds.
[00:12:45] Joshua Learn: Southgate pond and nearby Altona Lagoon are stock full of birds, species like brown pelicans, black neck stilts, and frigate birds can be seen in and above the water, but just 500 feet from the lagoon sits a feral cat colony.
A few ramshackle cat houses have been built from plywood and old warehouse pallets. Some rough looking cats watched me from their makeshift home under mangrove trees. I can see a freshly open can of tuna sitting on what passes for the patio to one of the cat houses. These cats likely prey on surrounding wildlife, but humans may be at risk too since feral cats carry disease like toxoplasmosis.
[00:13:26] Nicole Angeli: So we have took sand samples with Auburn School of Veterinarian Science PhD students. They participated in a trap neuter release program for these feral cats and they were able to genotype toxoplasmosis from individual cats to the sand here where we have elders in our community bathing right now in front of us.
So we are looking at a shoreline that's mostly denuded of vegetation but has some seaside maho and sea grapes. Stuff like that. Um, the, there's like a boat come in front of us. There are two women, um, over here on our right, just sunbathing. There are picnic tables. It is absolutely beautiful, peaceful signs that say, keep the ocean clean, heart, St. Croix. And then there's a feral cat colony that we know has contaminated the sand. And if you follow that evidence, I it, it would make me think that I wouldn't wanna swim here.
[00:14:29] Joshua Learn: Sometimes it seems like conserving the island's unique ecosystem is a tall order. Feral cats are a difficult problem to fight.
Getting rid of the island's invasive mongoose isn't as controversial, but it's also nearly impossible because they're so well established. Meanwhile, new problems continue to plague the island. A population of red boas that was released into the wild has taken off in the island's northwestern jungles and climate change may be causing an increase in destructive hurricanes like Maria and Irma.
Wildlife managers like Jennifer Valiulis and Nicole Angeli are doing what they can to protect land and fight back invasive species in manageable patches. Valiulis is proud of the work Crucians are doing to protect sea turtle nests and restore native plants. They follow the work that began a generation before them by a crucian conservationist.
[00:15:22] Olasee Davis: My, my name is Olasse Davis. I'm a professor at UVI, University of Virgin Islands in the School of Agriculture, working there for about 40 years. And my passion is protecting areas through the Virgin Islands, which have been doing for years. I end up going to court cases. One of the biggest one was the grade pan where testified, uh, in, in a court it became international.
Um, They wanted to build a rocket, some rocket thing out there. I was involved in helping been establishing the marine park, eastern marine park with Governor Tumble. So I was one of the advisors on the, the, um, the board. So there's land throughout the Virgin Islands that now is protected.
[00:16:12] Joshua Learn: Olasse Davis has helped to protect several of the land conservation areas on St. Croix over the past few decades, and he continues to work with Angeli and others to protect more. A big chunk of the eastern end of the island has now been set aside for protection. Davis is also helping to train the next generation of Crucians, getting teenagers and college students interested in wildlife conservation.
This will help ensure his legacy of conservation persists on St. Croix and the Virgin Islands in general.
[00:16:45] Yaira Ortiz: I wanna see more local people involved in environmental studies because a lot of people are brought overseas here, and it's just a different type of passion when like you were born and raised here, you see how things have changed, especially through hurricanes and how just like, just being from here is a different type of passion for the work.
[00:17:22] Katie Perkins: TWS members can read the full story, Isolated and Imperiled our cover feature in the 2025 November/December issue of the Wildlife Professional Magazine, or access the digital copy online at wildlife.org/publications. Not a member of The Wildlife Society. Join today in access award-winning journalism by the TWS editorial staff in our bi-monthly member magazine and news center at wildlife.org.
Have ideas for our future episode? Send them to comms@wildlife.org. That's c o m m s at wildlife.org. We'd also love it if you'd leave a review, share this episode with a friend and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. We'll catch you next week with more stories from the wild.