St. John Reef Reports

02/06/2026

It has been half a year since the SCTLD treatment team was last treating corals with signs of SCTLD in NPS STJ waters. We will be back in the water before the year ends, but no exact start date has been determined. In the meantime, we have been working on many other projects- including preparing for bleaching in 2026 and 2027...Proper planning takes time.
In preparing for another hot year, or two, we found a Reef-scale video of corals bleaching on October 17th, 2023 near the old Tektite site ( on the eastern side of Great Lameshur Bay), that we thought worth sharing. Thank you Nicholas for taking this vid !!!

14/01/2026

Mass Die-Offs of the long spined black urchin (Diadema antillarum) have been confirmed at Flat Cay, Range Cay, and Fortuna Bay areas of St. Thomas....and is spreading as of today 01/14/2026....it will likely get to St John fast- in a few weeks or so if its anything like 2022. Please keep your eyes peeled and report any die-off observations- ideally with photos- to the link below please! We want to track its progression around the USVI, and your repots help us with that.
https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/7879b018f20f4602ad82c24c4e0d1e98

13/01/2026

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONEI
SCTLD treatment work within NPS waters of STJ, by UVI's treatment team, is now halted. This page will remain active, and occasionally we will share posts and news about other research within STJ NPS waters.

Diadema urchins are dying at Flat Cay STT......STT and STJ folks let us know if you see the black spined urchins showing signs of recent tissue loss, spines dropping, or rolling on the benthos. Observations should also be reported with this link below
https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/7879b018f20f4602ad82c24c4e0d1e98

Right now, it is time to stay vigilant. As waters cool disease tends to come out of the woodworks.....if you see something say something. Even better, take a picture or two and report any strange coral issue using this link below https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/9838819b5e1748448297255f6fd1a183

A form to collect data on coral health in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and whoever else wants to use this form.

09/12/2025

THIS IS OUR LAST WEEK OF SCTLD TREATMENTS WITHIN NPS WATERS.

This week we will dive Turner Point, Johnson's Reef, and Possibly Cinnamon Bay's outer reef. Here are some of our recent images from our field days in November. Thank you to all our volunteer divers- without you this project would not have been as impactful or successful.

During the past four years we have performed over 1000 surveys for SCTLD across 25+reef systems around St. John, treated over 8000 corals for SCTLD, monitored hundreds of tagged corals time and time again to determine treatment success and tracked coral mortality in relation to bleaching, have culled dozens of lionfish, collected marine debris, rescued folks from a burning boat, kept eyes out for novel invasive species, mapped rare coral species, collected rare corals for live gene-banking at UVI's land-based nursery, towed a dead whale back to UVI for necropsy, taught students and citizen scientists about diseases and how we treat stony coral tissue loss disease, have responded to the mass mortality event of 2022 that killed off most of the Diadema urchins locally and ended up with 5 publications that include pathogen ID and more, and have engaged with hundreds of people here and through our outreach events over the years. Further, our staff have excelled personally with two of our staff entering graduate school for marine science at UVI, and an additional staff now works for DPNR Territorial Parks!!!! We have done and continue to do great things for the territory 😊 And to all of you, thank you for loving the ocean, and for following our journey to steward the reefs.

Shameless plug: We hope to bring you news of unexpected significant donations that will continue this work in the new year...but as of today we are waiting on a secret Santa. If you or someone you know wants to be our secret (or not so secret) Santa, please follow the links below for info on Reef Response, donation options, and contact us for more information. Happy Holidays!!!!
https://www.reefresponse.org/

https://www.reefresponse.org/contact

https://www.reefresponse.org/make-a-donation-1