Fishermen, scientists, cruise ship captains, surfers, and others rely on oceanographic buoy data for navigation, research, real-time wave currents and more. On April 16, 2018, on University of Miami’s research vessel Walton Smith, a team from UVI, recovered the St. Thomas buoy after it stopped working during Hurricane Irma.

Dr. Castillo was awarded $38,053 to assist with the recovery of his lionfish research project.  This project examines factors affecting the movement and colonization of areas by the invasive lionfish species in St. Croix, USVI.  The impact from Hurricane Irma resulted in lost equipment and necessitated new data collection due to major disruptions within the study areas.

This is an exciting time for the Center for Marine and Environmental Studies (CMES) at the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) as seventeen students will receive a Master of Marine and Environmental Science (MMES) degree on Thursday, May 17, 2018. (Cover photo: Colin Howe)

On April 21, 2018, 126 volunteers removed more than 3,000 lbs of marine debris in the Great Mangrove Cleanup, the first, large-scale community cleanup in the St. Thomas East End Reserves (STEER), a marine protected area on the east end of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI).