Why the US Virgin Islands?
You might have noticed that most of us are licensed in both VA and the US Virgin Islands. WHY??
In early 2023 we learned that the island of St. Croix has experienced a rapid growth in population of boa constrictors!! It started around 2009 when pet boas were released into the rainforest area of the island. Since then over 1000 boas have been found! We offered to come help, and quickly took their training to get our WCO licenses for the USVI. In April 2023, four of us went down and successfully found and dispatched 10 boas in 5 days. This is just the beginning of what we hope to be an ongoing effort to use our skills to help the island avoid an ecosystem catastrophe. We returned in December 2023 for another visit with a larger team (pictured at the bottom). While we DO NOT enjoy killing the boas, we understand the ramifications of not doing so, and that outweighs our personal discomfort with the process. Unfortunately, there are currently no options to move them off the island.
If you would like to contribute to our "Boa Buster" fund, we would appreciate it! We do have some folks on the island that are offering us help with accommodations and transportation, but airfare is about $800/person at this time. We also are trying to purchase extra equipment to take with us to donate, as most of the companies that sell that equipment will not ship directly there.
Boa Busters!
We could not have had a successful 1st trip without several folks there on the island that helped us immensely. We look forward to returning to continue by helping train the local residents how to safely catch these animals, and potentially find a way to make it desirable for them to do so.
The 1st boa found
2nd boa!
Different invasive species - a Cane Toad
One of our local contacts finding his 1st boa!
December 2023 Trip
Our 2nd trip to St Croix included Dr. David McLeod and friends of K2C Kory Steele and Donovan Lindo. Our group found more boas, and covered areas we had not explored the 1st time. The photo at the very bottom includes our local friends Dr. William Coles and his wife, and Dr. Arthur Peterson. Without their guidance, none of this would be possible.