Captain Jim holds a turtle after working with a local scientist to tag the turtle during a Go Beyond student tagging trip in Anegada in the British Virgin Islands, on Monday, June 28, 2021. Jim has lived on Anegada for his entire life and his fishing and other activities revolve around sustainable living.

Scuba diving students with a program called ActionQuest complete a certification dive at the Playgrounds in Green Cay, British Virgin Islands, on Wednesday, July 21, 2021. Tourism plays a big part in the economy. COVID-19 caused many people to be out of work due to a loss of tourism, and ActionQuest was one of the first tourism schools that was able to come back.

Firefighters take a short rest after protecting homes from the Glass Fire aftermath in Santa Rosa, Calif., on Monday, Sept. 28, 2020. They arrived on the scene at 7 PM last night. “The ground is our bed,” said one of them.

Dr. Phanor Montoya-Maya, center, lowers a tray of coral fragments into the hands of Coral Restoration Foundation staff member on Nov. 20, 2023, off of the coast of Tavernier in the Florida Keys. These coral fragments were taken out of the nursery to enable their survival earlier in the year, and as temperatures cooled, were returned to the ocean.

A hawksbill sea turtle lays back during a turtle tagging session with GoBeyond, a service program in the British Virgin Islands, where students received a briefing on the specific procedure of how to catch, record data, and tag the sea turtle on Monday, June 28, 2021, in Anegada, BVI.

A brain coral currently in the process of being bleached attempts to recover after this years bleaching on Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023 at Cheeca Rocks in Islamorada. According to Ian Enochs, NOAA Research Ecologist that has been covering the site for many years, the yellow is healthy coral that may be recovering and the white is dead bleached coral. The coral to the upper right is bleached as well.

A Caribbean snapper swims in front of the Beata tugboat sunk in Wreck Alley, Cooper Island, British Virgin Islands while ActionQuest dive instructors Isabella Fischer (left) and Mara Booth (right) swim around the wreck teaching SCUBA students on Wednesday, July 24, 2019.

A lightning storm strikes in the bite of Norman Island in the British Virgin Islands, on Sunday, July 25, 2021. Since hurricane Irma came through the the British Virgin Islands in 2017, the citizens have been worried about the growing threat of tropical storms. Storms increased this summer and concerned many of the locals in the area. “I’ve seen storms like this before, the summer before Irma hit,” said one restaurant owner.

Kelli Baxstrom, first year graduate student at Ohio University, examines a stalagmite she found inside of Rapps Cave at the West Virginia Association for Cave Studies on the March 3, 2018 in Frankford, West Virginia. Many graduate geology students, under the supervision of Geology Department Chair Dr. Greg Springer, come to the WVACS field house to collect samples for research; Baxstrom's research consists of collecting and examining the chemical properties stalagmites that are over 12,000 years old to date them back to wildfires in the area to see how the formations of the caves were affected by the fires.

A caribbean snapper swims in front of the Beata tugboat sunk in Wreck Alley, Cooper Island, British Virgin Islands while ActionQuest dive instructors Isabella Fischer (left) and Mara Booth (right) swim around the wreck teaching SCUBA students on Wednesday, July 24, 2019.

An ActionQuest student snorkels the mangroves at Vixen Point in the British Virgin Islands on Wednesday, July 14, 2021. Mangroves buffered the islands from hurricane Irma in 2017 and helped protect the local population and ecosystems.

Yellowtail scad swim in a formation at Mountain Point in the British Virgin Islands, on Tuesday, July 13, 2021.

A flamingo tongue climbs up a piece of split-pore sea rod coral at the Playgrounds dive site in Green Cay in the British Virgin Islands on Wednesday, July 21, 2021. The flamingo tongues are a prevalent marine snail found on almost every reef in the islands.

A sea lion pup swims curiously under the kelp forest at San Carlos beach in Monterey, Calif., on Friday, August 7, 2020. Sea lions eat invertebrates that feed on the kelp, so with kelp declining so does their food source.

A Caribbean Great Star coral emits a fluorescent glow under with ultraviolet light in Muskmelon Bay in the British Virgin Islands on Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021. The algae on the coral called zooxanthellae cause the fluorescent light. In the islands, many of the coral that the locals work to protect is florescent.