Caribbean Islands

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The Caribbean islands are a chain of more than 7,000 islands, islets, cays and reefs stretching for over 2,500 miles. Conditions vary greatly across the region leading to a wide variety of habitat types. The area is typified by forested habitats found at different elevations, ranging from dry deciduous forest to montane cloud forest.

The diversity of island conditions has also led to an exceptionally rich biodiversity with high levels of species endemism. The islands support around 2% of the world’s species in a surface area of only 280,000 km2 and approximately 54% of vertebrates and 59% of plants are found nowhere else. Key animal groups include reptiles such as the Iguanas (Cyclura, Ctenosaura, Iguana), Cnemidophorus lizards and racer snakes (Alsophis and Liophis spp.); birds such as the Amazona parrots; ancient lineages of mammals, including the solenodons and hutias of Cuba and Hispaniola, as well as a large number of amphibian species, including one of the worlds smallest tetrapods Eleutherodactylus iberia from Cuba and one of the largest frogs in the mountain chicken (Leptodactylus fallax) found on Montserrat and Dominica.

But this high degree of endemism has also made species vulnerable to external threats and approximately 38% of the 2,074 species assessed in the Caribbean islands are threatened with extinction. Compared to other regions, the Caribbean has by far the highest percentage of threatened amphibians; over 70% of all the amphibians in these countries are threatened. This is mostly a result of extensive habitat loss as well as some incidents of disease.

The major threats to the region have come in the form of habitat destruction either for farming or later for tourism development. With increased trade and travel, the region has suffered from the introduction of alien species that accompanied the major waves of human settlement, including Indian mongoose and rats.

Climate change will also have a major impact on the region as remaining watersheds being increasingly stressed in dry seasons and coastal communities become impacted by sea level rises.

Durrell in the Caribbean

Durrell has been active in the Caribbean for the past 35 years, with our first major intervention on the St. Lucia amazon parrot (Amazona versicolor). Being based in St Lucia, we have enjoyed a close collaboration with the St Lucia Forestry Department for a number of years, supporting the protection of key endemic species and important native habitat.

On Antigua, Durrell has been a long term partner of the Offshore Islands Conservation Programme (OICP) which has led the conservation efforts for the Antiguan racer snake (Alsophis antigua), which is establishing a viable metapopulation for the snake on a series of offshore islands.

Durrell has supported activities in Montserrat for a number of years. Following the eruption of the Soufriere volcano in 1995, Durrell initially assisted conservation efforts for the Montserrat oriole (Icteres oberi), setting up a breeding programme in Jersey. Later we supported biodiversity assessments of the Centre Hills region and we focused on the mountain chicken frog. Following the entry of the fungal disease chytridiomycosis into the island discovered in February 2009 and the subsequent major decline in mountain chickens, the recovery of this species is currently a major conservation focus for the Trust.

In the Western Caribbean, Durrell was one of the founding supporters of the Blue Iguana Recovery Programme on Grand Cayman. This extremely successful restoration programme has seen the species increase to a population of approximately 500 individuals. We hope to emulate a lot of the approaches adopted on the nearby islands of Little Cayman with the endemic rock iguana Cyclura nubila caymanensis.

The islands of Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic and Haiti) and Cuba are both extremely rich in biodiversity and under major degrees of threat. Although there was once a diverse land mammal fauna in the Caribbean containing around 120 endemic species, today only 15 are thought to survive and nearly all of them are threatened with extinction. In the Dominican Republic we are working to better understand two endemic mammals, the Hispaniolan solenodon Solenodon paradoxus and Hispaniolan hutia Plagiodontia aedium and to develop long term conservation strategies for these unique species.

Image copyrights: (listed from top to bottom)

• Header image Credit Matt Morgan
• Mountain chicken Credit Colm Farrington
• Blue iguana Credit A. Jarrett