Woodland wonders

Back on land, the parish of St. Peter on the island's northern side is the location of the Barbados Wildlife Reserve. The reserve is a mahogany forest where animals such as mongooses and iguanas roam. If the kangaroos, porcupines and otters don't keep you captivated, a giant walk-in aviary and natural history exhibit were added recently.

The reserve's Graham Evans provides insight on some of the most notable above-water inhabitants: the red-footed tortoises native to Barbados. They were once plentiful, but now most are found only in the reserve.

"Unfortunately, they are becoming an endangered species on the island," Evans said. "They usually lay between 10 and 15 eggs at a time and out of the clutch of those, you'll be lucky if one of those reaches maturity."

The reserve's small, long-tailed Barbados green monkeys are another source of delight. Evans says they originated from a parent population of African green monkeys which were brought to the tropics more than 350 years ago.

"We let them run as free as they want. And if they find a gap where they can get out, they'll go. They'll come back at the end of the day, because this is their home territory. They'll come back to eat and so on," Evans said. "Monkeys being monkeys, they'll do what they want."

That's the beauty of an encounter with Barbados' wild life: The show goes on, with or without a human audience.

Take a Shockwave tour of the woodlands:

Please Note: You will need Macromedia's Shockwave plug-in to listen to Shockwave streaming audio files and have Javascript enabled. We also recommend Netscape Navigator 3.0 or Internet Explorer 3.0.

|Discover Barbados' deep blue|Back to the main story|