Tag Archives: iguana

The Zoo Keeps Getting Better

The Sint Maarten Zoo just keeps getting better. How, you ask? Well, for starters: water features, gardens, and renegade pigs. Although that last part isn’t quite intentional.

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Since I moved to the island of Sint Maarten a year ago, I’ve been to the zoo four times. Today’s visit was definitely the best. The zoo has put a lot of effort into improving the grounds and making it look beautiful.

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About four months ago, I was part of a volunteer crew through American University of the Caribbean that helped the zoo clean up some weeds and leaves and such. Every time I’ve done a project like that in the past, the place looks just as weedy a month later. Not so with the zoo. In fact, it was even cleaner than the way we left it after our clean-up day. The areas we weeded had become landscaped paths and nice gardens. It’s always looked nice, but today everything looked excellent.

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I brought three kids to the zoo today. One of them, Aloha, had never been before. His reaction to the animals was priceless! He really didn’t have very good luck at first, though. As soon as we walked in, one of the parrots in a cage flew at him and scared him half to death! It wasn’t aggressive, just curious, but he’d never seen such a big parrot before. Then, he was so loud and excited that he bothered a crabby monkey, who flung a fistful of food at him. Of course, this only made him more loud and excited.

monkey cage

There’s a little white cockatoo that says “hello” whenever you walk away from it. Aloha walked past the bird, and it called out, “hello!” He returned the greeting, “hello!” and spun around to find the person who shouted at him– but there was no one there! He was surprised to discover that it was a bird talking to him. I couldn’t help but laugh at the confusion on his face!

guinea pig exhibit

 

The littlest one was quite enthralled with the huge shipwreck playground. It’s the biggest playground  on the island, and it’s a really good one. No only does it feel like a real ship, there are also a lot of ladders to climb and tunnels to crawl through.

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The zoo recently added another play area, too. This one has trikes, hammocks, and tunnels. It was a good place to stop and eat lunch. Aloha said he was going to live right there forever.

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The oldest one was most interested in the iguanas. There are a lot of these lizards at the zoo! The green iguanas that run free all over the island are actually not native to the island. They used to be limited to a private pond, but escaped during a hurricane. They managed to eliminate all of the native iguanas and take over the island.

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As you can see, they like to hang out at the zoo!

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I gave the kids some bread so they could feed the iguanas. The little one just tossed the bread at them and liked watching them eat, but Aloha and the oldest one enjoyed feeding the lizards by hand.

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The oldest one ran into his friend who works at the zoo. His friend’s task for the afternoon was to round up all the intrusive iguanas and put them in the iguana exhibit for the time being. The wild iguanas bother the other animals and eat their food.

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Of course, the oldest one thought that iguana wrangling sounded like fun, so he joined the hunt. I took Aloha and the little one to check out the new splash pad. It’s pretty cool! They have a bunch of kiddie pools and some big sprinklers. There weren’t too many kids there, so they had plenty of space to play.

I hadn’t thought to bring dry clothes, so we decided to walk around the zoo again to dry off. Aloha liked the caiman. I liked the rabbits. The little one liked the mules, even though you can’t tell from this photo!

Actually, the little one was more interested in the swing than the animals at this point. Although he was still pretty enthralled with the talking cockatoo.

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The most exciting part of the day came just before we left. Somehow, a pig wandered out of the farm animals exhibit. I saw him walk past me, and I wondered if he was supposed to be running free. He didn’t seem to be bothering anyone, so I just watched him root around in the dirt. Before long, I saw the zookeeper searching for something. I asked him if he was looking for a pig and pointed where the pig had gone. He went jogging after the pig, and a minute or two later I saw the pig fly past me the other direction with the zookeeper and his son hot on its heels! Aloha and the little one decided that this was great fun, of course, and so did every other kid in the zoo. Before long, there were seven kids, a zookeeper, and me all chasing down Houdini Pig. Aloha ended up cornering the pig so the zoo keeper could catch it. He was very pleased with the whole episode. After all, it’s not every day that an animal escapes at the zoo and you get to help catch it.

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The oldest one was having so much fun that he decided to hang around the zoo after I left with the little kids. He stayed for a few more hours to volunteer, which was pretty cool of him. He’d been very helpful with taking care of the kids during the trip, too.

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We were all pretty happy with our afternoon at the zoo! It’s nice that the Sint Maarten Zoo is always making the zoo better and more fun. At $10 for adults and $5 for kids, it’s a pretty affordable treat that includes animals and play time. Both of the younger kids begged to go back again the next day! Perhaps another zoo day will be in our future.

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Terrestrial Fauna on Sint Maarten

The Island of Sint Maarten is home to many exotic plants and animals. From the coconut palms, to the brilliant fish,  to the dozens of lizard varieties, to the flowers, Sint Maarten/Saint Martin’s wildlife is one if its biggest tourist attractions.

The iguanas are by far my favorite Sint Maarten land animal. They are brilliantly colored, they are gigantic, and they let you get pretty close to them in some areas of the island. They also run comically and it’s entertaining to watch them scurry away and leap into the nearest body of water if they become frightened. I wish I could take one home to the U.S.as a pet when we leave!
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This snail was moseying around our apartment one night when I caught it on camera. I would have caught it in a different way if I had realized what it was. This is one of the Caribbean’s most viciously destructive invasive species: the giant African land snail. It is wreaking havoc on our islands and causing concern among environmentalists. Quite an impressive feat for such a slow-moving animal!

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Pardon the fuzzy image below. I think this is a mud crab. He was pretty skittish, so I couldn’t get as good a look at him as I would have liked. This critter’s body was a good six inches long! I found him on the driveway into a friend’s apartment complex. He was intimidating enough to cause uneasiness in one of the residents, who was hesitant to try to get past the crab on his way home.

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What I found on my front porch was a little more exciting and definitely less awesome. This centipede was about four inches long. I started screeching when I saw it, and it scurried away, trying to find refuge in our neighbor’s apartment. I wonder what our neighbor thought about the racket outside as I hollered at Ben to get the bleach and kill it, and then danced around shrieking when the dying centipede writhed and wiggled much too close to my feet! And yet I still thought it was worth it to get close enough to take a photo.

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As long as I am talking about land animals, I certainly cannot neglect to mention the cows. This cow blocked traffic for a few minutes on our way back from Philipsburg one day. We don’t have any cows on the western arm of the island, but up the hills there are quite a few of them.

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These are just a few of the animals living on the island of Sint Maarten. Hopefully, my camera and I will find some more animals to share with you later!

Until then… keep smiling!

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