Animals in Fiji

Fiji is made up of more than 330 islands in the South Pacific, and only about 110 of them are lived on all year. Viti Levu alone holds more than half of the land and most of the people, so many smaller islands remain quiet places for seabirds, reptiles and turtles. The landscape runs from wet forests and rivers on the windward side of the big islands, up to Mount Tomanivi at 1,324 meters, to dry hills on the leeward side, and out to mangroves, lagoons and wide coral reefs. The dry season brings the most comfortable weather, and the wetter months from about November to April are also the time of cyclones, which can strip forests and damage reefs.

Fijian villages have long depended on the reef and forest, and fishing grounds are still managed by local communities, which has given many coastal animals some protection. Levuka, an old port town, became the first UNESCO World Heritage Site in the country in 2013, while the small island of Yadua Taba was made a sanctuary for its rare iguanas after it was cleared of goats. Along the coast, Yadua villagers who once hunted turtles now help protect them.

About a million visitors come each year, most of them flying into Nadi and heading for resorts and diving trips. Many head for Beqa Lagoon, the Mamanuca and Yasawa islands or the Rainbow Reef near Taveuni. Wildlife follows these contrasts: bats and iguanas on land, seabirds on the outer islands, and sharks, turtles, sea snakes and bright reef fish all around the coast.

Fiji has no large land predators, so the main risks from wild animals are in the water. Sharks cause the most serious incidents. Records compiled over more than a century list about 60 attacks in Fiji, roughly 22 of them fatal, with some of the old records going back more than 100 years. Bull sharks are often named as the most dangerous kind here, because they enter shallow water, river mouths and lagoons, and tiger and reef sharks also live around the islands. The counts differ somewhat by source, and many of the cases are old.

Sea snakes are the other animal people ask about most. Their venom is very strong, but Fiji's tourism authority describes them as seldom aggressive, and we found few reports of bites on people. We did not find any national figures on injuries or deaths from them.

Barracudas are large hunters with sharp teeth, and they can injure people, although reports are uncommon and we found no Fijian counts.

On land, the main concern is wild boars, which are strong enough to wound a person or a hunting dog when cornered. Most contact comes through village hunting, and we found no numbers on injuries. Nothing else on land here is large enough to threaten people.

Most of the famous animals in Fiji live in or around the sea. Sharks come first for many visitors. At the Shark Reef Marine Reserve in Beqa Lagoon, divers can watch dozens of large sharks up close, and the dives help fund local villages. Sea snakes are also easy to find, especially around rocky shores and lagoons, where the black and white banded kinds often come ashore to rest.

Sea turtles are a treasured part of the islands. Five kinds occur in Fijian waters, and two of them nest on local beaches, with Namena Lala among the best known sites. Many are still hunted illegally, which is why the turnaround on Yadua, where former hunters now protect them, matters so much.

On land, the list is short because few animals ever reached these islands. Fruit bats are the only native land mammals, and they can be seen in forests and around fruit trees. Iguanas are the great reptile prize, but they are shy and live mostly on small islands. Wild boars live in the forests and were brought by people.

The sky adds a few more. Falcons hunt over cliffs and forest edges, while petrels and other seabirds keep to the open ocean, coming close to land mainly at the outer islands.