Animals in Haiti

Haiti covers the western third of Hispaniola, the island it shares with the Dominican Republic, and its name comes from the Taíno word Ayiti, often translated as land of high mountains. It is the most mountainous country in the Caribbean, rising to 2,680 meters at Pic la Selle, and nearly 12 million people live in less than 28,000 square kilometers, many of them in the capital and in farming towns along the valleys. From cool pine forest and cloud forest on the peaks to dry scrub in the lowlands, salty lakes near the Dominican border and mangroves and coral reefs along a long coastline, every step down the mountains gives animals a different home. Rain falls mostly in spring and autumn, and the hurricane season runs from June to November.

Most Haitians have worked the land for generations, and small farms and charcoal for cooking cleared the hills over the last century. A 2018 study found that less than 1 percent of Haiti's original primary forest was left, so the animals that need old forest now depend on a few mountain refuges. The first national parks, Pic Macaya and La Visite, were created in the early 1980s to protect them, La Selle became Haiti's first UNESCO biosphere reserve in 2012, and the Massif de la Hotte, home to Pic Macaya, followed in 2016. Along the coast, the Three Bays protected area in the northeast, created in 2013, guards mangroves, seagrass beds and reefs where young fish and sea turtles grow.

Visitors come for the Citadelle Laferrière, a mountaintop fortress listed by UNESCO in 1982, the old port of Jacmel and the beaches of the south coast, although insecurity has kept many travelers away in recent years. The wildlife follows the same steps as the land: rare island birds in the mountain forests, flamingos and waterbirds on the lakes and lagoons, and turtles, dolphins and sharks in the warm sea around the coast.

Haiti has few animals that are a real risk to people, and serious accidents are rare. The island has no large land predators and no snakes that are dangerous to humans, so walking in the mountains or the countryside is safe as far as wildlife goes. On land, the one animal to respect is the wild boar, which comes from pigs brought by Spanish settlers. It usually runs away, but it can charge if it is cornered or protecting its young, so it is best to keep a distance and never feed it.

Most of the risk is in the sea. Large sharks hunt off the coast, and some of them can move into shallow water, bays and river mouths, especially when the water is murky after heavy rain, although bites in Haiti are very uncommon. Smaller reef sharks are usually calm but should be given space, and barracudas may strike at shiny objects in cloudy water. Swimming in clear water, staying away from river mouths after storms, avoiding places where fishermen clean their catch and not wearing jewelry in the sea are simple ways to stay safe. Strong currents and the hurricane season from June to November are a bigger danger to visitors than any animal.

Haiti's best known animals are easier to find along the coast and in a few mountain forests than in the farmland that covers most of the country. The Hispaniolan trogon, the national bird, lives only on Hispaniola and needs old forest with hollow trees to nest, so the places to look for it are the pine and broadleaf forests of La Visite and the cloud forest of Pic Macaya. The palmchat, which also lives nowhere else, is much easier to see: noisy groups build huge shared nests in royal palms in towns, fields and gardens all over the country. Flamingos gather on shallow lakes and lagoons, and Trou Caïman, a lake about 20 kilometers northeast of the capital, is one of the best known places to see them. Peregrine falcons arrive from North America in winter and hunt over cliffs and coasts. At sea, bottlenose dolphins feed in the bays, sea turtles nest on quiet sandy beaches and graze in seagrass beds such as those of Three Bays, and barracudas patrol the reefs. Tiger and bull sharks live in deeper water off the coast, and wild boars roam rural hills where few people live.