Island Low Life

Located between Cuba and Puerto Rico, the island of Hispaniola is divided between the nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. At 18,792 square miles, the Dominican Republic is nearly twice as large as its immediate neighbor, and it has the distinction of encompassing both the highest and lowest elevations in the Caribbean. Its highest point, Pico Duarte, rises 10,417 feet above the sea, while a little more than one hundred miles to the south, Isla Cabritos, an island in Lago Enriquillo, lies 131 feet below sea level. Botanists have recorded nearly six thousand species of ferns, trees, and flowering plants in the nation, of which one-third are endemic--that is, found only in the Dominican Republic. To preserve them, the country has established the Division of National Parks, Scientific Reserves, and Refuges, which oversees protected areas covering about one-tenth of the land, as well as marine zones. Visitors to these areas must obtain permits. Here I will explore coastal and other lowland habitats, while a future article will survey the higher-elevation preserves and the ornamental plants one commonly sees along the roadsides.

Monte Cristi National Park, in the northwest corner of the Dominican Republic, is bordered on the north by the Caribbean Sea and separated on the west from Haiti by Rio Dajabon. Along the coast, particularly in the bay called Bahia de Manzanillo, near the mouth of the Rio Dajabon, are lagoons with water lilies and coves lined with extensive mangrove swamps. Much of the 205-square-mile park is flat, and because of low elevation and an exposure to westerly winds, the vegetation is predominantly subtropical dry forest.

At the opposite, southeastern corner of the nation is Del Este National Park, a 165-square-mile park that includes Isla Saona and a large area of sea. The driest parts are rocky, with vegetation similar to that of Monte Cristi, but the park also boasts an extensive subtropical humid forest with mahogany and other trees. Sea grapes and coco palms grow by the sea.

Of particular interest are two small, primarily nocturnal animals that live in caves and dry tree trunks. The only native land mammals to survive into modern times, both are threatened with extinction. One is the Hispaniolan solenodon, a fifteen-inch-long, short-legged, hairy insectivore with a slender, upturned snout. Only one other solenodon species is known, and it is found in Cuba (see Natural History, December 1997). The other mammal is an endemic rodent, the hutia. It is about as long as the solenodon but heavier.

Jaragua National Park, 540 square miles of land and water in the southwestern corner of the country, includes Isla Beata and Isla Alto Velo. Much of the park is dry thorn forest abounding in cacti, but where there is more moisture, there is a subtropical humid forest that includes guanito, a palm endemic to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Sea grape is a common woody plant on the beaches, along with the treelike sea ox-eye and a many-branched shrub called tassel plant or bay cedar. Four species of endangered sea turtles--hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead, and green--periodically come to the beach to lay their eggs.

Jaragua National Park is a good place to see flamingos, while roseate tern and Hispaniolan parakeet are plentiful in Los Haitises National Park, on the northeast coast. This park, which lies on the south side of Bahia de Samana, must be visited by boat. Its eighty square miles include many low hills and host a subtropical humid forest.

Two inland areas in the southwest are the Laguna Rincon Scientific Reserve and the Isla Cabritos National Park. They are protected primarily because of their aquatic habitats, remnants of an ancient channel that once connected the waters of Bahia de Neiba in the Dominican Republic with Haiti's Golfe de la Gonave, in the vicinity of Port-au-Prince. Laguna Rincon is home to duck, ibis, heron, flamingo, several endemic fish, and one endemic turtle (a freshwater slider, Trachemys decorata). Isla Cabritos National Park encompasses Lago Enriquillo and Isla Cabritos, the nation's low point, whose soil consists of one-million-year-old marine deposits of seashells and corals. With less than twenty inches of rainfall each year and temperatures sometimes climbing to 112 [degrees] F, Isla Cabritos supports a large number of cacti. The lake has one of the highest populations of the endangered American crocodile, while on the island visitors can see the rhinoceros iguana and Ricord's iguana.

For visitor information, contact: Division of National Parks Calle Damas No. 6 Old City Santo Domingo, The Dominican Republic (809) 685-1316

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Subtropical dry forest includes such prickly trees as cat's-claw, with short spines, and sweet acacia, with long spines, both members of the legume family. Another spiny tree is prickly nightshade. Non-spiny trees include a species of frangipani, Plumeria tuberculata, with large, fragrant flowers; West Indian boxwood, a small tree belonging to the elm family; mesquite, the same species found in the American Southwest; and the extremely toxic poisonwood, which belongs to the same family as poison ivy. Two colorful, shrubby plants in dry, rocky habitats are bicolored croton and Monte Cristi sage, an endemic species.