25 March The wildlife around French Cay Harbour

orange iguana

The wildlife to be seen in this small bit Roatan is unexpected and varied. Bird life includes native green parrots, two species of hummingbirds, eagles and frigate birds. Accessible by dinghy you can visit an iguana sanctuary and feed the free roaming inmates, check out the scarlet macaws in an aviary (the macaw is the national bird of Honduras), visit a sloth sanctuary (which we didn't) and find exotic big cats kept by the owner of Little French Cay Resort. On the mainland there are three lions in cages which I thought were inadequate in size, but this is Honduras with different animal welfare standards and where money gets someone what they want.  

At night we would drift to sleep listening to the lions roar - not the expected thing on a yacht.

On Little French Cay the same man has a day resort with a beach, bars and more exotic animals; a pair of magnificent jaguars, a pair of white lion cubs, albino peacocks, Capuchin monkeys and a variety of pygmy pigs. On Big French Cay he has five tigers of which three are white.

male jaguar

I read white is a recessive gene, they are not albinos. The tigers seemed to have much larger quarters and with one part extending into the sea on the protected side of the island so they could have cooling swims. In an ideal world all wild animals would be living in their natural habitat unmolested.

baby capuchin

what's in here

I don't like seeing these magnificent creatures in cages, but I am guilty of going to see them. The quarters were all clean, multi-level with shade from the sun and sleeping quarters and the animals looked healthy and well fed.