In 2026, around 11 million Hondurans live in the country, and another 900,000 live abroad, primarily in the U.S. and Spain. About 154,000 Catrachos are born each year, and while the Honduran median age has fallen drastically, it still stands at 25. Both Honduras and Roatan have a youthful, energetic population.

Several demographic models project that by 2050, Honduras will have around 17 million people. That population increase, especially in an aging developed world, will give Honduras significantly more clout and geopolitical influence.

With 2.4 children per Catracha, Honduras stands in stark contrast to the collapsing native populations of Europe, the U.S., Japan and South Korea. South Korea now has a birth rate of 0.8 children per woman. The average in Spain is now 1.1 children, and U.S.-born women have an average of 1.7 children. These numbers are well below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman.

Also the divergence in birth rates dynamics is staggering. An average age of a first time mother in Spain is 32, while in Honduras it is 20. Western World birth rate implosion phenomena created an opportunity for Honduras and Roatan. At the same time the island grew, developed and has become an attractive place to live.

The definition of a “native” Roatan islander has evolved.

Roatan has relied on migrants and immigrants for economic growth and to maintain the skill sets necessary to do so. The proximity to mainland Honduras, with its 11 million people, created coast-to-island migration from departments of Atlántida, Colón and Yoro. The higher-skilled management positions on the island are filled by natives of Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba. That is where the majority of the island’s service-sector managers, doctors and lawyers hail from.

While historically islanders have been looking for job opportunities in the U.S. or at sea since the early 20th century. Many have left the island and settled in the U.S. or worked for banana companies on the mainland. That has changed. Roatan will likely continue demographic trends that have appeared here over the past 25 years and have strengthened in the past five.

Given wage disparities and job opportunities, mainland Hondurans have been moving to Roatan in significant numbers since the 1990s. The boom in the construction sector, tourism and service industries, security companies employing thousands of workers, and even seafood processing plants has attracted mainlanders to Roatan with the prospect of a better economic future.

What Roatan’s population will look like in 2050 is starting to emerge. The growth will continue, or more likely, it will oscillate, much as it has over the past 25 years. Roatan had three periods of stagnation this century: the 2008 U.S. financial crisis, the 2009 Honduran presidential coup and its aftermath, and the 2020-21 COVID-19 lockdowns. It also suffered under some incompetent, corrupt mayors in both Roatan municipalities who made many poor policy decisions and practically brought the island economy to a standstill.

I estimate that around 115,000 people live permanently on Roatan for six months or longer. This estimate is based on observations of RECO peak power demand, overall business trends and population shifts. The estimate is not scientific, but it is meant to be an educated guess. Since the government does not conduct such surveys, and its once-a-decade censuses are tragically inaccurate, I did my best to provide a rough estimate.

The island population will likely continue to grow by around 2.5%, or 2,870 people a year, or eight people a day. That would put Roatan’s population at 190,000 by 2050, assuming growth barely one percentage point above Honduras’ national average of 1.5%. If that percentage rises to a realistic 3%, we are looking at 210,000 people living on Roatan, Santa Helena and Barbareta. By that time, the currently uninhabited island of Morat might even have a few residents.

The ethnic demographic trends will likely continue as they have over the past years. The number and percentage of mestizo mainlanders will continue to grow, and they probably account for about 50,000 to 60,000, or half of the island’s current population.

The Garifuna population, now about 4,000, will grow slightly but lose its percentage share of the island’s total population. The Black, English-speaking islander population, currently about 30,000, will likely continue growing slowly. The White native islander population, now about 3,000, will likely maintain its numbers.

Roatan had three periods of stagnation this century.

The populations moving to Roatan in the greatest numbers are from the Honduran mainland. While Hondurans from all 17 mainland departments live here, some departments and populations are heavily over represented. The population of about 7,000 Miskito Indians living on Roatan, also known as Waikna, will likely double. That is due to two factors: Miskito birth rates of about three to four children per woman, which exceed those of other ethnic groups, and continued migration from Gracias a Dios Department to the island.

The Miskito live in Honduras’ most economically challenged and undeveloped department. They are also hardworking, skillful workers. They work in security, service and construction. They do not expect high living standards, as they come from very basic circumstances on the Miskito Coast. They also help one another and readily offer a place to stay to cousins who come to Roatan looking for work. In fact, the Miskito language on Roatan surpassed the prevalence of the Garifuna language several years ago and is now the third-most widely spoken language on the island.

The foreign population residing on Roatan will likely grow due to migration from the U.S., Canada and, increasingly, Europe. These island residents of European descent currently number around 6,000, but that figure will likely double. Their numbers are growing by a couple hundred each year. As life in many parts of Europe and North America becomes increasingly uncomfortable, and life on Roatan more comfortable, that migration trend should accelerate.

The “retirement” and “adventure” immigrants come here in their 60s. The vast majority of them don’t have children on the island and return to their country of origin in their late 70s and 80s. While many will likely eventually return to their country of origin, Roatan will increasingly offer hospice and home hospital care for those who decide to live out their old age here.

The definition of a “native” Roatan islander has evolved for centuries. From about 1,000 AD to around 1650, native islanders were the Paya Indians. Today, most people living on Roatan do not even know who Paya were.

Then, for about 50 years, from 1797 through the 1840s, the “native” islanders were the Garifuna. From the 1840s to the 1990s, Roatan’s “natives” were island-born White, Black and Garifuna residents. In the 1990s, mestizo migration from the Honduran mainland took off, and by around 2015, “native” islanders had become a minority. One thing that never changes on Roatan is that the island constantly evolves.

Kilotonnes of Seaweed become a Curse to Many, a Resource to a Few

You can look at the Sargassum overabundance as a curse, and you can also look at it as a blessing. In February, when millions of cubic meters of Sargassum washed onto beaches and mangroves along the Roatan shoreline, many islanders took action. Others did nothing at all. After two months, the results are in.
The winter of 2026 broke records, creating a Sargassum bloom never before seen at this scale in the western Caribbean. The 2025 Sargassum biomass was estimated at 37 million tons, but this year will surely smash the record once the tally is in.

The extraordinarily large bloom is attributed to wind-driven upwelling in the Atlantic, which brought extra nutrients to the Sargassum belt.
On Roatan, two species of Sargassum have wreaked havoc: Sargassum natans and Sargassum fluitans have been washing up. Sargassum is a type of brown macroalgae, or seaweed, that grows in the Atlantic and is pushed eastward by wind onto the shores of islands and continents. Things get out of hand when Sargassum quantities become 50 or 100 times greater than in a typical year.

The Sargassum Impact

Sargassum disrupts ecosystems, creates a foul odor and traps tiny fish. The seaweed depletes oxygen in the surrounding water. As it breaks down and decomposes, Sargassum produces hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, resulting in a low pH level. This further harms the aquatic environment and the animals that live there. The result is the creation of dead zones under and around floating, decomposing Sargassum.

In other words, Sargassum degrades water quality and makes the marine environment inhospitable. The number of species and the density of marine life drop. Once Sargassum leaves the island’s coast, the true scale of those negative effects can be assessed. When Sargassum envelops mangrove areas, it also stifles local fish species that use mangroves as nurseries.

Another negative effect is the microplastics that are brought in by the Sargassum. The pieces of Sargassum float hundreds of meters from beaches, and swimming or snorkeling can be a less pleasant experience.

There are a few benefits of this seaweed for critters that feed on it. Sargassum provides a rich environment for organisms such as bacteria and fungi, which grow on decomposing plant matter, breaking it down and turning it into nutrients. Some fish, including juvenile triggerfish and filefish, feed on the invertebrates that live with the Sargassum. Tiny amphipods and isopods graze on the decaying Sargassum, and those, in turn, become food for crabs and fish.

There are examples of such events in the recent past. In 2018, Mexico’s Caribbean coast was so inundated with Sargassum that it caused a die-off of dozens of animal species. This year, Sargassum has overwhelmed Roatan’s beaches, and the island’s marine life has been hit hard.

While Roatan is about 42 kilometers long, its meandering shoreline stretches well over 160 kilometers. Tens of millions of cubic meters of Sargassum have washed ashore on Roatan.

WEST BAY UNDER SARGASSUM SIEGE

On Feb. 9 and 10, the situation got out of control. As rainy weather kept most West Bay tourists from going to the beach, Roatan’s premier beach shore was packed with Sargassum. West Bay, the jewel of Roatan tourism, has been affected as never before. The 1,000-meter-long beach was surrounded by a belt of Sargassum that was 100 meters wide and half a meter thick.

Local authorities became preoccupied with solving the immediate problem of Sargassum affecting the beach experience for thousands of tourists visiting the jewel of Roatan. They felt they needed to act quickly, and that solution was to truck the Sargassum to dumping sites across the western side of the island and bury the rest under the white beach sand with heavy machinery and plenty of manpower.

Sargassum has been racked by hand by dozens of municipal workers, wheel barrowed onto trucks and dumped by the side of West Bay Road and at the municipal dump. Paya Magazine calculates that more than 300,000 cubic meters of Sargassum were removed from West Bay Beach in the winter of 2026.

While covering tons of Sargassum directly beneath two meters of white West Bay sand seemed to solve the aesthetic problem in a matter of days, as with many quick decisions, the unintended consequences might take several months or years to be realized. “Burying the Sargassum on a white sandy beach like West Bay can result in changing the color of the sand over time,” said Darrell Humphries, HOA manager at Palmetto Bay since 2016. “If you start placing Sargassum there, you can end up with darker, browner-colored sand eventually.”

According to Humphries, turtle grass and spaghetti grass, with their high calcium content, eventually turn into sand, but Sargassum turns into a solid, darker material. “Sargassum is a darker type of product once it is broken down,” Humphries says. “It’s empirical, a lot of observational stuff we have learned over time.”

Another potential unintended consequence of burying Sargassum under a relatively narrow and steep West Bay Beach is the potential to speed up beach erosion. While burying Sargassum along West Bay Beach has given beach users a wider and taller beach, that effect could be only temporary.

Sargassum blocks sunlight reaching both coral and sea grass.

The higher beach will erode more quickly from currents and storms in the coming months, and perhaps a year or two. The waterlogged, spongy Sargassum will eventually be compressed into a minuscule layer of brown solids. When the currents finish their equalizing work and the Sargassum compression process ends, West Bay Beach might be narrower and lower. The beautiful beach might be less wide after Sargassum floated into West Bay in February 2026.

BEYOND WEST BAY

While the attention of Roatan Municipality authorities focused resources and manpower on tourist areas such as West Bay and West End, the rest of the island was left to fend for itself. The communities of Punta Gorda and Brick Bay were particularly affected by the tons of decomposing, foul-smelling seaweed.

Some places have had it worse than others. In the Brick Bay community, the Sargassum has been accumulating and decomposing for more than six weeks. Several hundred people live in this densely populated south side seaside village.

As older seaweed decomposes, new waves of Sargassum wash ashore, replacing it. The stench of rotting Sargassum is similar to that of a failed septic system. While no one has become ill, constant exposure to the stench of decomposing Sargassum has been stressful and miserable. “People are getting accustomed. In their homes, the smell seems less strong,” said Ricardo Hernández, a longtime Brick Bay resident.

The Honduran Navy has considered bringing in a floating barrier to prevent more Sargassum from floating into Brick Bay. The most likely outcome is that the problem will solve itself naturally. Nature will take away what nature has created. “We are waiting for a northern that would move the Sargassum out to sea,” says Hernández, whose Brick Bay home is 15 meters from the sea.

SARGASSUM AS A RESOURCE

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, goes the proverbial phrase. The ideal situation would be to treat Sargassum as a periodic resource: a fertilizer, a building material for roads and landfills, and even an element for creating building blocks.

In Mexico, local entrepreneurs have found a way to turn Sargassum into a construction material. They gather Sargassum from beaches, and then wash it with fresh water to remove the salt. Next, the Sargassum is dried and shredded, and a cement mixture is added. The rectangular Sargassum building blocks are then dried in the sun. The resulting Sargassum-cement blocks are strong, fire-resistant, thermally massive and inexpensive.

On Roatan, some islanders have been using Sargassum as fertilizer for well over a decade. They pick up the seaweed from the beaches, rinse it with fresh water, and then spread it around the base of their fruit trees. “We let it dry out and put it all over the plants,” said Richard Anderson, a hotel owner from West End. “It’s like Popeye when you give him spinach.” Anderson rinses the Sargassum and then dries it out before using it all over his property.

There are also islanders who use Sargassum as a construction material and landfill material. Over the years, the Palmetto Bay maintenance staff has become expert at quickly gathering Sargassum from the beach and using it for improvements in community areas.

Islanders have been using Sargassum as a fertilizer.

Palmetto Bay maintenance staff has been using washed-out Sargassum, turtle grass and spaghetti grass to construct a walking trail and road system in its low-lying Bird Sanctuary community area. This project began in 2014, so the Palmetto Bay HOA staff has gained extensive experience handling Sargassum and using it in careful, strategic ways.

Palmetto Bay maintenance staff have been using Sargassum as a natural, free fertilizer for some of their plants. “It’s a great fertilizer; it’s great for mixing in with regular soil,” says Darell Humphries, manager at Palmetto Bay.

The steps in producing this free plant stimulant are minimal. Workers gather the Sargassum with a tractor, place it on a trailer, and dump it in an area where rain rinses it down. Then the Palmetto Bay staff places the broken-down Sargassum at the base of plants and trees. “Peppers and other vegetables do very well with Sargassum,” says Humphries.

The maintenance tractor operators try to avoid picking up Sargassum that has rolled around in the water and become entangled with a lot of sand. They try to keep picking up Sargassum and keeping the entangled sand to a minimum, somewhere around 5% to 10%.

As a youth, Henry signed up to be a seaman. He was running bananas from the border of Nicaragua and Honduras to Tampa, Florida. Mr. Henry worked at SS Caravelle, an LCI (Landing Craft Infantry) ship from World War II. Eventually he worked as a seaman on a shipping vessel hauling cargo between Tampa, Havana, the Isle of Pines, and Haiti. “We were picking up chicken feed from Haiti,” remembers Mr. Henry.

Mr. Henry’s wife Mrs. Sula, was born in Utila Cays on July 11, 1941 to Henry Rose Suniga and Evelyn Mae Howell. The two met at a dance at Wilson Hotel. “We mostly danced boleros,” remembers Mr. Henry. In 1961, they married. “Every one damn thing is different. They are hard to get along with,” says about the Caytons Mr. Henry.

Mr. Henry learned how to shrimp in Texas in Port Isabel and became a shrimp boat captain in Western Caribbean. “I was the first one to fish [shrimp] out of Puerto Barrios, Guatemala,” says Mr. Henry. “I’ve been a shrimper all my life.” He was also shrimping out of Nicaragua and Louisiana. Back in the Bay Islands, he shrimped out of Mariscos de Bahía in Oak Ridge.

While he was at sea, Mr. Henry and Mrs. Sula communicated via single side band radio. Every day the young captain would call home to Utila to check how things were. The couple had eight children; five chose to live on Utila.

I’ve been a shrimper all my life.

Mr. Henry was the first shrimp captain to open shrimp grounds near Tela and Puerto Castilla. “I shrimped till I lost my eye,” said Mr. Henry. He lost his right eye in a fishing accident while motoring between Utila and Roatan. Mr. Henry took his dory and departed solo for Roatan to take part in a surprise birthday party. He had placed fishing lines trailing in the water, and three miles outside of West End he caught a fish that was hard to handle. After a struggle, a line slipped and bobby from the fishing rod hit Mr. Henry in his right eye. “Utila was so far I thought I was going to bleed to death,” remembers Mr. Henry. “I was bleeding like a hog.”

He was closer to Roatan and decided to just keep going. “I am going carry you to Anthony’s Key, there is a hospital there,” a Roatan fisherman he encountered off West Bay told him. The Good Samaritan towed Mr. Henry’s boat to Sandy Bay and likely saved his life. Since then, Mr. Henry had seven operations on his eye. The accident marked the end of his fishing career.

Utila was so far I thought I was going to bleed to death.

An old parrot and two small dogs keep the couple company. Mr. Henry and Mrs. Sula smile and hug one another as they swing on the porch of their tidy hillside home surrounded by a spotless garden. Mr. Henry feels most proud of “the days we spent together with his wife.”

There are about nine ambulances providing emergency transport from accident scenes to emergency centers around the island. UNIMED has two; AirEvac in West Bay has one; Woods Medical Clinic has one; there is the airport ambulance; the Red Cross and COPECO have one ambulance each; and the Roatan Fire Department has two ambulances.

The islanders relied on their neighbors and enterprising businessmen to help with emergency transport until the late 1990s. That changed in 1998, when Hurricane Mitch battered Roatan and the Fire Department received its ambulance. It was based at the Coxen Hole fire station and staffed by Fire Chief Elton Woods.

Emergency dispatching takes place via WhatsApp groups, where someone posts an emergency and another person reads it and says an ambulance has been contacted. It is a poor man’s emergency dispatch system, but it works.
Some believe it could work better. “It is a shame Roatan still doesn’t have an emergency dispatcher,” said Ana Svoboda, president of the Honduran Red Cross Bay Islands Council from 2016 to 2021. “This would reduce anxiety; get emergency services to accident scenes more quickly and ultimately save lives.”

It is a poor man’s emergency dispatch.

Roatan is now dotted with private clinics offering emergency ambulance services. West End-based UNIMED has two ambulances and provides services to tourists and locals. Their ambulances provide BLS, or basic life support, and DLS, or advanced life support. They have systems to treat heart failure. “Our doctors provide treatment on-site, not at the clinic,” says Daniel Cartagena, UNIMED’s manager since 2018. “We do the first assessment on-site, and if it is a motorcycle accident, we take them to Satuye Hospital.”

UNIMED is strategically located in West End and offers emergency transport, 24/7 emergency care, lab tests, X-rays, general surgery, air ambulance services, and an array of specialist doctors. UNIMED began in 2015 with a wheeled ambulance based at Coconut Tree in West End. “We assisted with many emergencies at that time,” Cartagena says.

In 2019, UNIMED expanded its services to provide a stabilization facility and care for minor emergencies. UNIMED is part of a chain of clinics and urgent care centers in Latin America. UNIMED is a sister company of AirEvac International and is owned by Raul Mendoza, a California businessman.

There are several other private clinic ambulance providers for cruise passengers in case of emergency. One of them is the island’s oldest private hospital, owned by Dr. Jackie Woods.

Dr. Woods opened Woods Medical Center, or WMC, on Main Street in Coxen Hole in 1999. From the beginning, the center has operated as a 24/7 emergency facility. Since 2023, it has had its own ambulance. “We only use the ambulance for cruise ship patients,” said Dr. Woods, owner of Woods Medical Center. In 2025, WMC has an intensive care unit, or ICU, that is able to stabilize a patient. “We can treat trauma,” Dr. Woods said.

The biggest necessity is the blood bank.

Other elements of good emergency treatment include the availability of emergency blood centers and 24/7 laboratories. The key is Coxen Hole’s Satuye Hospital, which stores Roatan’s blood supply. The typically stored supply of 10 to 12 pints of blood is small and easily depleted. “The biggest necessity is the blood bank, 10 to 12 pints of blood, and those can be drained with just a couple of motorcycle accidents,” said Jackie Woods. While the island’s Red Cross has a list of several donors with AB blood type, the price per pint is $60 to $70.

After operating for years at the mall in French Harbour, CEMESA is currently closed. CEMESA purchased a house from the former Roatan mayor at the intersection of Jackson Road and Main Road in Brick Bay and is working to open sometime in 2026.

Blaze Consumes Large Portion of Fantasy Island Resort

Wilmer Guerrero, Roatan’s fire chief, said getting water to Ezekiel Cay, where the hotel is located, was difficult because the wooden bridge leading there could not support heavy water trucks. The hotel opened in 1989, and the 250-foot wooden bridge could not support the 50,000-pound weight of a fire truck carrying 3,000 gallons of water.

At the time of the fire, Fantasy Island was hosting about 60 guests. While guests were safely evacuated to nearby hotels, some lost personal items and documents.

The fire spread because of the high heat and the highly flammable wooden structure of the hotel resort. The buildings formed one continuous structure that allowed the fire to spread with little impediment.

Almost half of the resort was destroyed.

The wind blew from east to west, engulfing the hotel’s wooden structure. The recently renovated lobby, reception area, dining area, kitchen, convention center and discotheque were all consumed by the fire. Also, 36 of the 108 rooms at Fantasy Island were destroyed. In the end, almost half of the resort was destroyed.

The eastern wing of the hotel was spared thanks to heavy machinery. A heavy digger demolished part of the hotel, creating space between the building already on fire and the hotel rooms to the east.

According to Elvin Canales, chief of Fire Department Company B in Dixon Cove, about 900 meters of 2.5-inch water hose was connected to cisterns on the main island. The hotel used two excavators to destroy part of the building so the fire would not spread to the eastern side of the hotel. “Airport firefighters provided the hoses,” Canales said.

The firefighters also placed their only floating water pump, a Kawasaki FJ180V, inside the Fantasy Island swimming pool. Pumping at a rate of 260 gallons of water per minute, the pump was eventually damaged by the intense heat generated by the fire.

There were several devastating fires on Roatan in the past three years. According to Canales, the Fantasy Island fire, alongside the 2024 Roatan Public Hospital fire, are the largest structure fires in Roatan in the 21st century. The French Harbour Hill neighborhood suffered a fire that destroyed 25 to 30 homes in 1990. The Agua Azul packing plant also was destroyed by two fires.

A Tegucigalpa Duo Entertains and Inspires

The couple’s move from Tegucigalpa to Roatan came suddenly in June 2025. “I had a small tragedy in Tegucigalpa. I lost everything I had,” Aguilar says. Rather than breaking them, the setback inspired the couple to make a dramatic change in their lives and move to Roatan. José García, the blind musician already performing on the island, suggested they come there.

The musicians began performing on the street in West End and gained other contracts. The couple also performs in front of Taquería Raúl in West End. For one hour, from 3 to 4 p.m., the duo plays at the Ramírez Store in Sandy Bay. They have their toddler son next to them. José García, another blind musician, joins the duo for two evenings a week at Blue Marlin. Their toddler son, Schneider, accompanies them. “With this, we sustain ourselves, thanks be to God,” Aguilar says.

They were taught music at the Pilar Salinas School for the Blind in Tegucigalpa. The school was founded in 1948. Pilar Salinas Padilla, who was born in 1924, later founded another school for the blind in Guatemala. In 1978, she founded the Artisanal Center for Industry and Rehabilitation for the Blind. That school prepares blind people for professions. Salinas died in 2005.

In Santa Lucía, outside Tegucigalpa, Michael and Daisy attended the Artisanal Center for Industry and Rehabilitation for the Blind. “It is there they taught us, or rather awakened our musical talent,” Aguilar says. The couple learned to play a variety of instruments.

in Tegucigalpa I lost everything I had.

They were taught by singing coach Mr. Visitación Salgado. The professor who teaches musical instruments is Oscar Orlando Disqua. “In Tegucigalpa, there are musical bands of blind people,” Aguilar said. “They perform at events on contract.”

The graduates of this school play in musical groups all over Tegucigalpa and Honduras. “In Tegucigalpa, they leave us tips, but it is less than here,” Aguilar says about playing in parks and other public spaces in the Honduran capital.

There are several blind people who support themselves by asking for money, but there are also those who are self-reliant, creative and inspire others, often those more fortunate than they are.

There has always been good, locally raised food on Roatan. As far back as 500 years ago, Paya Indians living on the island supplied food staples to the Spanish in Trujillo on a regular basis. The same Paya Indians provided supplies to English and Dutch pirates who used the island as a base.
The well-being of islanders depended on the food they ate. Today, some of the food consumed on the islands is still locally sourced, locally raised and locally butchered. There are a still a few organic farmers on the island. Several hundred homesteads keep their own chickens, ducks and pigs. Dozens of island farmers raise cattle to keep their land free of brush. In fact, Bay Islanders have continuously kept cattle, hogs and chickens here since the 1830s, and probably longer — since the Garifuna settled here in 1797. The Bay Islands archipelago has enough fertile ground to produce plentiful crops of sweet potatoes, corn, cassava, chatas and bananas. 

The islands have plenty of grass to support cattle, pigs and goats brought in by the Spanish from Europe.
In addition to an abundance of staples on land, the Bay Islands have a steady supply of seafood caught nearby and processed in packing plants on the island. Shrimp, wild-caught in the clean waters of Honduras, is a better alternative to the farm-raised shrimp consumed in much of the U.S.
Since the middle of XX century here was a gradual increase in dependence on food imported from mainland Honduras, Belize, the United States and beyond. While in the 1950s most island families still produced their own food, today this local production accounts for less and less. Here are some island farmers that keep the farming traditions on Roatan alive.

Island Grown Solutions for Healthy, Autonomous Living

Goats Galore

The couple’s one-acre Sandy Bay homestead is in the hills overlooking the northern shore of the island. It is quite feasible to support oneself with very little land, as efficient organic farming can yield significant harvests from small plots. In fact, smart, noncommercial farmers don’t need dozens of acres to support their families. Yourgin’s ambition is to expand his farm to three acres to include a food forest that produces ample food for the goats.

The couple started their ranch with sheep in 2015. They later expanded their operations to include five milk cows and as many as 64 sheep.

The Sandy Bay farmers were focused on raising the Black belly sheep crossed with the Dorper. The sheep eat leaves and grass, but their demand for grass was not as significant as that of cattle. Sheep are picky eaters and typically refuse to eat anything other than grass, which is why their meat is considered sweeter.

The island goats on the other hand are less picky and eat many more leaves. “Goats are more like deer in this respect. […] They have limited grass digestion,” says Yourgin. If a sheep stops eating, you have 24 hours to help it, and if you lose a sheep, you lose the work and effort you put into raising it. “You lose nine months of work.”

The Levys scaled down recently and focused their efforts on hardier goats. “The winters were too hard for the sheep,” said Yourgin. The sheep’s wool would absorb water and took an entire day to dry. “It would have easily four inches of hair on their backs,” said Yourgin. The wetness would make the sheep susceptible to illness and death.

This made raising the sheep and keeping them healthy a difficult and time-consuming undertaking.

Currently Yourgin has five male goats and five females. His two goat pens are just a few meters from his house, so he can keep watch over his flock. The young mothers are kept for their milk production, which provides the farm with a steady income. He has several breeds: Saanens, a Swiss breed of domestic goat known for its milk. Yourgin also has Boer goats, a South African breed known for meat production.

Yourgin’s goats produce milk daily for up to 10 months after giving birth. After that, the female goat is given one or two months to recover before she can become pregnant again. After about 150 days of pregnancy, she gives birth to one, sometimes two kids. First-time mother goats usually have one offspring, but more experienced mothers tend to have twins and occasionally triplets.

Yourgin says that milking just one cup is not good for business. He likes his milk goats to produce at least two liters of milk per day, and some of them do. His best producer can give him almost three liters of milk in 24 hours. Yourgin’s record-producing female goat is named Blue String.

Yourgin milks his goats twice a day and sells the raw, unboiled milk to regular customers. Appreciation for raw milk, especially raw goat milk, is rising on the island. “Raw milk is very important to our gut,” said Yourgin. His clientele includes islanders, mainlanders and foreigners. He says there is a tradition in Honduras that if you feel unwell, you should drink goat’s milk. Yourgin has had clients feeling unwell who come seeking goat’s milk for their needs.

The goat’s milk is also used as an ideal alternative for mothers who don’t want to feed their children formula. Some of his customers use the goat milk to make delicious yogurt. The milk is also beneficial for cats and baby lambs abandoned by their mothers.

Yourgin treats his goats with affection and care. At least twice a week, around 3 PM, the goats go outside and play. They search for grass, leaves and plants to supplement their diet. The animals also de-stress, and their milk and meat taste better. “It’s more nutrients for us, and they are happier. I call it ‘physical therapy for the goats,’” Yourgin says about his goat roaming in the island forest. “There is vegetation that makes the milk richer.”

The goats eat vegetation consisting of grass, wild basil leaves, quiebra-piedra, and hundreds of other leaves and grasses that are vital to their health and coat color. Yourgin sometimes buys animals that are pale, and within a month, their color changes—it becomes red.

The goats instinctively know what is good for them and what keeps them healthy. They know what works for headaches and what stimulates appetite. “An animal with no appetite will die within a week,” says Yourgin.

Farmers don’t need dozens of acres.

The goats provide not only milk, but also meat. While goat meat is not widely known on the island, it is appreciated by those who have tried it before. “It is a very red meat. When you tenderize it with rosemary, it is very close to calf meat.”

Yourgin’s goal is to build up his milking herd to 10 animals. He gets his goats from Santa Bárbara, Copán — Honduras’ cold country. Transitioning sheep and goats from the cool Honduran interior to hot and humid Roatan can be a challenge. When the animals arrive on the island, some goats will eat only a little and lose strength.

Some animals have difficulty adjusting to the tropical climate of the island. To help the goats adjust, he feeds them the leaves of the fence post tree (Gliricidia sepium) for two days, which he says ‘heals all the sickness’ they might have had before.

To keep an eye on his stock, Yourgin built his two goat pen just a few meters from his wooden, two-story home. The fence is not very high for high jumping, atletic goat. “They don’t jump over the fence because they are treated with love,” says Yourgin. The goats know they have their feed 24 hours a day, so they are not interested in running away.

It is important to keep a tight feeding schedule for the goats. “If I go over 30 minutes, he will react,” says Yourgin.

If a sheep stops eating, you have 24 hours.

The alpha goat of his herd is a four-year-old Boer goat named Bear. He is quiet, purposeful in his movements, and watches the herd behind him as he climbs a slope filled with brush. Yourgin throws a few pebbles to chase Bear away from taller trees that grow on the edge of the forest. It’s better for the goats to stay in the open, and the herd will follow Bear wherever he leads them. “This is happiness, this is living: being an animal, pushing the trees, feeling your strength, making your mark,” said Yourgin. “Physical therapy, we call it.”

The two large male goats in the group challenge each other every day. While Bear is still the alpha goat, he must defend his position. In his youth learned how to fight with bigger goats.

“He knows how to fight to maintain his spot,” says Yourgin. “[Challenger] Milk face is not as friendly. He is stronger, like his grandfather.”

Yourgin is one of several goat herders on the island, and they all know each other. There are goats just east of the municipal garbage dump, and some are near Colonia Smith. “We drive hard bargains. The competition is fierce,” Yourgin says about his fellow island goat owners. “Everybody holds on to their good goat.”

Goats offer more benefits than just clearing land and providing meat and milk. Some people receive therapy by interacting with goats. Touching a goat can help reduce anxiety. “A lot of people want to touch a domesticated animal that looks like a wild animal with horns. Many are scared of them,” said Yourgin. “When they touch it, they get a release — a feeling of, ‘I did that.’”

Yourgin had two pigs that gave birth to seven piglets on his farm. He said it costs 37 Lempiras daily to feed each pig and looking after pigs is also time-consuming and risky. “If the pig has no water, it will break everything,” said Yourgin. The venture proved too labor-intensive for his small farm.

Eventually, the ranchers sold all their pigs, cows and sheep. The Levys focused on goats, which require less maintenance and are more hardy animals better suited for island life.

Bee Sanctuary

There are several beekeepers and apiaries across Roatan. Most bee-related businesses are typically run by individuals or families, but there is also one co-op.

Arguably the best bee professional on Roatan is Mr. Dave from Diamond Rock. He can catch a bee swarm, move wild bees into boxes, and harvest honey for beekeepers who are busy with other things.

There is a family apiary in Palmetto Bay – Roatan Bees, that was launched in 2019. Roatan Bee sells its honey in several places around the island. Their honey is organic, raw and unfiltered.

Further west in Corozal, a beekeepers co-op was started in 2013 with just three beehives and is going strong. In 2019, they had 70 beehives, and by 2025, they had well over 100. The co-op sells its products under the label Island Honey and also makes other honey-related products such as soaps, creams and shampoos.

Cattle King

Ronnie Wright’s Lucas looks after a vast ranch in the middle of Roatan. Ronnie’s cattle herd of 22 cows and bulls navigate the steep terrain of Brick Bay with the skill of acrobats. They descend down steep slopes of the narrow valleys to a smaller area with a trough adjacent to Roatan’s main road. Ronnie does a head count and comes up with 17. There are five cows missing, but “they stayed behind in the other valley,” says Ronnie.

The Litrico Ranch starts on the island’s southern seashore in Brick Bay and extends into the hills. The land resembles large areas of Roatan from 50 to 100 years ago, with dozens of cattle grazing on grass and resting in the shade of jobo trees. Shade is also provided by cohune palms and madreado trees.

Goats instinctively know what is good for them.

At this point the cattle herd serves the purpose of keeping the property clean. The cows are walking and pooping grass trimmers. The cattle eat grass and some bushes. “If you let them go onto a farm, they will eat the whole farm too,” says Ronnie. The Litrico ranch is large. The property has 700 cashew trees, 600 coconut trees and 43,000 plantains.

Raising cattle on the island can be a good business. The intrepid islander sells the meat to local restaurants and residents, as a 2-year-old calf can yield around 250 to 300 pounds of meat. A big bull can cost Lps. 60,000, and a cow can bring Lps. 30,000.

The price depends on the size and the breed. “The best breed is Pardo Suizo,” says Ronnie. Brown Swiss cattle have become a world brand and can be seen all over Roatan. The Holstein breed produces better milk, and the Charolais variety is known for its meat.

There are four bulls in the herd. One, a black Pardo bull, is the alpha of the group. He is more aggressive. “Come! Come! Come!” shouts Ronnie to the cattle. “If you don’t mess with them, they become wild,” says Ronnie, who comes and checks on them every week or two. “I call them, and they come.”

When Ronnie doesn’t show up for his visit for a few weeks, it shows. The cattle become less responsive to his call and whistle. They are not feral, but they are stubborn. The alpha bull of the herd was born on another ranch and knows Ronnie less well.

The dominant bull scrapes its rear hoof and lowers its head as it stands ground in front of his heard. Ronnie calmly picks up a branch, raises his hand and swings at the bull. The Alfa bull makes a ballet like pirouette move pivoting 180 degrees and trots away. The showdown is over. After two weeks away from the ranch, Ronnie re-establishes control of the heard.

Once a year, Ronnie injects each cow with Dectomax, an antiparasitic used for both internal and external parasites. A 700-pound bull gets 7 cc. “It’s expensive, but it is really good,” says Ronnie. The pregnant females only receive the vitamin injection.

When you are in the cattle business, you have to be your own sheriff. You can’t count on the Preventiva Police to help you. During the COVID operation, the herd numbers maxed out at 52.
The government-imposed lockdowns and desperation drove some island residents to extreme measures. In an effort to get food, several men came from Los Fuertes to the Litrico Ranch and stole two of its cows. “Three of them had guns, and they shot at us, and we shot back,” remembers Ronnie. “From then on, we did not have any more problems. We ran them out, and they didn’t come back.”

The ranch also has deer and agoutis and the large property attracts hunters. “We don’t hunt them, and people who want to hunt them, we run off.”

The Litrico Ranch has been supporting island families for many generations. According to Ronnie the land’s documents date back to Queen Elizabeth. Ronnie is family with the Litricos and for 19 years has been in charge of the Brick Bay ranch. “I used to do carpentry work, but I gave that up. I like farming and dealing with cattle,” he is in charge of the property.

One of the Most Popular Dive Wrecks
off Roatan in a 200 foot Cargo Boat

El Águila ran aground near Utila, where it remained partially submerged for several years. Rocky Jones, an Utilian, salvaged the ship and towed it into the island’s harbor. A passing storm pushed the ship onto the reef, and Jones salvaged it again and sank it in the harbor so El Águila would not be vulnerable to future storms.

On nearby Roatan, dive industry professionals were searching for attractions for the island’s growing clientele of recreational scuba divers. In the late 1990s, the only dive wrecks accessible on the island’s north shore were two wooden-hulled vessels, which were quickly disintegrating. The AKR resort had been looking for a ship to convert into a wreck dive site, and El Águila proved to be the perfect opportunity.

About five weeks passed between the purchase of El Águila by AKR and the completion of a cleanup operation. Salvageable steel was removed from the boat, and many tons of now-hardened concrete were off loaded before the sinking operation.

Initially, all went as planned. “When we sank it, it started going down sideways but righted itself on the way down,” said Kevin Brewer, dive operations manager at Anthony’s Key Resort. El Águila sank to 110 feet in one piece.

This all changed in October 1998, when Hurricane Mitch battered the north shore of Roatan and strong currents broke the boat’s metal hull into three pieces, juxtaposed at 45-degree angles. “The wheelhouse fell over on its side, but the bow stayed upright,” said Brewer. With much of the salvageable metal removed, the hull was not able to withstand the unyielding currents created by the Category 5 hurricane.

For the diving community, this change was actually a service, making the wreck more attractive for divers. The three pieces created swim-through opportunities, and crannies became an ideal space for experienced divers ready to investigate the submerged wreck.

Today, El Águila rests at 105 to 110 feet in the middle of an eel garden. The boat’s dual-deck metal hull is now covered in sponges and coral, creating a thriving habitat for groupers, parrot fish, moray eels and snappers. El Águila has been a part of Roatan history for the past 28 years.

Her parents were Itilia Stewart and Godwin Stewart, a farmer. Both of her parents were active in Baptist Church and had a large family. Etland was the fifth child of a thirteen.

Mrs. Etland went to school in Coxen Hole, finishing sixth grade. The days were spent playing with friends, and helping parents with chores around the house and in the field. “We were poor. We had to work hard,” she remembers.

As a 10-year-old girl she remembers a hurricane that hit Flowers Bay with a brutal force and without. “We sheltered under the trees,” remembers the late September evening Mrs. Etland. “That was the strongest hurricane I remember.”

You have to be patient to your parents.

She started her family life early. She married a young man she met at school. The wedding was a simple affair. She was 20 and her husband was a neighbor from Flowers Bay – Lindberg Pinnace. The couple moved into their own house.

In her early 90s, Mrs. Etland spends her time watching to going-ons in her neighborhood. She lives in a pink, wooden house with a front porch facing the thoroughfare of Flowers Bay. She spends her time resting on a bed with a bible next to her head.

For a few years now her youngest daughter Carla takes care of her. “You have to be patient to your parents,” says Mrs. Etland on how to reach a long life. “I am proud to be here, be a member of church.”

Roatan Muni is Setting Up a “Smart City” Monitoring Infrastructure

The new surveillance system is designed so that an individual can request a recording through an office at the municipal building. In cases of traffic accidents or robberies, a party involved can request video from the location and time the incident occurred. “It has to follow the legal chain of custody,” said Ing. Castillo.

The CCTV cameras are monitored from Monitoring Center and Municipal Police building located 50 meters behind the Roatan municipal building. The building is named after Joseph Solomon, a longtime Roatan Municipal Police chief. “We don’t know what we are going to see on these cameras,” said Solomon. “The idea is to respond when somebody is in need of help. If a woman has a broken-down car and needs to change a tire, we will come out and assist.”

Solomon doesn’t foresee any unintended consequences besides people trying to destroy the cameras. “People will feel more secure moving around, knowing that ‘Big Daddy’ is watching, you know,” said Solomon. Yet, as in all large surveillance projects, there are always unintended consequences.

One unintended consequence that could likely occur is that people may become more hesitant to assist a driver in distress, preferring for the municipality to take action. Another issue is the loss of a sense of privacy — something that is impossible to assign a monetary value to. “The negative is that the population feels their privacy is being violated,” said Johnny Suazo, project manager for Innova Solutions, which installed the cameras and trained camera operators.

The plan is for the CCTV system to be supervised 24/7 by six operators and two supervisors working in three shifts. Around 25 people will be employed in the monitoring center and likely more municipal police will be hired. Currently, the CCTV video is stored for 30 days, but that duration of storage can be changed. The system has been set up to store information from 400 cameras, with the potential to add up to 350 more.
The Roatan Municipality plans to fund the monitoring system through fines collected from residents. Infractions would include parking cars in the bike lane, littering, leaving trash by the dump outside of allowed hours, and pouring concrete on the road—all punishable by monetary fines. “At some point, we are going to be able to recognize the cars, identify the owners and send the bills online,” said Ing. Castillo.

Population feels their privacy is being violated.

The exact cost to run this operation is not known, but Paya Magazine estimates that with 25 salaried employees, the monthly cost will easily surpass $25,000. In addition, maintenance and technical fees could easily double that number, so it will probably cost over $500,000 a year to maintain this surveillance system.

This monthly municipal cost must come from local taxes or fines. Either way, island residents will have to pay for the project. In a growing economy and with a growing tax base, this type of project is one thing, but once the economy slows down—like it did during the 2008–09 financial crisis, the 2009–10 Honduran presidential coup, and again during the 2020–21 COVID-19 lockdowns—a cost of half a million dollars a year during an economic downturn will be a heavy burden to bear.

For the island it is no small-budget item, as the project was 100% funded by Roatan Municipality taxpayers. The idea is for it to become part of a national security and monitoring system. “If, by mandate, the central government someday wants to implement general 911 systems throughout the country, they could integrate this investment into what they already operate,” said Ing. Castillo.

While on Roatan so far around 90 million Lempiras had already been spent on the surveillance program, the Honduran central government spent 500 million Lempiras on the mainland. San Pedro Sula, Tegucigalpa, Santa Rosa, Tela and Choluteca already have such monitoring centers.

Recording video is just the beginning in a process that will turn Roatan municipalities’ public and semi-public spaces into surveillance zones. Of the 400 cameras, 370 are equipped with microphones, which can be activated. “This project will never end, as it is a smart city,” said Ing. Suazo. Several aspects of the surveillance system have not been set up, but can be completed fairly easily. According to Ing. Suazo, the CCTV cameras can also be configured to recognize the face of a person previously identified as a “person of interest” and scan other cameras across the entire surveillance system for that individual.

The high-resolution cameras are equipped with 40x zoom that can capture detail from a couple of hundred meters away. The cameras feature infrared capability for night operation. They can also activate a speaker function to alert someone visible on camera that they are being recorded and alert them that they may be committing an infraction.

Two of the cameras are located in front of Booty Bar, a popular tourist hangout in West End. “We think the cameras are a great idea. We all feel safer,” said Cherry Sorto, who has been the general manager of Booty Bar for 10 years. “Crime is growing on the island. We have our own cameras—many of them—and we have never been robbed.”

The camera system is just the first step in much bigger surveillance plans for the island. “Smart city” is a code term for mass surveillance programs, and its implementation depends on a never-ending stream of data, data storage, and data analysis. The idea of a ‘smart city’ is to collect data from cameras, electric meters, smartphones and smart appliances, and use that data to manage people.

This surveillance beast’s thirst will never be quenched, as there can always be more data to mine and analyze. If we want to be like the Dominican Republic or Cancun, we need to implement these types of systems,” said Ing. Castillo. “We are trying to catch up to them.”