The Smiling Sandy Bay’s Entertainment Duo

Both Walter and Dwin were born in Sandy Bay, a place where many island musicians have their roots. “My father was a music man. I watched them play and I just kept right on,” says Walter about Norman James, his saxophone-playing father. James speaks with a soft, cracked voice. Walter started playing music in his teens. He played the drums, then moved to playing the guitar and eventually lead guitar.

On 1970s Roatan there was no TV or internet, but sounds of musical instruments were all around. One of Walter’s brothers was a trumpet player, and the other played the guitar and banjo. After his brother passed away, their sons: Jimmy, Joseph and Jonny continued the family tradition on music.

As a young man, Walter ran away from the Honduran army and settled back on the island and begun performing. Saturdays were dance nights on the island back then. In the 1970s, he already played for tourists at AKR. “We had Allan Flowers; Polin Galindo wrote songs,” remembers the old times Walter.

In the 1970 and 80s, many island one-man bands or two-man groups entertained the entire Roatan population. There were many solo artists and bands playing all over the island, especially on Saturdays.

Dwin Osly Bodden was born in 1991 in what he believes is Roatan’s music center – Sandy Bay. “If you dig down deep you will find that 80% of musicians are from Sandy Bay.”

At 13-14 years of age he started at 13-14 years old with gospel music at the church of God, “My maternal grandfather, Robert Gorfry, played bass guitar,” recalls Dwin who now sings both gospel and secular music.

If you dig down deep you will find that 80% of musicians are from Sandy Bay.

The Happy Boys due have been together four years. They play at the regular tourist spots: La Placita, Sol y Mar, AKR for the tourists and charity events. Roatan music scene is heading for tourist entertainment route.

The Happy Boys also travel. They have been to Cayman Islands several times, they performed on Utila, Guanaja, and the Mosquito coast. “We play reggae, soca, country and western, Merengue, Cumbia, we are quite versatile,” says Dwin. They don’t write their own songs however. “We mostly follow music, not writing,” adds James.

The idea for the Dolphin Program at AKR came to Julio Galindo, the resort’s owner, via an idea made by a couple of the guests in 1987. “We made a trip to a facility in Gulfport to look at their dolphins,” says Julio Galindo. Galindo began the program with two other partners, but by 1993 he bought them out. “Its [dolphin program] been good for business,” says Galindo.

The Honduran government permits needed to capture the wild dolphins was not easy to obtain. “It took a while to get permission to do this. The government wanted to know what we were up to,” says Eldon Bolton, Director of Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences. In 1989 Eldon was hired by AKR to locate, catch, and move the bottlenose dolphins to their Sandy Bay facility.

Eldon worked for Marine Animal Productions, a company that amongst other clients supplied the US Navy with bottlenose dolphins for their military program. In early 1980s until 1987 the Mississippi based company was providing dolphins for US clients.

At first it was not even known if the team would be successful at catching bottlenose dolphins. Bottlenose dolphins can be found on three Oceans in the world: Indian, Pacific and Atlantic. They are only absent from the Arctic Ocean. They are plentiful and feel right at home in warm waters off the Honduras’ Caribbean coast.

The key step in catching dolphins in Honduran waters was finding the right location to capture a group of bottlenose dolphins large enough to make it viable in a pen off Roatan. “It took some scouting. We took several boats and stayed several weeks at a time,” says Eldon about locating Honduran coast for the bottlenose dolphins.

The dolphin search focused in areas both east and west of the Trujillo peninsula. Once the team would spot the dolphin pod they would feed the dolphins and using a 1000 foot long net the capture team would encircle the dolphin pod.

The dolphin scouts determined the best location and the way to capture the aquatic mammals. “We would circle a group of animals and try to find a right group. Maybe half a dozen or fewer,” says Eldon. They would run a net forming a big circle or compass around the pod.

Their gear was designed to work in less than 20 feet of water.
The team consisted of 18 dolphin “trappers” that would start in as deep as 40 feet of water and stealthily move the net around the dolphin pod. They would keep the net intact and slowly wring in the whole thing on shore, shallow enough where the crew could stand up and safely manage the dolphins. The entire process would take half-a-day’s time.

Dolphin scouts determined the best location and the way to capture the aquatic mammals.

Each time the animals were then placed on specially designed slings, lifted out of the water, but kept moist and cool. The transfer of the animals between Trujillo to Roatan took four to five hours.

Three different trips were conducted from October 1989 to November 1990. In three capture operations five, three and eventually seven dolphins were caught in this manner. Fifteen bottle nose dolphins were brought in to AKR altogether.

The Dolphins are quite territorial, so it is possible that the three dolphin catches all came from two or even just one pod.

Originally AKR had constructed a dolphin enclosure facility near its museum building. The pen blew down three to four times before it was dismantled and in 2003, replaced by new pens.

In order to help with the beginning of the dolphin facility in the Bay Islands, Marine Animal Productions would send some of their trainers from Mississippi to Roatan do start working with and training the dolphins. “We hired local people right off the bat,” says Eldon. “They began teaching local trainers essentially.”

The AKR dolphin program started with four trainers and five dolphins. The original pen enclosure offered, adjacent bleacher seating and “classic dolphin performance with a commentary.”

All the dolphins from the first 1980s capture died from old age. In 2017, Paya, the last of the original dolphins, who lived up to the venerable dolphin age of 34 died. He was around five when he was caught in 1989.

Out of the 17 dolphins that live in AKR facility in 2023, two females were caught wild. Only two wild caught dolphins remain at the AKR. Gracie was caught in 1998 and Elita was caught in 2003.

The actual number of dolphins has been up and down over the years. In 1998, 2002 and 2003 the AKR went to Bay of Trujillo and Honduran coast to replenish their dolphin stocks. In March 2023 AKR had 17 dolphins: eight males and nine females, including a one year old dolphin. One or two dolphins are born in AKR each year.

While AKR’s dolphin facility is unique in Central America, there are around a dozen dolphin aquariums in Mexico, half a dozen in Cancún alone. AKR has maxed at 32 dolphins. “From the management standpoint that is a nightmare,” says Eldon.

As the dolphins began to reproduce more steadily AKR had more than enough dolphins and even provided other sea mammals facilities with their dolphins. In 2003 AKR provided animals to the Curaçao Sea Aquarium and Ocean World in Dominican Republic. In 2013 they provided dolphins to Nassau Bahamas. AKR helped in designing and sometime staffing those facilities, the influence of AKR on the dolphins is quite considerable.

AKR dolphin facilities are unique because the dolphins are allowed to spend time in the bay. So the animals are familiar with the space outside the pen in case of bad weather and break down. “We don’t have any problems with animals trying to escape,” says Eldon. “If we took the nets down they would not leave the lagoon.”

One male, two mothers and two calves were lost during Hurricane Mitch. The pen holding them disintegrated in the water storm surge and dolphins escaped. “They made their way out of the channel and we never saw them again. We looked all over,” says Eldon. Three of these were wild caught and remembered how to provide for themselves. They most likely made their way to the coast.

According to Eldon the dolphins don’t escape, they are content in the enclosed, but not escape tight facility in Sandy Bay. “I prefer to think that we give them everything that they need, good food and each other” says Teri Bolton, Assistant Director at Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences Honduras. “They have a pod and they are more important to each other than we ever will be.”

The dolphins not only have their physical needs met, they are entertained, stimulated and have enough social interactions to keep them happy. “They have that family structure so there is no need for them to want to leave,” says Teri.

The dolphins have a variety of tasks and activities throughout the day to keep them occupied and entertained. “It’s more complicated than it looks. We are dealing with living, breathing, soulful animals that are much more important to each other than we are to them,” says Teri Bolton.

Every September and October AKR has been offering dolphin therapies for kids with disabilities. Groups of 20 disabled children travel to Roatan every September and October to have twice-a-day interaction sessions with the bottlenose Dolphins at AKR. “I only wish we could do more of that,” says Julio Galindo, about the 25 year old program.

AKR dolphin facility also gets involved in rescue operations from time to time. During Hurricane Mitch, the Bay Islands and especially Guanaja were pounded by ferocious winds causing enormous damage to the reef, and forests of the islands. Many dolphins died, or barely survived. In Guanaja a dolphin washed into a swampy area, unable to swim back to open water. It managed to survive for several days and was spotted by islanders who alerted AKR. Eldon brought the animal to AKR and tried to nurse the bottlenose female back to health for a week, but she was too worn down and wounded to survive. “Its skin was peeling off. It was a bad, bad situation,” says Eldon. “That was the only time we had to put an animal down.”

They have several enclosure pens that are used for housing and training during the day. “We tend to move them around to prevent boredom,” says Eldon. The enclosures range from zero depth at shoreline to 20 feet deep. The biggest dolphin pen is ¾ acre. There are several isolation holding pens that could be used as maternity areas. “Occasionally males are isolated from a newborn baby calf to assure safety of that calf,” says Eldon. “The males can get aggressive, like a lion would.”

AKR dolphin trainers take out their dolphins from their pens on a regular basis. “At the end of the day we draw all the gates down and let our animals run,” says Eldon. “We are very unique in the way we manage our heard.” Only facilities in Curaçao and Bahamas take their bottlenose dolphins out on regular basis. All-in-all the AKR dolphins have one acre of enclosed area to swim in.

Feeding the dolphins and keeping them healthy with good, consistent feed is a key task. The dolphins receive four feedings a day. While a small 12 month dolphin eats as little as two pounds of fish a day, a grown dolphin eats over 30 pounds per day.

As main source of food for the AKR’s bottlenose dolphins is Capelin fish from Newfoundland, Iceland and Norway. The staffs sometime buy juvenile herring from France and occasionally Atlantic herring from North America and Norway. “The prices went sky high in the last five years. 30-40 percent increase in price,” says Eldon. “We are buying feed worldwide.”

Each dolphin is assigned a place on board of how many and what type of fish food it is given during each of four daily feeding sessions. For every five pounds of feed a vitamin tablet is placed in the gills of the fish fed to the dolphins.

Every couple weeks each dolphin’s length and girth is measured to monitor their weight. “The idea is not to over feed them and not to underfeed them,” says Kenly McCoy, one of 12 dolphin caretakers who have been with AKR since 1996.

The AKR dolphins supplement their diet by catching fish and other sea creatures that stray into their pens. They feed on unsuspecting snappers and blue tang. “I have seen them eat lobsters,” says McCoy.

About every three months AKR dolphins have a shipment of food arriving from the US. A specialty supplier in US out of Newport, Rhode Island ships two 20 foot freezer containers via Naviera Hybur. Then the fish, up to 40,000 pounds, is stored in freezers at the AKR’s dolphin facility.

As the AKR facility uses 400 Lbs of fish a day getting local feed for the dolphins has proved difficult. “We tried for years to work with our shrimp fleet because they have a lot of by catch. They have a lot of dead fish that they bring in when they are shrimping,” says Eldon. To make an optimum feed for the dolphins, the entire fish has to be frozen quickly to eliminate the possibility of the intestines beginning to rot.

Dolphins cannot eat gutted fish as that food has not enough nutrients for the sea mammal. According to Eldon, the Roatan shrimp boats are not geared for processing and freezing which creates a health risk for the dolphins that would consume these fish. “They get parasite loads from food they take in,” explains Eldon.

Anthony’s Key Resort facility uses 400 Lbs of fish a day.

AKR runs a variety of educational programs with the dolphins. There is a volunteer program, a six week internship program and a scientist programs at the Dolphin center. “Bottlenose dolphins are the ones we know the most about because we have been exposed to them for the longest time,” says Teri. “It is a very exciting time for research on the dolphins.”

The number and variety of careers associated with dolphin research and keep has multiplied over the last three decades. “You can be in animal care, you can be a lab technician, an educator, a research scientist,” says Terri. “It is a very exciting time because technology has caught up with the dolphins.”

Teri Bolton oversees researchers who come to study dolphin behavior at AKR. There is a strong and ongoing connection of AKR’s dolphin program with several academic institutions. Dolphin observation study has been conducted by Rees Magnasco’s group Lab out of Columbia University and Rockefeller University. Most reputable facilities are also promoting conservation, education, providing opportunities for scientists.

It is a very exciting time for research on the dolphins.

AKR’s dolphin program is host to several scientists and doctoral candidates. One of them is PhD candidate Melissa Voisinet who studies dolphin cognition and communication at Hunter College and Rockefeller University. Voisinet spent many weeks observing the AKR dolphins.

Public display of the dolphins and activities with them provide major economic sources for the upkeep of the dolphins. The bottlenose dolphin is exposed to guests for three to three-and-a-half hour a day.

The twice-a-day dolphin programs at AKR has allowed others to sell island boat tour packages that include a stop-by-the AKR dolphin pens. In high season as many as 17 tourist boats make their way to AKR’s Bailey’s Key. “The noise and fumes are bad for the dolphins,” says Teri. “They need good water, good food and clean air just like we do,” says Eldon.

Island Fauna Strikes a Delicate Balance between the Original and Invasive Species

Roatan as we experience it today is much different than it was 500 years ago when the first Europeans set foot on the Bay Islands archipelago. Many trees have been imported, land cleared and the animals, especially mammals, living on the island are not the same as they were even just two centuries ago.
Originally the island had only three native land mammals and four flying mammals.

Most land mammals living on the island today have been introduced to Roatan by Spanish or Cayman Islander settlers. Several mammals like wild hogs and manatees have disappeared from the island.
Currently, there are an estimated 22 land and sea mammal species on Roatan or in waters around the island.

THE NATIVES

Agouti

The animal is shiny brown and orange with a white spot on its chin and a yellowish patch on its belly. Ruatan Island agouti species bare a few dark hairs as opposed to their mainland cousins.
The agoutis are shy and won’t let humans approach them. They are active mostly in the daytime. The animals thrive on patches of brush across the island, foraging on almonds, coconuts, hibiscus, and Pentaclethra pods.
Hunting the Ruatan Island agouti has been a right of passage for the island youth for 200 years. The island rabbit is recognized as a culinary delicacy for its sweet meat. “You could stew it, you could bake it, and how you wanted to do it,” says Mr. Truman Jones, from Brick Bay. “Their meat is very good.” While human hunting has kept the agouti population down, an even bigger threat is the loss of habitat from developments and houses that are multiplying all over the island. Also, the young ones are attacked by opossums.

Mouse Opossum

The smallest mammal on the island grows no larger than eight ounces in weight. The Linnaeus’s mouse opossum (Marmosa Murina) is also known as the common or murine mouse opossum. Like his bigger cousin, the mouse opossum will play dead as a form of defense behavior.

This tiny mammal is a nocturnal creature that shelters in a mesh of twigs on branches, inside cavities of trees or even old birds’ nests. On Roatan the Cohune Palms are particularly suitable habitat for the mouse opossum. “They go into the coconut tree and eat the cap out,” says Mr. Truman. “In the summer, that little animal, he wants water.”

The mouse opossum feeds on fruits, but also on insects, spiders, lizards, bird’s eggs and small chicks. It reproduces quickly after a 13-day gestation giving life to as many as 10 young.

It has prominent, popping eyes framed by black colored fur reminiscent of a mask. Its large, longer than the body itself, rat-like tail is used to carry leaves to its place of nesting. While it is only four to six inches long, its tail is five to eight inches long.

Deer

White-tailed deer (Odocoileus Virginianus) have been on Roatan since the days of Paya Indians. In 1930s and 1940s deer could be found all over Roatan and were especially plentiful in West End and on the East End. Usually, 60 to 80 pounds, was a typical buck, but there were some larger specimens, as big as 120 pounds.

The white tailed deer has many sub species, but the one spread on Roatan most likely belongs to the smaller variety known as nemoralis, or Nicaraguan white-tailed deer. “My dad shot them by the hundreds,” says Mr. Truman Jones. His father would shoot with a 30-30 rifle from 40 meters aiming almost always for the buck. The deer would be a prized source of meat and islanders would use deer skin to make deer slippers and belts.

Island hunters had worked out a few hunting techniques to score the deer. By burning the grass, some hunters would attract the deer that would come to feed on the newly sprouted grass a few weeks later. Some hunters would take up a shooting position in the trees and waited for the deer to show.

As the deer became scarce the Roatan deer hunters would change their technique. They would hunt at night using carbon lights that were used by miners. While the deer would not always be visible, their eyes would light up. “A cow’s eyes stay more dull, but the deer eyes are sharp.”

The island deer love to graze on Cissampelos Pareira leaves. “The deer eats with the moon and the tide,” explains Mr. Truman. “When the tide is coming up the deer would be sleeping in all of them trees.” His father would hunt the deer two times in the day: as the daylight was breaking and, in the evening, late.

When a family of deer is spotted it is usually a buck with one or two females. Larger herds have also been seen on the island. A heard of 20 deer was once spotted by Mr. Truman’s father near Brick Bay point.

While scarce, the deer survives on Roatan in the wild. The deer sometime venture on Mr. Truman’s property in Brick Bay and there are still some wild deer in West Bay. Hondurans have looked at their deer with much respect and admiration. In 1993 the white-tailed deer was declared with executive decree 36-93 as the national mammal of Honduras.

Dogs

Paya Indians brought dogs (Canis Familiaris) to Roatan when they crossed to the Bay Islands archipelago from the mainland, about 1000 AD. Mayas traded with Payas and Mayas are known to have used domesticated dogs for hunting, as food and in religious ceremonies.

Island dogs hail their origin from dozens of breeds that were brought to the islands over the last 200 years. Some deer hunters brought Rhodesian Ridgebacks to the island. Other islanders brought Rottweilers and pitbulls to protect their households.
Dogs have been used on Roatan to guard property and serve as companions. Island men had used dogs for hunting wild animals such as deer, wild hog and guatuza. While most of the big game hunting has stopped, dogs are still used by islanders to spot and fetch green iguanas. These are mostly mutts with some hound blood running in their veins. “We always had dogs. We call them ‘Roatan hound dogs,” said Mr. Truman.

Jamaican Fruit Bat

Roatan is home to four species of flying mammals. One of these bat species is widely spread over the island pollinator – the Jamaican fruit bat (Artibeus Jamaicensis).This bat is native to Mexico, Central America and Caribbean.

They are most active at midnight. The females give birth twice a year after four to seven months’ gestation. One baby is typically born each time. The baby bats are weaned at around 15 days and gain permanent set of teeth at 40 days. By around 50 days the young bats can fly.

Pallas’s long-tongued

Roatan’s Pallas’s long-tongued bat (Glossophaga Soricina) has the fastest recorded metabolism of any mammal, comparable to that of a hummingbird. It processes half of its stored fat over the course of the day. Then replenishes its supplies by consuming nectar, pollen, flowers, fruits and insects.

Velvety Free-Tailed

Also known as Pallas’s mastiff bat (Molossus Molossus), this bat species forges across Roatan’s open areas and above tree canopies. It is most commonly seen at dusk, where it will fly solo hunting moths, beetles and flying ants. It is four inches long and has a wingspan of 13 inches.

Greater sac-winged

The greater sac-winged bat (Saccopteryx Bilineata) is common to rain forests of Central America and makes Roatan its home as well. It roosts under large trees and under buildings. The sac-winged bat hunts flies, moths and beetles using echolocation. The males store urine in its wing sacks and shake it to mark the territory belonging to its harem.

SEA MAMMALS

Dolphins

The common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops Truncatus) is a frequent visitor to waters of the Bay Islands. “There are plenty of them here,” said Mr. Truman. “At any [reef] channel boat they would be running, [dolphins would be] chasing in front of her.”

There is also a permanent bottlenose dolphin population at Anthony’s Key Resort off Sandy Bay’s Bailey’s Key. AKR has been keeping and showing dolphins since 1989. These trained dolphins perform acrobatics and exhibit their skills to tourists jumping as high as 20 feet into the air.

The common bottlenose dolphin can live for over 40 years, and females of the species live even longer – around 60 years. The bottlenose dolphin’s weight range form from 330 to 1,400 pounds and the largest specimens can reach 13 feet in length.

These highly intelligent animals don’t only perform for tourists. They have been known to exhibit an extraordinary rescue behavior to humans in need. Common bottlenose dolphin can also cooperate with humans in driving fish into fishermen’s nets. Both US and Russian military train bottlenose dolphins for military tasks such as locating mines and detecting enemy divers.

Orcas

Orca (Orcinus Orca) is an apex predator sometimes found in waters around Roatan. This whale has a distinctive black and white body so large that some islanders have confused it with a submarine at a first glance. The old islanders call orcas “Black fish.” Edison Brown from French Harbour recalls seeing one, single orca in 1980s on a passage between Barbarat and Bonacca. A fellow ship crew member mistook the giant sea mammal for a submarine.

Orcas have a diverse diet and in waters around Bay Islands they pray on fish and likely on bottlenose dolphins. “It looked like a dory turned bottom up,” says Mr. Truman Jones remembering seeing an orca in early 2000s.

Orcas have been spotted off Roatan as recently as July 2022. A pod of four Orcas were spotted. The four orcas were swimming underneath the dive boat and surfacing within half a mile from the island.

Manatees

West Indian manatees, lived on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, it is one of three types of manatees found around the globe. The West Indian manatee has a low metabolic rate and cannot survive in cold water. The mammal moves easily between fresh and saltwater.

These gentle underwater giants can swim at speeds of up to 20 miles an hour for short distances. They are very smart animals capable of task learning just as easily as dolphins, or orcas. The manatees give birth to one calf once every two years. The young gill takes a year to a year-and-a-half before it is weaned.

The manatees are herbivores feeding on both freshwater and saltwater plants. Sea grass and turtle grass. They graze seven hours a day and they consume as much as 120 pounds of nutrients or 15% of their weight a day. They scoop the plants they find with their flippers and then use their lips to move them into their mouth.

Guanaja and Utila are known to have had a bigger population of manatees. “They would get washed out in the rain from Ulua river by Aguan and brought by current to Bonacca,” said Mr. Truman. “The Bonacca guys would kill them and sell the meat. The manatee meat is a delicacy, and one manatee could provide 1,000 pounds of nourishment. The meat has three different colors: very red, light red and almost a color of my skin,” says Mr. Truman. “The old people used to say it had pork, cow and fish.”

In Jonesville, manatees could still be seen in the 1940s. Boats travelling at night had to take care as not to flip over if they ware to hit the large mammal feeding. While the Manatees have not been seen in Roatan waters for the last 80 years, the manatees are migrating creatures and they have recently been seen in waters around Utila. Utopia’s Utopia Village underwater camera has caught glimpses of a manatee a couple years back.

Manatees feed on sea grass that grows at shallow depths all around Roatan. The two main seagrass pastures off Roatan are the Tortoise Grass (Thalassia Testudinum) and Manatee Pastures (Syringodium Filiforme). The Indian Manatee can be found in lagoons and near mangroves. With sandy and muddy bottoms Roatan has the perfect environment for manatees and likely they will one day return to the island.

IMPORTED

Wild Boar

The wild boar (Sus Scrofa), also known as the wild swine comes from Euroasia and North Africa. It was introduced to the Americas by Europeans. “In 1836-1840 my people came to Jonesville, and they came through the mangroves,” says Mr. Truman. “There was so much wild hog out there they had to keep fire in the night to keep them away so they could rest.”

Wild hogs are aggressive, and a powerful rifle had to be used to take one down. His father, Archie Jones, used 30/30 rifle and later a 12 gage shotgun to hunt the wild swine. “He could put a 20 penny nail in this tree,” says Mr. Truman pointing to an enormous mango tree on his property in Brick Bay.

Mr. Truman remembers that there were still a few wild boars around in Port Royal when he was a small boy in 1950s. Eventually they were finally hunted down completely. “The farmers had to kill them because they were destroying the fields,” says Mr. Truman.

Cats

The cat (Felis Catus) had come with the settlers to Roatan from the Cayman Islands. Feral, but castrated Cats can be found in several places on the island. At Parrot Tree Plantation they are taken care of by homeowners who bring daily food and water to the animals.

Horses

Spanish horses (E. caballus) were first introduced to the Caribbean islands in 1493. On the continent, in Mexico, the first horses were brought in 1519 by Hernán Cortés. The man who introduced horses to Honduras was Cristobal de Olid who came to this part of Central America in 1523.

Olid came with around 400 soldiers and colonists to establish a proper colony. He landed on the coast and founded Honduras’ first settlement of Tela, then called Triunfo de la Cruz.

A year later Hernán Cortés came to Honduras to challenge Olid’s ambitions of cessation in Honduras. When Cortés began unloading his horses several horses drowned and thus the spot was given the name of Puerto Caballos later renamed Puerto Cortés.

The Cayman Island settlers to Roatan needed horses capable of work in a tropical climate. By accounts of old islanders, the first horses were shipped to Roatan from the Honduran mainland in 1830 or 1840s.

Donkeys

Donkeys (Equus Africanus Asinus) came to the New World with Christopher Columbus in 1495. The Spanish used donkeys to breed with horses to produce a bigger animal- the mule. Roatan donkeys trace its roots to Cayman Islanders who brought some from the Honduran Mainland.

Mules

The Mules presence in the American mainland date back to 1521. Mules, equine hybrid between a donkey and a horse, were bred for work with males preferred for pack animals and the females preferred for riding. In Honduras the silver mining industry and banana companies used mules extensively.

Probably some of the first mules arriving on Roatan got here in late XIX century. SS Snyg was a cargo boat that carried mules from Cuba to Punta Castilla. It crashed and sunk in a storm on a reef off Crawfish Rock in August of 1899. “She was coming from Cuba to Castilla. These mules had to jump and come onshore,” says Mr. Truman about a steamship that sunk off Crawfish Rock.

The mules were saved and most of them were transported on other, smaller boats to Punta Castilla. However, a few mules stayed behind on Roatan and worked on island farms.

Between 1940 and 1960 a fungus pathogen (Fusarium Oxysporum f. sp. Cubense) commonly called Panama disease devastated the Gros Michel banana plantations on the Honduran coast. Initially Roatan and Utila were isolated by distance and free of the Panama disease. Some blamed a load of mules transported from the coast to the island for bringing the disease from the Honduran coast. “The locals said that the company [Standard Fruit] did it intentionally to kill the bananas over here,” said Mr. Truman. Utila and Roatan were the places where the banana industry began in Honduras.

Cattle

Cattle (Bos Taurus) were imported from the Honduran mainland and provided meat, and sometimes milk for communities throughout Roatan. “I used to milk ten cows every morning. My pay was – one gallon of milk for 50 cents.”

Over time people would bring different cattle breeds to the island. Brahman breed, Texas longhorn, etc. Sidney Griffith, known as Uncle Sid, brought in white faced Hereford cows from Tampa to the island in 1955. “He brought two heifers and a bull,” says Mr. Truman.

The mix of different breeds created a Roatan breed that is recognized locally as “an island cow.” “The meat today is as good as it was originally from the island cow,” says Mr. Truman.

Pigs

Most likely the domesticated pig (Sus Domesticus), or hog was brought to the island by Cayman Island settlers in early 1800s. The pig is considered a subspecies of Sus Scrotfa, the Eurasian boar. The adult pig can weigh from 100 to 800 Lbs. depending on breeding and feeding techniques used.

People would keep pig pens over the French Harbour canal. Some Punta Gorda people would build hog pens right over the salt water. Kitchen scraps and hog coconuts were used as feed for the pigs. “It was not good to export, it was not good to sell,” says about the hog coconut Mr. Truman. The hog coconut was perfect source of feed for the pigs.

Goats

Domestic goat (Capra Hircus) was brought to North America from Europe and on Roatan it most likely was brought from the Honduras mainland. Many Jamaican workers who came to work on banana plantations in early XX century Honduras raised goats. “Anyone from Jamaica loves goat meat,” explains Mr. Truman.

A few Jamaicans came to Roatan via banana companies on the Honduran mainland. “My daddy had plenty of goats,” remembers Edison Brown, whose ancestors came from Jamaica and settled in French Harbour. “We used to drink goat milk.” The goats would not only eat just about anything, but they are also kept for their milk, meat and skins.

Sheep

Roatan is home to several breeds of sheep (Ovis Aries). One of the more popular breeds here is Cubano Rojo also known as Pelibuey sheep. The breed is the larger sheep breed sometimes found grazing on farms throughout Roatan. Pelibüey are raised for meat,

Because it sports a coat of hair, not wool. It shares its roots to West African Dwarf sheep and Barbados Black Belly and Roja Africana of Venezuela. Cubano Rojo easily adapts to tropical environments.

THE INVASIVE

Rats

Americas were rat free before the arrival of the explorer era. The black rat or ship rat (Rattus Rattus) came to the continent 500 years ago as a stowaway and is considered one of world’s worse invasive species. His cousin, the brown rat (Rattus Norvegicus) has also conquered the Americas.

Sailors used to place plywood or metal rat guards on the lines attaching boats to the posts. The rats would run up the line towards the boat but had to turn around when they reached that barrier. Rats are a nuisance pest on the island, but their impact has been limited as the agriculture sector remained on small scale.

Mice

While pre Columbian North America had over 70 native species of rodents, that number did not include the common house mouse (Mus Musculus). The house mouse must have arrived on Roatan with the first explorers. The mouse came aboard ships coming from Europe and found its way to all but the smallest and least inhabited islands in the Caribbean.

While there are islands in the Bay Islands archipelago that are probably mouse free, they are not many. Morat is the one candidate of being an island free of the Mus Musculus.

Tepezcuintle

The recent arrival to Roatan is Tepezcuintle. While Tepezcuintle is the common name for this mammal in Honduras, this lowland paca (Cuniculus Paca) goes by many names. Can be found from Mexico to Argentina and has made its way to Cuba. “The Spanish population brought them here in the last 30-40 years,” says Mr. Truman. The Tepezcuintle can be spotted on the east of the island near Camp Bay and Diamond Rock as far west as Brick Bay.

Tepezcuintles feed on low growing and fallen fruits and are known for their tasty meat. They also feed on leaves, flowers, mushrooms and insects. Unlike agoutis they can use fat to store energy. They do compete with native agoutis for the same resources.

Armadillos

Another invasive species now commonly found all over Roatan is the nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus Novemcinctus). Also known as common long-nosed armadillo, it is the most commonly found armadillo.

These armadillos are nocturnal and mostly solitary. They love foraging and feeding on ants, termites and small bugs. They use their scent glands located on their feet, nose and eyelids to mark their territory. A single armadillo maintains as many as a dozen 25 foot deep borrows. They can be occasionally seen sniffing air for signs of danger.

Opossum

The black-eared opossum, or common opossum (Didelphis Marsupialis) is yet another foreign arrival on the island. This marsupial is able to feed on a variety of diets: from insects, earthworms, snakes, birds, small mammals, to fruits, vegetables and even carrion. It is an opportunistic animal and because of its versatility and lack of natural predators on Roatan it has made the opossum very destructive. It can digest almost anything that is eatable, thus it has put itself at a conflict with agoutis, black iguanas and even bird species.

Roatan’s Aquifer and Reef are at Risk from the Mismanaged Garbage Dump

The most impressive recycling operation on Roatan has not been set up by the local or central government, or by the nonprofit organization. The island’s biggest recycling operation is done seven days a week, 365 days a year, by around 120 people who work on and often live on the Roatan garbage dump. They separate and salvage metals, plastics and glass; they retrieve usable lumber, find old refrigerators and pass them on to recycling centers in Coxen Hole.

Their dignified, important work goes unnoticed and thankless. They also find themselves earning a living in the most toxic and dangerous environment on Roatan - the “temporary” Roatan Municipal garbage dump.

Maribel has sad eyes of a woman twice her age and her hands are wrinkled and covered with scars. She works without gloves so pieces of glass and metal often cut the skin of her small hands. It is late Sunday afternoon. She places bottles and containers of value into a four foot long transparent plastic bag.

The bag contains about thirty pieces of dirty, used, discardable containers most people see no value in. There are aluminum cans worth 80 Honduran centavos each, there are heavy plastic containers worth two Lempiras each and one glass coca cola bottle worth another two Lempiras.

If Maribel works hard and is lucky, she is able to buy milk for her two-year-old baby that lives with her and her parents, a hundred yards east of the garbage dump. If it is a bad day she might not even earn one hundred Lempiras.

There is an unwritten agreement that each recycler not take away, from a pile already collected. The Municipal dump is dotted with piles of old metal roofs, stacks of wooden pallets, bags of aluminum cans and heaps of rusting refrigerators and dishwashers. Nobody touches these piles but its rightful recycler and now owner. Honor system and gentlemen rules are a big part of recycling life in Mud Hole, Roatan.

Roatan Municipality employs three security guards at the garbage dump. Abiel Navarro has been a security man at the dump for seven years and makes sure nothing happens to the one key piece of equipment that moves trash and flattens the heap of trash. Navarro lives in a makeshift structure on the garbage dump itself. There are a dozen improvised mini houses on the site of the dump where people eat and sleep.

Despite the work of many devoted municipal employees the simple truth is that the local government is not competent enough to manage basic infrastructure projects. Roatan municipal government broke the desalination plant in Coxen Hole, but its biggest fiasco is the garbage dump that it has been mismanaging for two decades.

Its limits fall in the maintenance of fairly complex entities such as desalination plants, garbage dump or black water projects. Since 2013 the Municipality has run the desalination plant that has been sitting vacant ever since, perpetually waiting for some filters replacements.

It all started with a million dollars and high expectations. Back in 2000, the idea was to have one, centrally located garbage dump for the entire island. Construction and operating costs would be less; the two municipal governments could not come to an agreement where to locate such site.

The original Municipal dump had a lifespan of 10 years, but lasted 17 years without much maintenance, proper compacting and lack of proper layering of refuse. The original site of the 100 by 200 meter garbage dump in Mud Hole was opened in 2002. PMAIB (Proyecto Manejo Ambiental De Las Islas De La Bahía – Environmental Management Project of The Bay Islands) spent $850,000 to set up the site and another $600,000 to purchase garbage collection and management equipment: two garbage trucks, a compactor and a pusher.

Municipal dump is dotted with piles of old metal roofs, stacks of wooden pallets.

The equipment survived about a decade and the dump site survived 16 years. In 2018 after several outbreaks of fires and constant complaints of the public the PMAIB dump was finally covered up with a layer of dirt. This took place as Mayor Jerry Hynds took over the Municipality in 2018. The island’s refuse management problem was never solved, but only covered up and shifted to a new, adjacent site.

A new site for the growing municipality was needed and Roatan Electric Company (RECO) and Roatan Municipality worked together to secure land nearby the old dump. The site was just raw land devoid of trees yet it to serve as a “temporary” dumping site.

RECO purchased a six-acre property for around $250,000 and donated it to Roatan Municipality. In exchange RECO had promised to put a garbage incinerator on the site and use the capped dump site for a solar farm. Thus RECO has become a party to the Roatan garbage management fiasco.

Kelcy Warren, the American billionaire and owner of RECO, residing sometime on Barbareta, has focused a try-just-about-anything and see-if-it-works strategy for the power company. RECO has run its Wärtsilä generators on natural gas supplied from Warren’s US energy operation.

To the tune of $7 million it has recycled old and obsolete wind turbines for a wind farm and it built two solar plants that destroyed island forest and leveled hills. Warren, trying to add to his hodge-podge island eclectic empire, has been eyeing methane gas from Roatan’s mismanaged dump as another source of energy.

Unfortunately the municipal dump is a disaster that could happen before RECO gets control of the site. With each passing year, the probability of a catastrophic event increases. With the mismanagement of garbage and the proximity of the site to the sea and reef there is a danger of contaminating the island’s marine ecosystem.

Another catastrophic scenario, one of several, is where garbage is carried by water in a natural gulley, passes the mangroves and is carried by the rain water onto the reef of the entire Sandy Bay. This is unfortunately quite possible and would be a truly an ecological calamity.

Just a few months ago a large part of the gully has been interrupted with a mound of dirt mixed with trash. Now the “temporary” dump has a permanent leech pond with floating trash, plastics and rusting pieces of metal.

The volume of the garbage deposited at the dump is growing by 20 percent every year. “When I left we had 18 tons of garbage a day,” says Julio Galindo, ex Roatan Mayor and owner of AKR tourist resort, about the volume of garbage picked that the Roatan Municipal since 2017. “There are probably 40-50 tons [collected] a day now.”

Strong, dangerous chemicals, pollutants and plastics are sunk into the soil below the dump site. The engine of Roatan’s tourist industry – Sandy Bay, is just a hundred meters away, down current from the garbage dump. “Everything is there: car batteries, oils,” says Galindo. “The mangrove not enough to stop the runoff”

There is another, just as scary scenario where the island’s aquifer becomes contaminated by the refuse from the dump. For the past four years chemicals, oils and other contaminants leached into the soil below the “temporary” dump. These hazardous liquids and liquefied contaminants travel dozens of meters down through soil eventually reaching the aquifer used for drinking water across the island.

RECO has become a party to the Roatan garbage management fiasco.

At least the original PMAIB dump had retention walls and polyurethane liner. The “temporary” dump site has none of that. A clear sign of the toxicity of the dump is how, after just a few months, large trees that were left at the “temporary” garbage site had died. They couldn’t handle the pollutants, and toxic chemicals in the ground that slipped in and killed their root system.

There are signals of increased amount of refuse being found all over the island. Over the last several years trash in unprecedented quantities has been washing on to the reef in Palmetto and as far as Camp Bay. The tags from the food products place the origin of the trash as made in Honduras.

The problems with the Roatan garbage dump are not limited to what we could see, or to the solid waste itself. The old garbage site that has been on fire for years has likely not been stabilized and is another disaster waiting to happen. “The dump fire is probably still burning,” says Vernon Albert, a builder with experience in water and waste management from US who has been living and working on Roatan since 2005. “The 4 mm polyurethane heat-sealed liner is probably compromised due to the fire,” says Vernon.

The surface fire that had started on the PMAIB dump in 2013 was finally extinguished in 2018. Roatan Municipality had extinguished the surface fires by bringing in masses of dirt to cover the original dump that has not solved the problem of containing the fires that likely still smolder underneath the dirt cap.

But while the smoke has kept Roatanians preoccupied, the current covering up of the problem does not. The unsightly sight and foul smell is not only a nuisance, but they are also causing diseases and lowering property values in areas close to the dump.

Strong, dangerous chemicals, pollutants and plastics are sunk into the soil.

Galindo has more thoughts on Roatan Municipalities’ handling of the dump in Mud Hole. “The garbage dump is not temporary, it’s been four years now,” says Galindo. “I sold them [Roatan Municipality] 73 acres of land I regret selling them. They haven’t done anything with it,” says Julio Galindo, whose Anthony’s Key Resort is just two miles down from the current garbage dump.

The smell from the burning refuse site has been a headache for property owners and for tourists. The few trees that have been left at the site have died. Their roots were poisoned by the toxic seepage of the garbage: the battery chemicals, the industrial oils, Freon and rust.

There are other people very concerned with what environmental hazard and environmental disaster the dump has been. Nick Bach, of Roatan Marine park also thinks that some trash has been washed from the “temporary Roatan Municipal Dump. “The majority [of trash] comes from the colonias where there is inadequate trash removal and people just throw most of it on the streets, or in the creeks,” said Bach.

Some environmental voices have been critical of the looming environmental calamity. “This temporary dump is a disaster. It doesn’t have a containment wall, and practically has no maintenance,” said Joel Amaya. “There is one or two creeks that take the garbage to the sea, to the mangroves.”

Environmental group such as Bay Islands Conservation Association (BICA) on the other hand have placed the blame of the unfolding environmental disaster on bureaucratic hurdles. “The process of a technical landfill requires an environmental license, which requires the respective studies, which don’t happen overnight,” said Irma Brady, founder of BICA.

“The dump fire is probably still burning.”

The reason why the garbage dump site has been mismanaged for over two decades is also a question of priorities. Roatan Municipality spent millions of dollars to fix national roads while leaving their “temporary” garbage dump with practically no attention. While Roatan Municipality under Jerry Hynds (2018-2022) has embarked on a campaign of building new roads and rebuilding national roads network on the island, the building of a new dump has been placed on the back burner. Also RECO has spent millions of dollars on new solar projects while the site of the temporary garbage dump is a chemical wasteland.

There are few things more important than air and water and earth that we plant our food crops in. The Roatan municipal garbage dump has been affecting all of these issues.

It is also the issue of legacy. Neither municipal government nor any person is entitled to endanger or squabble resources passed onto him by prior generations. Sadly, now islanders find themselves allowing the destruction of the very environment that raised them.

After 228 days of Restrictions Roatan Sees Drastic Drop in Covid-19 Patients

The local business community leaders are taking notice. “I think we are heading for herd immunity,” said Kenny McNab, owner of Bay Islands Petroleum (BIP) and Utila Dream. “Just about everyone in the office had it.” One person working in BIP, an older employee in his sixties, had to be hospitalized but was sent home after a brief stay.

By December the majority of us should have had the virus and should have the antibodies.

Samir Galindo, GM of Anthony’s Key Resort noticed a trend of fewer patients seeking help at the resort’s clinic that is open to the public. In Augusts and September, the AKR’s health clinic was averaging 100 patients a day. In October these averages dropped to around 30 patients. “By December the majority of us should have had the virus and should have the antibodies. We should have the herd immunity,” said Galindo.

Roatan’s main COVID-19 exam and treatment center in French Harbour has also seen a drastic drop in patients. “There are 10 patients at the French Harbor Covid center, while a month ago there were as many as 60,” said Steven Guillen, president of the Little Friends Foundation that maintains the French Harbour COVID-19 center.

It looks like herd immunity on the island could be reached much faster that in urban areas on the mainland where population has a variety of options where to get food and where to go for medical care. This good news is not reflected in the media reports, or government policies.

The controlled media’s reports of constant “jumps in cases” actually describe the Covid-19 virus’ natural progression towards extinguishing itself out in herd immunity. Any virus needs to constantly find new hosts to survive. When it has no more people to infect, the then it dies out.

Looks like herd immunity on the island could be reached much faster that in urban areas on the mainland.

The Honduran government has never even discussed the strategy of isolating the vulnerable to the virus and providing food and medicine delivery services to the elderly, and the sick. Unlike Sweden, South Dakota or Belorussia, Honduras has fallowed in the footsteps of countries that has shut down and isolated the healthy preventing them from going about their lives.

The Honduran government decree 58-2020 that mandates wearing masks for anyone over three years of age in groups of five people or more. While mask wearing law was supposed to “flatten the curve,” it never meant to stop the virus completely.

“Social distancing is counterproductive. If you mingle you get exposed to different diseases on a smaller scale. And you build up resistance,” says nurse Peggy Stranges, founder of Clinic Esperanza in Sandy Bay. Stranges echoes the many health professionals that are critical of the “shut down and mask” policies. These professional voices have been systematically censored and ridiculed by the controlled media.  “Masks don’t control viruses, they control you,” said Dr. Lee Merritt of the Frontline Doctors group that is fighting the controlled media narrative.

The Honduran government has never even discussed the strategy of isolating the vulnerable to the virus and providing food and medicine delivery services to the elderly, and the sick.

Bay Islanders are finally getting an accurate view of how deadly the virus was in their community. The government’s exaggerated and unreliable statistics reported that 38 Bay Islanders died of COVID-19 since March. Bay Islands department with over 130,000 people has an annual death rate of over 1,000 and 38 deaths fall within statistical margin of error.

The Honduran government has never conducted a cost benefit analysis of the possible death by COVID-19 versus death from the policy of lockdown, forced mask wearing and deferred medical treatment. As a consequence of the lockdown hundreds of Roatanians have decided to defer treatment of cancer, hypertension or diabetes out of fear of going to place where they come in contact with COVID-19. The repercussions of this government “miscalculation” will be felt for generations to come.

Tough Times among Uncertainty, Fear and Government Restrictions

Roatan’s tourism services and hotel sectors have been hit the hardest by the March shut down. While many hotels have fired most of their employees and shut down completely some have dug in and focused on renovations and expansion. Anthony’s Key Resort is building a new seafront restaurant for their future cruise ship guests and Meridian hotel in West Bay has focused on finishing construction of condominiums.

Edward and Laura Moulder, Meridian’s owners, take the lockdown as a time to do improvements, maintenance and construction. The Meridian is a hotel and condominium development that started in 2007. Meridian has dug into their rainy-day fund, but most of Roatan’s hotels don’t have that luxury. “I am shocked how few businesses have had reserves set up,” said Laura Moulder. “We are continuing to pay employees. We feel the island is going to get worse off if we don’t pay. (…) Important to maintain the impression that Roatan is safe and organized.”

Laura Moulder believes that the key for Roatan’s recovery lies in local businesses working together at presenting the island businesses join together and market Roatan as a safe place just like Cayman Islands or Belize have been doing. She feels that recovery from the shutdown will be different than after the 2008-2009 financial crisis and Micheletti political coup that caused the island economy to retract for over two years. “The turnaround should come quite quickly,” she says. “People have been putting their lives on hold. We will see a lot of urban money leaving.  A lot of urbanites will make that move.”

That is as long as these “urban refugees” have funds to do so. With over 40 million Americans who filed for unemployment over the US shut down policy, fewer and fewer have the money to invest or travel.

There is a noticeable capital flight as Americans are ready to sell their homes in urban areas and look for safety in rural areas and the Caribbean. Turks and Caicos are benefiting from a luxury home boom as North Americans look for safe place to live, seek refuge or telecommute. This Caribbean country has cut duty and planning fees and waiving duties on construction materials. If it plays its cards right Roatan could also be in line to benefit.

Before the economic turnaround many businesses will go broke. Businesses that didn’t have a rainy-day fund aren’t doing that well. Casa Marmol, a stone finish store, closed its store at the Megaplaza Mall alongside several other businesses there.

RAS Express, an air shipping company that has been doing business since 2001 has called it quits. Gil Garcia, RAS Express’ owner, had to let go of six of his eight employees in Coxen Hole. With the airport being closed he can’t provide shipping services his business is based on. “I blame both municipalities. For the longest time Roatan was clear [of COVID-19]. They should have helped people that were stuck on the mainland instead they just came here illegally,” says Garcia. “I gave up on central government a long time ago.”

Garcia is one of the few people not afraid to criticize the almost five month long, chaotic and indiscriminate government policy of locking down healthy people and business. The isolation, fear and confusion has produced a chilling effect on the island. Many are fearful to criticize the local government officials, central government, or police.

Other than shipping dozens of COVID-19 positive police officers to the island the central government has been doing little to help Roatan handle the shutdown crisis. For one, the title registry office has been open only for two days in May, and that’s it. There is no way to proceed if someone wanted to buy or sell a property.

The next financial crisis on Roatan might come from the looming foreclosures on thousands of loans on properties and vehicles.

Some businesses are getting creative in trying to pay their staff dependent on tourists. West End’s Sundowners Bar has eight local staff and its owners resorted to doing a raffle to pay some of the staff’s $4,000 monthly salaries.  “The island has been shut down for almost four months. No cruise ships, no flights, no tourists. (…) our local staff is hurting,” wrote on social media Aaron Etches about his iconic Roatan bar.

Some businesses are actually thriving. Island Shipping, cargo shipping between Roatan and the mainland, has taken over freight business that before the shutdown was handled by the Galaxy Wave ferry.

While Galaxy Wave had practically no business since mid-March but it has managed to update much of its on-land facilities and two of its ferries. “We took time to do the general maintenance. We painted the engine room, seats, we redid lifeboats, (…) we redid the sales counter,” said Jesus Reyes, Galaxy Wave manager, adding that the operations are aimed to return in mid-August. “We are quite ready to start operating. We are just waiting what the airlines and airport want to do.”

Some businesses have managed to opened new locations, or even expand their operations. Serrano Industrial hardware store opened a long planed second location in Coxen Hole. CARNIAGRO, an agricultural supplies store, moved to a new, bigger location in French Harbour. “Now we are selling many seeds and plant products,” said Greg Norman, owner of CARNIAGRO.

While hardware stores and agricultural supplies stores are not as dependent on tourism and keep the island economy afloat, they are struggling as well. “We are doing half the sales we did in January,” said Oscar Oseguera, Madeyso’s General Sales Manager who moved to Roatan form La Ceiba several weeks ago to help run the two Madeyso stores on Roatan.

The next financial crisis on Roatan might come from the looming foreclosures on thousands of loans on properties and vehicles. While Honduras Central government have imposed a moratorium on banks not to require payments from debtors for three months that expired in mid-June. On July 1 many struggled to renegotiate terms with their Honduran lending institutions.

Banco Atlántida, Honduras’ biggest lender, owns a big stake in Roatan’s defaulted properties. “[Banco] Atlántida is not very forgiving under normal circumstances,” said Laura Moulder. For over 20 years Banco Atlántida has amassed hundreds of acres of Roatan land and properties and it is likely to take over more properties in the months to come.

Diver inspects the corral tree in Sandy Bay Area (Photo by Jennifer Keck).

Island Divers Plant Underwater Trees to Give Coral a Chance

Thankfully there are a group of passionate environmental scientists leading the charge to preserve, protect and defend the coral reefs of the Bay Islands. As Tripp Funderburk, who runs the coral restoration program at Subway Watersports in Turquoise Bay explains, “we had the worst bleaching event in the history of Roatan last year.” Jennifer Keck, who works as the Education and Research Coordinator for the Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences (RIMS) at Anthony’s Key Resort in Sandy Bay says, “we can’t afford to have another bleaching event.”

Coral Restoration initiatives are a planned scientific response that, as Executive Director of the Roatan Marine Park, Francis Lean says, “give hope to the reef.” Both of the restoration programs in Turquoise Bay and Sandy Bay use the same coral trees, the same record keeping and naming conventions so they can work together and collaborate in the future.

A piece of staghorn coral used in the restoration program. (Photo by Jennifer Keck).

The coral restoration programs on Roatan revolve around coral tree nurseries. The nurseries are composed of big, 30 foot tall PVC pipes. Like an underwater Christmas tree fragments of two critically endangered species coral, staghorn and elkhorn, hang from thin filaments of wire attached to the thicker PVC branches. To harvest these fragments, they take 10% of viable, healthy specimens of staghorn and elkhorn coral, cut them into little pieces and try to preserve as much of the genetic diversity of these keystone species as possible.

Funderburk, who previously worked as policy director in for the Coral Restoration Foundation setting up restoration programs across the Caribbean says “I am convinced these are important corals. We can grow them and plant them and we can get better at it. I’ve seen it work in Bonaire, Curacao, Mustique and in the Florida Keys.”

Starting in early 2016, the Bay Islands Reef Restoration program installed ten coral trees in Turquoise Bay and another ten in Mahogany Bay. Once the fragments of coral have sufficiently grown, they are planted back onto the reef, tagged, and monitored at regular intervals. Since January, the program in Turquoise Bay has out-planted more than 260 corals onto the reef with a success rate of more than 92%. Funderburk says that the program relies on volunteers, using an “ecotourism” model that doesn’t depend on “government grants or charity,” but provides their guests with “unique opportunities to learn about coral.”

Tripp Funderburk talking to a group of students at Turquoise Bay Resort. (Photo by Robert Herb).

Renee Setter, who recently completed her PADI Dive Master internship at Turquoise Bay, explains what makes working on the restoration program so special, saying, “ it’s such a unique and fulfilling experience to be able to give back to the reef. It makes divers feel satisfied and rewarded knowing that they gave back to the beautiful underwater world.”

Keck, who oversees a coral restoration program with 24 coral trees with more than 2,000 corals on them agrees that, “the whole idea of citizen science is just growing. People want to be more useful. There has been so much interest among recreational divers.”

While the programs in Sandy Bay and Turquoise Bay have been successful, the ultimate goal as Keck understands it is to “get the techniques down so we can start another nursery in the West End/West Bay area that the Marine Park will manage that would allow local dive shops to get involved and engage the community and make everyone feel like they are contributing.”

Lean agrees that cooperation is critical, saying “communication between all projects is essential to improve the effectiveness of coral restoration.”

While these coral restoration programs are not a fix for the rising temperatures and acidity in the ocean, they do help point the way forward towards a better future. Funderburk stresses that we need to “do as much smart conservation as we can on a local level” with programs that are “effective but also educational.”

Keck also ultimately sounds a positive note, saying that, “We might not have the answer today, but we might next month. We have a seed bank in Norway. We need a coral bank and that’s sort of what these nurseries are becoming.”