Lake Enriquillo, Dominican Repbublic Photograph by Steve Cornelius   Caribbean: Island of Hispaniola Flooded Grasslands and Savannas   200 square miles (600 square kilometers) -- about four times the size of Washington DC Vulnerable

· Jewel from the Sea
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Jewel from the Sea

Known as one of the natural wonders of the West Indies, this wetland ecoregion occurs in and around Lake Enriquillo in the Dominican Republic and Lake Etang Saumatre in Haiti. Since the last ice age, sea levels have fallen and exposed the land that used to be a channel separating Haiti from the Dominican Republic. Pieces of coral and seashell provide evidence of its prior submergence under the sea.

Special Features

Lake Enriquillo is 34 miles (89 km) long and 5 miles (13 km) wide. It is extremely high in salinity, with a salt concentration of 40 to 90 parts per million. Very little vegetation can live at such high salt levels, with the exception of green algae. Fed by seasonal streams and numerous wetlands, the lake is surrounded by high mountain ranges and dry forest habitats. On higher ground, areas with lower salt concentrations form the edges of the wetlands. Here, mesquite and a dense shrub layer occur, though they are partially submerged during the rainy season.

	The endemic palmchat, an olive-backed bird with a brown-speckled white underbelly, communally builds and shares a large nest in a palm or conifer tree with up to 30 other breeding pairs. The nest may be more than 3 feet (1 m) in diameter and 10 feet (3 m) high.

Wild Side

In the summertime this area supports large flocks of magnificent, salmon-red greater flamingoes, which comb the shorelines for brine shrimp and other crustaceans, mollusks, insects, and small fish. In the winter, many other migrating birds inhabit the wetlands. These include willets, lesser yellowlegs, killdeer, semi-palmated sandpipers, great blue herons, snowy egrets, and royal and caspian terns. Greater Antillian grackles sit high atop palm fronds, calling to each other in a raucous chorus. A Ridgeway’s hawk occasionally searches for small prey while flying high over the lakes. Antillian palm swifts also frequent the area, swooping by in search of flying insects. The Enriquillo Wetlands ecoregion is also home to the unique and endemic palmchat, a bird in the waxwing family. Along the salty shore, crocodiles sun themselves, as two endemic species of iguanas look down from nearby branches.

Cause for Concern

Invasive species have caused problems for the biodiversity of this ecoregion. For example, the non-native African perch has displaced almost all native fish species and has become the most common fish in the ecoregion. The overhunting of prey species by humans presents a problem for large predators such as crocodiles.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.