Necker - more species than any other island on earth
- Dec 09, 2011
I do believe we may have more species on our 72 acre island than any other island in the world. There are a minimum of 140 species on Necker Island, not counting the visiting sea turtles and incredible sealife surrounding the island.
We've been collecting photos of them all and want to share some of the beautiful creatures with you, from lemurs to soldier crabs, flamingos to iguanas.
There's no place to start except with our very own tortoise, ET. He is a Red-Footed Tortoise and was a real feature of the main house during breakfast times. He miraculously survived the fire although he now has terribly scarred feet, clearly a sign that he was caught in the flames to some extent. Red Footed Tortoises, like much of our wildlife, were almost driven to extinction in the Virgin Islands due to human consumption.
Thanks to Clive Petrovic, a resident BVI Biologist, we were given a couple of the remaining specimens from the Botanical Gardens on Tortola in the early 90s and Necker has since proven to be the perfect sanctuary boasting a very healthy population, even since the fire.
We'll try to post a new animal photo from Necker every week, so come back for some more animal magic.
Photo by Charlie Smith
