Critically EndangeredGrooved Brain Coral
Diploria labyrinthiformis
North America
Grenada is a volcanic island in the Lesser Antilles whose mountainous interior keeps rainforest around Grand Etang, a lake that occupies the crater of an extinct volcano and that is surrounded by jungle with tree ferns and mountain palms. The island is known as the "Isle of Spice" for its nutmeg and cinnamon plantations, set within an agroforestry landscape that keeps its tree cover. On the north coast, the Levera area combines mangrove, lagoon and beaches where leatherback turtles nest. The waters of the west hold reefs that suffered severe damage from hurricanes and where the creation of artificial substrates to divert diving pressure has been successfully trialled.
National animal: The Grenada dove, the endemic national bird, critically endangered
In Molinere Bay the world's first underwater sculpture park was installed in 2006, with concrete figures set on a sandy bottom a few metres down. Over the years the sculptures have become covered in corals, sponges and algae and have turned into an artificial reef inhabited by fish, as well as drawing divers away from the natural reefs damaged by the hurricanes.
The Grenada dove, with fewer than two hundred birds left, depends on a few fragments of dry forest in the southwest threatened by tourism developments. Hurricanes Ivan and Emily, in 2004 and 2005, flattened much of the island's forest, which is still recovering.
Grand Etang at dawn for forest birds and monkeys. Molinere year-round for the artificial reef. Levera between April and July for leatherback turtle nesting.
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Same region: Central America and the Caribbean
Same region: Central America and the Caribbean
Same region: Central America and the Caribbean
Same region: Central America and the Caribbean
112 species found
Based on what we already know about Grenada.
