Vieques, like many other islands around the world, has been plagued by non-native animals introduced for one reason or another. The human population is less than 10,000 and the horse population is around 3,000. Many of these horses are feral and some are perhaps simply let out to graze til their owners decide they need them. More people appeared to ride horses than bikes. Chickens are everywhere. Their incessant crowing woke me up at night. Dogs and cats are allowed to roam and most do not appeared to be neutered. I was disappointed with the lack of birds – both in numbers of birds and diversity of species. It may be a slow time with many having migrated away for the ‘winter’ season however I was told that there are never a lot of birds, certainly nothing like Florida. Even sea birds which would presumably not be affected by the introduced species on the island, were few and far between. Frogs, toads and lizards were everywhere. At night the frog sounds provided a white noise for sleeping. I named one frog the marimba frog due to its call that sounded like marimba notes. Another tiny frog says its name ‘coqui’. We saw one bright green iguana on the west end of the island. These were introduced for a reason that I don’t know.
My Everyday Photos 