The Most Beautiful View of the South East Peninsula

Saint Kitts is an Island Paradise, with beautiful sandy beaches.

Site description (baseline)
The southeast peninsula is composed of low hills, eight salt ponds, coastal cliffs, and beaches. It is approximately 15 kilometers long and a road runs its length. The peninsula widens towards the southeastern tip to approximately 4 kilometers wide, although the narrowest northern section is less than one kilometer wide. Tourism is concentrated in the northern section of the peninsula, which is dominated by resorts, a golf course, and restaurants. Similar developments are expected to expand southward. Ponds of importance to birds on the peninsula include Greatheeds Pond and beach, Half Moon, Friar's Bay, Great Salt, Major's Bay, Mosquito Bay, Little Salt, and Frigate Bay Ponds. The boundaries would be limited by an area thirty meters from the high water line of each pond.

Key biodiversity
Least Terns nest at three sites on the Southeast Peninsula. A survey in 2004 revealed that Mosquito Bay Pond has 20 Least Tern pairs, Great Salt Pond has 27 pairs, and Greatheeds Beach (which is just north of the peninsula) has 18 pairs. Although St. Kitts' population of 65 pairs meets the Important Bird Area requirements, there is no one site where concentrations are sufficient to classify as an IBA. Because Least Tern colonies have previously been recorded at other nearby sites, indicating possible movement between breeding sites, the entire Southeast Peninsula is proposed as an IBA. Further study is needed to determine the importance of these sites to migrant waterbirds. The Southeast Peninsula of Saint Kitts island is located in Saint Kitts and Nevis, in the Lesser Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean.

It stretches southeast from the country's capital, Basseterre, for ~14 kilometres to the waters of The Narrows, the strait which separates Saint Kitts island nearby Nevis island. It is connected to the rest of the island by an isthmus which, at its narrowest, is less than one kilometre wide.

Features
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Features of the peninsula include the Great Salt Pond, the country's largest lake, St. Anthony's Peak, Turtle Beach, and several bays (including Ballast Bay, Major's Bay, and Cockleshell Bay).

Until recently, this scrubby, low-lying peninsula, was less extensively developed than the rest of the island, being accessible mainly by boat. The construction of an all-weather road during the 1990s has led to some development, particularly around Turtle Beach.