After 69 years, Ardastra Gardens & Zoo in Nassau, Bahamas is still "striving for the stars"
WELCOME BAHAMAS NASSAU - 2005 EDITION
When Jamaican horticulturist Hedley Edwards imported Caribbean flamingos from Inagua to Nassau back in the 1950s, he wanted to add a little colour to the main attractions – the flowers, trees and shrubs – in his beloved garden.
It was earlier, in 1937, that Edwards first opened up his 51⁄2-acre collection to the public. He called it Ardastra, from Latin words translated as "striving towards the stars." The flora, which are still on display 69 years later, include lignum vitae (tree of life), the national tree of The Bahamas, huge banyans, yellow elders (the national flower) and a large assortment of shrubs and plants from around the planet, along with seasonal displays of bougainvillaea and hibiscus flowers.
Beautiful as they are, the horticultural assets now take second place to the fauna and especially the avifauna – brightly coloured birds – that draw thousands of locals and tourists to the gardens every year. There are parrots of many kinds, including a flock of brilliant red, green, yellow and blue lory parrots that will happily peck away at hand-held slices of apple.
A zoo is born in The Bahamas The shift from garden to zoo occurred after Norman Solomon, a prominent Nassau businessman, purchased the gardens in 1982, determined to create something special. The animal collection, developed over many years, is now regarded as one of the finest and most diverse collections in a zoological park of its size anywhere. It includes, for example, the world’s single largest collection of Bahamian land animals, as well as jaguars, free-roaming peacocks, monkeys, caracals, coatimundis, ocelots and even a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig named Lulubelle that has free run of the beautifully maintained walks. Many of the birds and animals are named, including Salvadore the macaw, Toby the cockatoo, Simba the caracal and Coco the coatimundi.
Now named Ardastra Gardens, Zoo & Conservation Centre, the facility has a strong commitment to preserving endangered species. In fact a portion of every entry fee into the zoo goes to this purpose, especially toward education and breeding programmes.
These include efforts to rejuvenate severely endangered Bahamian species such as indigenous rock iguanas, boa constrictors and Bahama parrots. The zoo now has seven of these delightful little birds, including three chicks hatched and hand-reared at Ardastra.
Spectacular achievement The main attraction among the 300 species on display, however, are two flocks of pink flamingos, about 60 birds in all. One of the flocks is world famous as Ardastra’s marching flamingos. They put on three shows a day, marching to the commands of a trainer-drill sergeant, turning this way and that – a flurry of long necks, prehistoric-looking black beaks and improbable spindly legs that can make a dominant male rise up to a height of five feet and more. Responding to commands to "parade," "muster" and "about turn," they pirouette around their arena like ungainly "ballerinas in pink" as the writer of an article in National Geographic once described them.
Ardastra is famous for another reason. It is one of few zoos that can boast a flamingo breeding programme that is one of the most successful in the world. Zoologist Robin Howard, who arrived in The Bahamas in October 2000, has presided over the hatching of seven flamingo chicks from a breeding stock of 38 – a remarkable achievement in less than five years.
Howard, with degrees in ecology and organismal biology from Arizona State University, says Ardastra "made a lot of changes" to produce the first two chicks in 2001. "It’s necessary for females to be able to form the eggs inside and to nurse the young so we improved their diet and changed the way we fed them," she explains. "We offered more feeding stations… and we dredged their pond because they needed deeper water to breed. All these changes helped give them the things they needed to lay fertile eggs."
Tucked away at the end of a short street off Chippingham Street near Fort Charlotte, Ardastra Gardens, Zoo and Conservation Centre is a tranquil refuge where one can marvel at the diversity of wildlife on planet Earth and reflect on the timeless beauty of tropical nature.
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