{{Short description|Saline body of water in Saint Kitts and Nevis}} {{for|other places with a similar name|Great Salt Pond (disambiguation)}} thumb|Map of Saint Kitts and Nevis showing the location of the Great Salt Pond thumb|The Great Salt Pond The '''Great Salt Pond''' is a 180-hectare (400-acre)<ref name="Landscapes"/> saline body of water in Saint Kitts and Nevis. It's located on the Southeast Peninsula of Saint Kitts, and is by Little Salt Pond to the west. Great Salt Pond and its surroundings have been designated as an Important Bird Area.
==Geography== The Great Salt Pond is located on Saint Kitts island, near the point of the Southeast Peninsula and to the north of The Narrows isthmus.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HOKTJkg6ApoC |title=The World Factbook |date=2008 |publisher=Central Intelligence Agency |pages=491 |language=en}}</ref> There are many saline lakes on the Southeast Peninsula, with the Great Salt Pond being the largest of them, and the largest lake in all of Saint Kitts and Nevis; however, it has been connected with Little Salt Pond, to the west, which in turn has been connected to the Caribbean Sea, turning the lake into a bay.<ref name="Landscapes">{{cite book |last=Robertson |first=Richard Edward Arnold |title=Landscapes and Landforms of the Lesser Antilles |chapter=St. Kitts and Nevis |publisher=Springer International Publishing |publication-place=Cham |date=2017 |isbn=978-3-319-55785-4 |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-55787-8_7 |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-319-55787-8_7 |access-date=15 May 2026}}</ref><ref name="BirdLife"/><ref name="Birds"/>
==Ecology== The area that the Great Salt Pond is located in has dry shrubbery consisting mainly of succulents, and in addition to this it has patches of mangroves growing nearby.<ref>{{Cite report |title=A Biodiversity Profile of St. Kitts and Nevis |date=1 November 1999|url=http://www.globalislands.net/userfiles/nevis_2.pdf |last=Horwith |first=Bruce |access-date=15 May 2026 |last2=Lindsay |first2=Kevel |editor-last=Towle |editor-first=Judith |editor-last2=Potter |editor-first2=Bruce |publisher=Island Resources Foundation}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |title=Status of breeding Wilson’s Plovers (Charadrius wilsonia) on St. Kitts, West Indies |journal=Journal of Caribbean Ornithology |last=Brown |first=Adam C. |url=https://jco.birdscaribbean.org/index.php/jco/article/view/34 |volume=26 |last2=Snyder III |first2=Theodore A. |year=2013 |page=40 |doi=10.55431/jco.2013.26.22-25 |access-date=16 May 2026|doi-access=free }}</ref> Great Salt Pond and its surroundings are an Important Bird Area,<ref name="BirdLife">{{Cite book |title=Important bird areas Americas—priority sites for biodiversity conservation |contributor-last1=Collier |contributor-first1=Natalia |author=BirdLife International |year=2009 |isbn=9789942995902 |location=Quito |contributor-last2=Brown |contributor-first2=Adam |editor-last=Devenish |editor-first=Christian |series=BirdLife Conservation Series No. 16 |page=274 |contribution=St. Kitts and Nevis |access-date=15 May 2026 |editor-last2=Díaz Fernández |editor-first2=David F. |editor-last3=Clay |editor-first3=Rob P. |editor-last4=Davidson |editor-first4=Ian J. |editor-last5=Yépez Zabala |editor-first5=Ítala |contribution-url=https://epicislands.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Important-Bird-Areas-in-St.-Kitts-and-Nevis.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260515111251/https://epicislands.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Important-Bird-Areas-in-St.-Kitts-and-Nevis.pdf |archive-date=15 May 2026 |url-status=live}}</ref> being home to a variety of species, including common gallinules, ground doves and snipes, great blue and yellow-crowned night herons, snowy plovers and Wilson's plovers, greater and lesser yellowlegs, solitary, semipalmated, western, least and stilt sandpipers, black-necked stilts, long-billed dowitchers, yellow-billed cuckoos, northern waterthrushes, Antillean crested hummingbirds, Caribbean martins, willets, dunlins and bobolinks.<ref name="Birds">{{Cite journal |title=Birds of St. Kitts |journal=Caribbean Journal of Science |last=Steadman |first=David W. |url=https://research.fs.usda.gov/download/treesearch/61454.pdf |volume=33 |pages=1–20 |via=United States Forest Service |last2=Norton |first2=Robert L. |last3=Browning |first3=Ralph M. |last4=Arendt |first4=Wayne J. |year=1997}}</ref> The number of birds present during breeding seasons are subject to significant fluctuations.<ref name="BirdLife"/>
==See also== *{{C|Geography of Saint Kitts and Nevis}}
==References== {{Reflist}} {{coord|17|14|30|N|62|38|45|W|display=title|region:KN_type:waterbody_scale:75000_source:GNS-enwiki}}
Category:Bodies of water of Saint Kitts and Nevis Category:Saint Kitts (island) Category:Lakes of the Caribbean