Simonière pond

Lake - Saint-François

Located in Bragelogne, in the commune of Saint-François, the Simonière pond is the largest on Grande Terre. It would have been excavated in the past by slaves. At the time, ponds were used to feed the mills where alcohol, treacle, and sugar were made. So there were very often ponds not far from the windmills. In the years 1950 to 1970, the inhabitants of the countryside had no running water, the pond was vital. It offered clear water and it was used for drinking, for cooking, for washing, for watering the plantations and of course to give animals water. Characteristics of the limestone island of Grande Terre, the ponds are a refuge for a variety of fauna. You can observe aquatic turtles, buffalo toads, tilapia, fish whose arrival has unfortunately affected water quality, dragonflies, whose larvae spend up to five years of their existence in an aquatic environment, feeding mainly on mosquito larvae, but also many bird species such as water hens, a protected species in Guadeloupe, green herons, fairly common nesting birds in Guadeloupe, snowy egrets or white kiosks, generally nesting species in a mixed colony with the common cattle heron, which arrived in the West Indies at the end of the 1950s, via Barbados following favorable winds. Finally, we can cite three less widespread species such as the routoutou, the variegated beaked grebe and the Caribbean coot (hen with white seal) or even other species of shorebirds (migratory birds nesting in North America and wintering or passing through the Antilles) for whom the ponds constitute a stopover or wintering area offering rest and food. Although many are abandoned, poorly maintained or even filled by the owners of land occupied by houses, the ponds remain more than ever an integral part of the landscape heritage, the history of the daily life of a people and the environmental balance of a region.