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| | The Baia dos Tigres is beautiful, isolated and unpopulated island in southwestern of Angola with hundreds of properties sinking into sand. Most of properties are Portuguese-style buildings previously used as residences and public services by a commercial fishing community that lived in the area until 1974. Baia dos Tigres is an amazing area, where huge sand dunes fall precipitously into the sea and where there are vast shallow lagoons that abound with bird and other marine life, but it is currently a ghost town. |
The inhabitants abandoned the Island in 1974 to escape from strong wind, lack of drinking water and transportation difficulties to mainland.
In terms of fishing the Island is very rich. There are fish weighing over 200 kg (including sharks and rays) and lots of kob, ranging in size from 3 to 50 kilograms.
The Ilha dos Tigres is the only sandy island off the coast of the 2000 km-long Namib Desert, and it remains the least known coastal wetland on a desert coast rich in shorebirds.
Two surveys of the Baia dos Tigres region in 1999 and 2001 indicated a rich wetland bird diversity consisting of 25 species, with a total of 11000 birds, at a density of 33 birds per square kilometer.
There are also established breeding grounds for several species of seabirds, with northward range extensions. The region supports the regionally threatened Red Data birds, and several threatened marine turtles as well at the Cunene River mouth, near Ilha dos Tigres. According to environmental experts, the Tigers' Bay should become, in a near future, an integral part of the Iona National Park on the adjacent mainland.
