ON TV Explorer: Inside Guantanamo airs Wednesday, April 8, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel. Details >>

April 3, 2009--Detainees may be leaving the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, but a host of exotic inhabitants—giant snakes, "banana rats," nesting sea turtles—are there to stay, protected by the same razor-wire fences that keep "enemy combatants" in.

Best known for its controversial role in the U.S. "war on terror," the site of the military prison known as Gitmo, seen above in a November 2008 file photo, is also an important refuge for wildlife pressured by Cuba's tough economic conditions, ecologists say.

"There are laws that protect [animals] on paper, but in general there is not a lot of enforcement" outside Guantanamo, said the Toledo Zoo's Peter Tolson. "People are eating Cuban boas and they are eating rock iguanas."

Inside the fences, conservation efforts and unique geography have combined to protect these and other rare species, which routinely reach great size and numbers. (Read the full story.)

—Brian Handwerk

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