Shipstern Nature Reserve is located in the north-eastern corner of Belize, covers an area of more than 11�000 hectares (ca. 27�000 acres), protecting a wide array of habitats, ranging from saline wetlands and lagoons to Yucatan tropical moist and dry forests. Shipstern Nature Reserve is home to all five cat species of Belize, the endangered Baird�s Tapir and a myriad of other plant and animal species, some of them very rare, and almost 300 species of birds.