National Geographic USA - 2022-April

FURTHER APRIL 2022
C O N T E N T S On the Cover
Expedition team member
Matthew Irving surveys a
view during the search for
new species in a secluded
biodiversity hot spot of
northwestern Guyana.
RENAN OZTURK
P R O O F E X P L O R E
15
THE BIG IDEA
A Way for Nature

to Rest in Peace
Designed for the living
and the dead: conser-
vation cemeteries.
BY X A N D E R P E T E R S
DECODER
Big-Wave Thrills
22
6
BREAKTHROUGHS
Off Nazaré, Portugal,
waves become giant Produce Sans
peaks, making this spot Plastic Labels
the Everest of surfing. Organic fruits and
BY E V E C O N A N T veggies now can
G R A P H I C BY D I A N A carry eco-friendly
M A RQ U E S markings.
BY H I C K S WO GA N
CLOSER LOOK
Where the
Abes Across America Walruses Sing
A photographer finds An isolated Alaska
that these Lincoln island attracts walruses
look-alikes have much and their “chimes.”
STO RY A N D P H OTO G R A P H S
in common, from black
BY AC AC I A J O H N S O N
suits and bow ties to
patriotism inspired by
ALSO ALSO
the 16th president.
P H OTO G R A P H S BY Is Your Sea Glass Real? “Seeing” With Closed Eyes
G R E TA P R AT T Better Hugs, Measured Lower-Carbon Food Tips
PHOTO: EOSTA/NATURE AND MORE (LIMES)

A P R I L | CONTENTS
F E AT U R E S Up the Mountain, The Weird Wonder All for a Song

to a World Apart of Seahorses Cuba’s obsession is
Why venture into a They’re captivating— fueling the illegal
remote part of Guyana and disappearing. trapping of songbirds.
with no roads and no BY JENNIFER S. HOLLAND BY DINA FINE MARON
guarantee of getting P H OTO G R A P H S BY DAV I D P H OTO G RA P H S BY
out? To identify new L I I T T S C H W A G E R . . . . . . P. 72 KARINE AIGNER
species, to uncover ..................................... P. 110
clues about evolution— Plastic Runs
and to climb a sheer- Through It The Water Behind Us
sided, flat-topped The Ganges River is In Ghana, a tradition
mountain known a sacred waterway of responsible fishing
locally as a tepui. in India. It’s also a key binds communities.
BY M A R K SY N N OT T conduit of waste. B Y N I I AY I K W E I P A R K E S
P H OTO G RA P H S BY BY L AU R A PA R K E R P H OTO G RA P H S BY
RENAN OZTURK P H OTO G RA P H S BY D E N I S DA I L L E UX
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P. 36 S A R A H Y LT O N . . . . . . . . P. 86 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P. 120
A P R I L | FROM THE EDITOR
Telling Stories That Matter

BY SUSAN GOLDBERG
DEAR READER,
For as long as I can remember, I’ve
wanted to make a difference, to help
make the world a better place. It’s why
I became a journalist 42 years ago and
why I came to National Geographic.
This is my last letter to you as editor
in chief. I’m deeply grateful to have
spent eight years working with some
of the world’s best journalists—ded-
icated professionals who’ve received
10 National Magazine Awards, three
Pulitzer Prize finalist nominations,
two Webby Media Company of the
Year honors, and hundreds of other
accolades during my time as editor.
I’m leaving National Geographic
for the world of higher education. At
Arizona State University I’ll do what I
can to strengthen journalism during a
challenging time for the free press. And
I’ll be working with the next generation
of storytellers, who must communicate
ever more powerfully about daunting
issues like climate change. As I look back, I’m proud that we’ve A dozen covers, in order of
As I’ve learned through our work explored issues such as gender and publication during my eight
years here, from top row
here, there’s a conundrum to covering race—and in doing so were willing to to bottom and left to right:
these issues: How can honest report- examine publicly our own troubled June 2015, December 2015,
ing on existential threats keep readers history. I’m proud that we make it our May 2016, January 2017,
April 2018, June 2018,
engaged without leaving them feeling business to celebrate the world’s won- September 2018, September
hopeless? How can journalism on these ders and report on what’s going right. 2019, July 2020, November
complex topics ignite audiences’ curi- And I’m proud of our progress—though 2020, January 2021, and
December 2021.
osity, foster deeper understanding, and far from complete—in assembling a
excite people about solutions? Trying diverse, global corps of writers, pho-
always to achieve that balance—while tographers, and other journalists. Who
creating visually rich, reportorially better to cover a fast-changing, multi-
deep, global journalism—has been textured world?
both as gratifying and as vexing as It’s been a true honor to work with my
anything in my professional life. gifted colleagues here. It’s been a priv-
Every day at National Geographic ilege to work on National Geographic,
we track the latest in science, the envi- with its enduring legacy, and a singu-
ronment, and the human journey in all lar opportunity to help reinvent it for
its marvelous complexity. The covers today’s audiences. Thank you for taking
above reflect some of the most conse- that journey with me.
quential topics of the past eight years And thank you for reading National
(and some are also personal favorites). Geographic. j
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P R O O F
N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
VO L . 2 41 N O. 4
ABES ACROSS
AMERICA
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
G R E TA P R AT T
What does patriotism look like? For

some impassioned impersonators,
it’s all about President Abraham
Lincoln, the Great Emancipator.
6 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
Lincoln admirer Gerald
Bestrom not only dressed
the part but also traveled
across the country in a
motor home he painted
to resemble a log cabin.
APRIL 2022 7
P R O O F
Greta Pratt wrote of her portrait series Nineteen Lincolns, “My intention is to comment on the way a society, composed
of individuals, is held together through the creation of its history and heroic figures.” Pictured here, clockwise from top left,
are Robert Taylor and Mike Reiser (seated), Randy Duncan, Chester Damron, and Stan Wernz.
For these Lincoln devotees, black suits, bow ties, stovepipe hats, and beards (real or not) are standard. Though some of Pratt’s
subjects are now retired or deceased, she thinks their stories “still speak to the enduring appeal of America’s 16th president.”
Pictured on this page, clockwise from top left, are Vernon Risty, Whit McMahan, Gerald Bestrom, and Jim Sayre.
APRIL 2022 9
P R O O F
Members of the Association of Lincoln Presenters (ALP) gather at an annual conference, in 2012, in Decatur, Illinois. The
organization’s membership now numbers 95 Lincolns from 32 states, including several that were part of the Confederacy.
The ALP promotes its reenactors’ availability for appearances with the tagline, “We are ready, willing, and Abe L.”
Also on the membership roster: 40 Mary Todd Lincolns, three Ulysses S. Grants, and one Harriet Beecher Stowe.
APRIL 2022 11
P R O O F
THE BACKSTORY
A S L I N C O L N R E E N AC TO R S, T H E S E A M E R I C A N S D R E S S
T H E M S E L V E S I N T H E P A S T T O C O N V E Y V A L U E S F O R T O D A Y.
WHY LINCOLN? That’s the question senior centers, and other venues. For
Greta Pratt asked the costumed men the portraits in her project, she framed
before her camera, all of whom com- the men in softly focused, pastoral
mitted a portion of their lives to a presi- backgrounds reminiscent of historical
dent now gone for more than 150 years. paintings, and she challenged them
For these fans, Pratt learned, Abraham to “summon up your inner Lincoln.”
Lincoln “embodies one of America’s They did so gladly. “Lincoln brings
most cherished tenets: that the com- out the best in me,” says Illinois reen-
mon man, through sheer hard work actor Randy Duncan (page 8). “He
and determination, can elevate his probes the patriotism of each of us.”
status in society.” Though her subjects began portraying
At four annual conventions of the Lincoln for varied personal reasons,
Association of Lincoln Presenters, Pratt Pratt says, they continue because he
met men and women who perform as helps them feel part of something
the president and first lady at schools, larger: a nation. — H I C K S W O G A N
The real Abraham Lincoln, above, sits for a portrait by Alexander Gardner in 1863.
PHOTO: THE PICTURE ART COLLECTION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

IN THIS SECTION
Surfing Mountains
E X P L O R E Sea Glass Doubles

Walruses’ Songs
Footprints of Foods
I L L U M I N AT I N G T H E M Y S T E R I E S — A N D W O N D E R S — A L L A R O U N D U S E V E R Y D AY
N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C VO L . 2 41 N O. 4
A Way for Nature

to Rest in Peace
C O N S E RVAT I O N I S T S S E E C E M E T E R I E S A S A T O O L T O P R E S E RV E L A N D,
N AT U R A L LY—A N D D E T E R R U N AWAY D E V E L O P M E N T.
BY XANDER PETERS
A
the Indiangrass Preserve in
AT I T S M O S T P E AC E F U L ,
southeast Texas is hushed and still. Its springtime
canvas is lush with prairie grass; monarch butterflies
cling to yellow tickseed flowers as eastern bluebirds
circle overhead. Come summer, rains will douse its
shallow wetlands, where bobcats pause to drink as
they prowl for cottontails.
An agrochemical research facility occupied part
of the site as recently as 2001. Then the Katy Prairie
Conservancy restored the land into a nature preserve.
Since 1992 the conservancy has protected more
than 18,000 acres of Texas land that otherwise might
have been developed, says Elisa Donovan, its vice
president and general counsel. The conservancy has
championed tallgrass prairie and wetlands, plentiful
species, and rare ones, such as the crawfish frog and
the western chicken turtle. Its latest project aims to
restore and preserve the natural state of land that
will welcome the living—and also the dead.
APRIL 2022 15
E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA
For several years Donovan and colleagues have

been planning a conservation cemetery here. Nation-
Environmental
wide, only about a dozen of these operations exist: impact at the end
single properties with areas in simultaneous use as
nature preserves, parklands, and environmentally When a human life’s end raises the
question of what to do with the mortal
conscious burial grounds. This would be Texas’s first. remains, are some solutions greener
The current conservancy plan includes 50 acres than others? Parties to the debate give
of space for so-called green burials. No caskets or different answers. Conservation ceme-
concrete liners will be used. The dead won’t be tery advocates point to the environ-
embalmed, to eliminate synthetic, potentially harm- mental impact of conventional burials,
ful chemicals. Each body lowered into the ground in which a person is laid to rest in a cas-
ket, with a concrete liner, underground.
will wear only biodegradable clothing and a shroud. Such interments typically involve head-
A conservation cemetery takes green burial stones and other end-of-life products
grounds one step further. Its landscape protects the that may travel thousands of miles,
dead as they naturally decompose—and in return, creating emissions along the way.
the dead help protect the land (with the customary Cremation is an alternative but not a
climate-friendly option, experts say:
laws that discourage disturbing cemeteries). That’s
Similar to how carbon stored in roots is
the plan for property near the Indiangrass Preserve released when a tree is cut down, car-
site and a conservancy field office, a nondescript bon that makes up part of the human
white building on the edge of Waller, a small town body is released into the atmosphere
42 miles northwest of Houston. when the remains are incinerated at
Beyond Waller, development continues chewing 1,400 to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit
for multiple hours. One cremation
away at nature as the region echoes the Houston
produces on average more than 534
suburbs’ insatiable growth. Greater Katy grew from pounds of carbon dioxide, according to
81,000 residents to a sprawling suburb of more than an estimate by cremation technology
309,000 between 1990 and 2020, according to the Katy manufacturer Matthews Environmen-
Area Economic Development Council. It’s a trend tal Solutions. By comparison, the green
that has barely shown signs of slowing down, forcing burials practiced in conservation cem-
eteries allow root systems to trap the
conservationists like Donovan and her colleagues to
carbon released from human bodies
get creative in response. during decomposition. —X P
Look to the north from the conservancy’s field
office: That’s a ranch of more than a thousand acres,
which was acquired by developers and soon will be a
residential area. Neighboring landowners already are
creating a municipal utility district, the first step in
the birth of a new subdivision. To the south, a dusty number of individuals seem to feel the same. They’re
two-lane highway soon will be four lanes so it can rethinking what it means to die and whether there’s
meet the projected flow of future traffic. a purpose to be had when it happens. They’re shun-
“It really feels like a race,” Donovan says of the ning the multibillion-dollar business of managing
effort to conserve land. “Can we protect the land death, with hope that their remains will give back
before someone comes in, subdivides it, and builds to the earth.
hundreds of thousands of homes on it?” But the concept of a conservation cemetery is not
new. It’s retrofitted for a new era.
idea came to the Katy
T H E C O N S E RVAT I O N C E M E T E RY In 1825, as farmland evolved into industrial acre-
Prairie Conservancy folks from the Kate Braestrup age, conservationist George Brimmer bought land in
memoir Here If You Need Me. Donovan remembers Massachusetts to preserve its valleys and wetlands
Braestrup writing of a missing person’s remains found from development. Brimmer later partnered with
in the forest. The body gradually decomposed, and others to turn the land into a cemetery, effectively
a nearby shrub sprouted into a tree, intertwining skirting developers’ wandering eyes.
with the remains. The result was Mount Auburn Cemetery, which
The sense of peace Donovan took from Braestrup’s borders Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts.
description grew within her like the tree through the Today it still resembles the land Brimmer sought to
skeleton. She buried the thought until her father preserve, albeit with a fleet of gravestones poking out
died years later, when she found herself reflecting of the green turf. “I like to think of Mount Auburn
on the connections between nature and death. The Cemetery as not just the first rural cemetery, but in
family honored her father’s wish to be cremated. He fact, it was a form of land conservation,” says Can-
would be stored in a niche in perpetuity. Thousands dace Currie, director of Green Burial Massachusetts,
of dollars were spent. a nonprofit group working to create the state’s first
“It was smaller than a filing cabinet,” Donovan legally recognized conservation cemetery. “To this
says. It didn’t sit right with her—and a growing day, people go there to get away from the city.”
ILLUSTRATION: XIAO HUA YANG APRIL 2022 17
E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA
In the decades after Brimmer established Mount

Auburn Cemetery, new technologies changed the
way the living interacted with the dead. ‘WE’RE TRYING TO COME
The profession of undertaker emerged in the BACK TO THE CONCEPT
United States during the Civil War. Preserving bod- T H AT N AT U R E I S E N O U G H .’
ies became common practice for morticians seeking —Heidi Hannapel, co-founder of Bluestem
a way for families to say goodbye to fallen soldiers; Conservation Cemetery
the war dead were embalmed, laid in wooden boxes,
and sent home by the thousands. President Abraham
Lincoln’s funeral procession raised embalming’s
public profile. For 19 days after his assassination
in 1865, the president’s casket was left unsealed; even entrepreneurial—approach to land preservation,
embalmers kept the body fresh to accommodate says Bluestem’s other co-founder, Jeff Masten. “It’s a
public viewings. different land use, it’s a different tool, it’s a different
Like most of the systems, customs, and industries strategy,” says Masten, also a Landmatters consultant.
that touch our lives, the management of death has “Conservation burial grounds, for some people, are
radically changed since the time of Lincoln. Today like a business that helps land stay in use.”
the modern deathcare industry generates more than Donovan knows the Katy Prairie cemetery won’t
$20.5 billion annually. be the David felling Houston development’s Goliath.
Conservation cemetery and green burial advo- Rather, the aim is just to hold off the giant. In the end,
cates responded with their own movement. In 1996 it’s about the bigger picture, Donovan stresses. All
in Westminster, South Carolina, the nation’s first profit from selling natural burial plots (tentatively,
natural burial ground was established by family for around $4,500 apiece) would be used to restore
physician Billy Campbell and his wife, Kimberly. 250 more acres to a natural state.
Called Ramsey Creek Preserve, the property has more Donovan hopes the conservation cemetery project
than doubled from its original 33 acres. prompts visitors to reflect on their ultimate fate. At
Facilities like these are “way more than just greener some point, each of us will die. But until then, we
versions of contemporary cemeteries,” Billy Camp- have choices. What do you want your legacy to be?
bell has said. He considers them “multidimensional “Let’s be thoughtful about our end of life and what
social and ecological spaces where the burials don’t we want to see happen,” she says.
overwhelm the naturalness of what is there.” Someday, I ask, is this where you’ll be buried? She
Currie sees another important trait. For green buri- laughs nervously. “If we had the cemetery out there
als, loved ones help “take care of our own dead,” she today and I passed away, yes, put me on the Katy
says. “It’s a right, I think, that people want back.” Prairie,” Donovan replies.
Speaking with Currie, Green Burial Massachusetts Should the project go according to plan, Donovan
president and co-founder Judith Lorei describes the wouldn’t be alone on the Katy Prairie landscape.
push for natural burials and conservation cemeteries Neither would anyone else who chose to be laid to
as a new school of thought. rest there. Each springtime, the prairie grasses above
“People are really beginning to think outside the them would burst to life, and flowers would bloom
box,” Lorei says. into the cusp of summer.
She catches herself, and laughs. Late in the afternoon, I drive back from the pre-
serve. The landscape bolts from green and brown
stripping away the unnecessary. Of
I T ’ S A M AT T E R O F to gray and grayer as Houston’s skyline comes into
getting back to basics. With conservation cemeteries, view. Rush hour churns the city, where it’s anything
“we’re trying to help people come back to the concept but hushed and still. j
that nature is enough,” says Heidi Hannapel, a con-
Xander Peters resides, writes, and is often found tending his
sultant with the preservation group Landmatters and garden in New Orleans. His work has appeared in publications
a co-founder of Bluestem Conservation Cemetery. including the Christian Science Monitor, the Bitter Southerner,
At the same time, the cemeteries are a modern— and Audubon.
In a conservation cemetery, subtle enough to not to locate a grave on their

Marked, if markers like gravestones
aren’t used, how will
interrupt the appearance
of the preserve’s landscape.
smartphones if, say, the
prairie grass is too tall to
naturally visitors know if a grave is

nearby? Planners at the
Katy Prairie Conservancy
As Donovan says, though,
the group wants a clear
way to tell where everyone
recognize it. The conser-
vancy also hopes to create
digital remembrances
intend to use metal survey is buried. That’s why GPS for each person buried at
spikes with small medal- coordinates will also be the preserve—online obit-
lions on top. They will be used as part of the grave uaries so that each visitor,
inserted into the ground markings, allowing friends family, or friend can honor
near graves yet will be and families of the dead those there. —X P
PHOTO: PRAIRIE CREEK CONSERVATION CEMETERY

DISCOVERY | E X P L O R E
ENTHUSIASTS COMPARE IT to diamonds.

Sea glass—from pieces of bottles and
jars—is trash, transformed by the
sea and poetically reinterpreted as
treasure. Its provenance points to the
heyday of consumer glass production,
IS YOUR SEA
before the rise of throwaway plastics;
its allure is fueled by the childlike
thrill of a discovery on the whims of
GLASS FAKE?
time and tide.
Now, as sea glass becomes rarer, arti-
ficial versions, sometimes made via
acid etching, are supplanting the real
thing. But acid etching can leave a toxic
PHOTOGRAPH BY residue, making this manufactured
REBECCA HALE gem, used in jewelry and decor, a poten-
tial problem. One threat: Adding fake
sea glass to your fish’s aquarium could
dangerously alter the water’s pH level.
So how can you tell the difference?
According to sea glass expert Richard
LaMotte, authentic characteristics
include minuscule C-shaped markings
and green, clear, or brown coloring.
In this photo, the frosted Shards in red and orange are rare. Very
white shards, manufactured
from broken and tumbled even, silky smooth, or oily surfaces are
glass, contrast with colorful dead giveaways for a fake.
found fragments of sea True sea glass can still be found,
glass (or “beach glass,” as
freshwater finds are called).
e sp ecially along shore s where
consumer glass was produced, such
as in the Great Lakes and in the
northeastern United States. LaMotte
recommends searching at low tide,
after a storm, during the winter
months—when rough water could
kick up a jewel. —A L L I E YA N G
AUTHENTIC SEA GLASS COURTESY RICHARD LAMOTTE’S PRIVATE COLLECTION

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of NUBEQA?
• Have kidney or liver problems • Feeling more tired than usual
• Have a partner who may become pregnant. • Arm, leg, hand, or foot pain
Males who have female partners who may
• Rash
become pregnant should use effective birth
control (contraception) during treatment and • Decreased white blood cells (neutropenia)
for 1 week after the last dose of NUBEQA. • Changes in tests that determine how your liver
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control methods
NUBEQA may cause fertility problems in males,
• For women: tell your healthcare provider if you: which may affect the ability to father children.
– are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. Talk to your healthcare provider if you have
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These are not all the possible side effects of
Tell your healthcare provider about all the NUBEQA. Call your doctor for medical advice
medicines you take, including prescription about side effects.
and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and NEUROSCIENCE
herbal supplements. How should I store NUBEQA?

NUBEQA may affect the way other medicines • Store NUBEQA at room temperature between
68°F to 77°F (20°C to 25°C).
MICE AND HUMAN
work and other medicines may affect how
NUBEQA works. • Keep the bottle tightly closed after you first open it. IMAGINE ALL THE
You should not start or stop any medicine Keep NUBEQA and all medicines out of the had a dream so vivid that
H AV E YO U E V E R
before you talk with the healthcare provider reach of children. for real life? What if you actually did ope
that prescribed NUBEQA. you’d envisioned with them closed? Accord
The information provided here is not comprehensive. study, you may have—at birth. Researche
How should I take NUBEQA? newborn mice and found that, in the few d
To learn more about NUBEQA: eyes open, their still developing retinas si
• Take NUBEQA exactly as your healthcare • Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist patch informational waves. Previously ran
provider tells you.
• Visit www.nubeqa.com to obtain the waves start flowing from a mouse’s templ
• Your healthcare provider may change your FDA-approved product labeling same direction visual stimuli flow when
dose if needed. forward. As lab director Michael Crair ex
• Call 1-888-842-2937 state “allows a mouse to anticipate what
• Take your prescribed dose of NUBEQA opening its eyes,” preparing the animal to
2 times a day with food. You may report side effects or quality complaints its surroundings. Human babies also exhi
of products to the FDA by visiting www.fda.gov/ at birth—discerning objects, detecting mo
medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088. Crair says, “we are born capable of many
least in rudimentary form.” — H I C K S W O G A
© 2022 Bayer. All rights reserved. BAYER, the Bayer Cross and NUBEQA are
registered trademarks of Bayer. PP-NUB-US-1547-1 01/22 Printed in USA
PHOTOS (FROM TOP): EOSTA/NATURE AND MORE; TIM WINTER, ALA
MINT IMAGES LIMITED/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
BREAKTHROUGHS | E X P L O R E E X P L O R E | DECODER
SURFING
Produce sans plastic labels
A Dutch produce distributor
has devised an eco-friendly way
of labeling fruits and veggies
as organic: Harmless markings are
MOUNTAINS
lasered into foods’ skins with a
method called natural branding.
It reduces plastic packaging and
food waste, since marked pieces
can be sold individually. —H W
BY EVE CONANT
GRAPHIC BY DIANA MARQUES
PRESSING NEWS
Hugs really
do make us
feel better
Hugs, a casualty of
the pandemic, have
measurable effects,
judging from two
research studies. In
Japan, researchers
monitoring infants The feeling of
M Y S T I C A L . U N R U LY.
endless water. Big-wave surfer Maya
four to 12 months
Gabeira has no small words for the
old found their giant waves off Nazaré, Portugal. It’s
hearts beat less hard to find a single wave’s peak, where
rapidly during hugs it will break. “It just comes from every-
from parents, but where,” she says. One bone-snapping,
not from other breath-stealing wave nearly killed her.
people. And in Lon- Another wave landed the Brazilian the
women’s world record for the largest
don an experiment
ever surfed—and she then set a new
with blindfolded record by conquering a 73.5-foot beast.
subjects found that “It was just so much water,” she
longer hugs are recalls, “and would shift so much,
NS, JUST considered more

pleasant. Ranking
even when you were in it, that it just
felt like you were going down forever,
EY’LL SEE hugs by strangers,

subjects liked
like a mountain.”
The waves roiling atop Europe’s larg-
est underwater canyon—some three
t you nearly mistook it
five- or 10-second miles deep and over 120 miles long—
en your eyes to a world embraces better have mesmerized and terrorized the
ding to a Yale University than one-second
rs imaged the brains of squeezes. — H W
days before the animals’
imulate vision and dis-
dom in direction, these
le toward its nose—the
n a mouse is scurrying
xplains, this dreamlike
it will experience after
o perceive and navigate
ibit some visual ability Justine Dupont, a
otion. This suggests, as big-wave surfer from
France, rides a Nazaré
y of these behaviors, at behemoth during
AN a 2020 competition.
AMY STOCK PHOTO;

24 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C PHOTO: HÉLIO ANTÓNIO
E X P L O R E | DECODER
ALL GEARED UP
CREATING GIANTS
small coastal community of Nazaré for cen-
turies. No one successfully surfed the giant
Before getting towed in by Jet Ski, surfers
waves of winter—at least not until American must put on special equipment to survive the
Garrett McNamara, at the urging of dedicated cold, the falls, and getting pinned under waves.
locals, came to investigate in 2010. “As soon as
Carved into Portugal’s ocean floor is Europe’s largest
I walked up to the lighthouse, I saw the biggest Flexible even up to The inflatable vest
waves I’d ever seen,” he says, but conditions 5 mm thick, an impact limits time spent under- submarine canyon, more than 120 miles long and three
wet suit helps maintain water after wipeouts
were terrible. “It was like, OK, this is going to body heat in 57°F and adds extra buoy-
times as deep as the Grand Canyon in some areas.
be amazing as soon as we get the right wind.” winter waters. ancy when needed. Each winter, the swell from North Atlantic storms is
He studied the waves and then rode a record- focused and amplified by the canyon, shaping some
Trigger
breaking, 78-foot-tall monster in 2011. Now cord of the largest waves on the planet.
it’s common to hear this once quiet fishing Air
village described as surfing’s Everest, or its canister
big-wave holy grail. Peniche

Surfing here means coming close to the force Peninsula
of nature and respecting it as nonnegotiable.
Underwater features supercharge the unfor- Padding absorbs some of the
giving wave volume, speed, and unpredictabil- impact of waves that can weigh
several tons; it also can help keep
ity. There’s also a beach break—waves crash on an unconscious surfer afloat.
shifting sands, not rock or coral. “Because of
the storms, because of the winds, because of the
big waves, the sands are always moving,” says
Portuguese surfer Tony Laureano, at 19 among Shorter, narrower, and thinner than other boards,
tow-ins are maneuverable yet heavy for stability.
the youngest in the big-wave community here. Gun surfboards also are used in big waves, but can’t
The waves are often “bumpy,” making for jagged be towed and don’t turn fast enough for Nazaré.
rides that magnify the challenge. One can try to Big-wave boards
outsmart them; the first wave of a set of several 10 ft
“kinda cleans the bumps,” he explains. Used in Board
Nazaré length
But there are no hard-and-fast rules—except
that one cannot tackle the biggest waves alone.
5 ft
Surfers are motored toward these moving
mountains by a tow-in partner on a Jet Ski. That
Jet Ski often is backed up by a second one in
case things really go wrong. Up at the nearby Tow-in Gun Fish Funboard Longboard
lighthouse, spotters with walkie-talkies scan for
good sets of incoming waves. Gathered on the Foot straps Surfers can race up to
cliff and the beach below: a mix of townspeople, 45 miles an hour, São Martinho
similar to speeds in Beach
maritime officials, rescue teams, medics, fam- fast downhill skiing.
ilies, with watchful eyes. “Here you can yell to
the surfers, and they can hear you,” McNamara
says. “You can feel the ground shaking, and you the ride—but always focusing on the exit.”
actually get misted by the waves.” Surfers have long hunted for such giant waves.
If watching these rides is a mixture of hope “That’s always been the chat: Where is the 100- The challenge of measuring big waves
and dread, measuring them is a mixture of foot wave?” says British surfer Andrew Cotton. To determine wave height, experts analyze videos
science and headache. There’s no end line etched “And Nazaré is a village, and the waves break for ever changing reference points, including a surfer’s
in chalk, no easy reference point. “We’re talking right in front of the lighthouse.” He’s still incred- position over the board, and wave crest and trough.
about a dynamic situation, so we’re talking about ulous. “How was the biggest wave in the world
water particles [that] are moving all the time,” hiding, all this time, in plain sight?” 80 ft Latest official
world record (2017)
says Miguel Moreira, an assistant professor in One thing is certain. The waves have changed
the Faculty of Human Kinetics at the Univer- the town—and those who ride them. For Gabeira,
sity of Lisbon, one of a few experts puzzling out pulled unconscious from a harrowing wipeout in
better ways to measure surfing records. 2013, her brush with death made her more hum-
Even surfers can’t really tell a wave’s exact size. ble, “more human.” Laureano can’t explain how
“You know if it’s big, but you don’t know how he or other surfers survive at all: “Sometimes Wave
height
big,” Laureano says. Gabeira knew her record I just feel I have some superpowers.”
wave was “the most radical” she’d ever surfed— Perhaps, by some unearthly osmosis, these
because of the sound of it exploding behind her. surfers do.
After his record breaker, McNamara wondered, “The energy and the power that the waves have
What are you guys excited about? He says he is something from another world,” Laureano
was “just surfing with my heart and just enjoying says. “It’s magic.” And mystical. And unruly. j
DIANA MARQUES AND ROSEMARY WARDLEY, NGM STAFF; ERIC KNIGHT. SOURCES: JOÃO VITORINO AND LEONOR
MIGUEL MOREIRA, FACULTY OF HUMAN KINETICS, UNIVERSITY OF LISBON; ANDREW COTTON; ESA SENTINEL; EMO
20 mi
A TLA NTIC
O CEA N 20 km
16,000 ft
ft
00
View
15,0
Na below
zar
é C Nazaré
anyon
15,500 ft ft 3,000
ft f
00
el
9,0
2m t
Sh
(15 00 f
)
al
5
nt
PORTUGAL
ne
Nazaré
nti
Lisbon
Co
Farilhões Is.
Berlengas Is.
The narrow upper section of the canyon begins less than a mile
off the coast, generating a sudden drop in depth from the beach.
1,000 ft
N
a
1
Incoming swell 2,000 ft
Large storms occurring more than
2,000 miles away energize the ocean
z 3,000 ft
surface. The resulting swell can reach
the Portuguese coast.
a 500 ft
r
é
2
Uneven speeds 1,000 ft B
A The part of the swell that
flows over the canyon sustains A
its deep-ocean speed.
B
2,000 ft
The giant waves can

form only when swells
flow in from the west
ft
B The part of the swell moving
500
o n or northwest.
over the shallower seafloor
ft C a n y
1,000
slows down.
500 ft
3
Slower-
moving swell Big becomes bigger
A local current flowing south
Salg along the shore is redirected
ado Faster- by the steep headland toward
Bea moving swell the towering peak, supersizing
ch
the waves of Nazaré.
Big-wave
surfing area
C The difference in speed can bend
and sometimes split the swell.
The faster-traveling water Littoral drift current
Lighthouse
eventually converges with the
slower water, forming a triangular
North Beach
peak found only in Nazaré waves.
Nazaré
Harbor Nazaré Beac h N
Nazaré THE DISTANCE FROM THE NAZARÉ

LIGHTHOUSE TO THE PENICHE
PENINSULA IS 23 MILES.
THE COASTAL WAVES SEEN IN THIS

SATELLITE IMAGE WERE CAPTURED
ON DECEMBER 13, 2021.
VEIGA, PORTUGUESE HYDROGRAPHIC INSTITUTE;

ODNET; JAXA
E X P L O R E | PLANET POSSIBLE
Even small changes in food

and shopping habits can
P L A N E T
reduce your diet’s carbon
footprint and boost health.
For more stories about how
to help the planet, go to
natgeo.com/planet.
BY ANNIE ROTH
Going vegan or vegetarian

is one way to decrease your
diet’s impact on greenhouse
gas emissions—but it isn’t
the only way. A recent Purdue
University study suggests
that smaller tweaks can
make a difference too, while
improving your health.
After analyzing the 2010
grocery purchases of more
than 57,000 U.S. households,
Purdue researchers found
71 percent could shrink their
food carbon footprint by
making three changes:
Skip the unhealthy snacks

Avoiding foods with high calorie
counts and low nutritional value
can reduce the total carbon
footprint of U.S. household
food consumption by nearly
10 percent. Items like candy,
soda, and packaged snacks take
more ingredients and more
processing, which translates to
higher environmental impacts.
Watch bulk buys

Households of one or two
people may end up with
food waste when they
try to save money with
bulk buys. Before you
buy supersize, consider
whether a three-pound
jar of peanut butter will
go bad before it’s used up.
Trim ready-made foods

One average microwave
meal may not have a very
large carbon footprint.
But buying them regularly
can add up to significant
emissions because ready-made
foods’ large sales volume
amplifies their carbon emissions,
the study found.
Seemingly small shopping shifts

can add up: By making the
above changes, the U.S. could
cut more than a quarter of
emissions from household food
consumption, the researchers
say. That’s about 36 million met-
ric tons—about what 6.6 million
households generate in a year
of electricity use. “Collective
action can make a huge impact,”
says study co-author Hua Cai.
PHOTO: REBECCA HALE

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P R E S E RV E O U R P L A N E T
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P H OTO : D i a n e C o o k a n d L e n J e n s h e l
C R E AT E A L E GAC Y O F YO U R OW N
E X P L O R E | CLOSER LOOK
T H E F I R S T R AY S O F S U N
are breaking over the
tundra cliffs, and from
the open sea, walruses
are approaching the SCAN THIS
shore below. Their QR CODE TO
LISTEN
breath rises in golden
puffs, and they’re chiming: a haunting,
metallic song like a softly ringing bell.
You hear it with your whole body, as
if you’re underwater.
This is Round Island, one of seven
WHERE THE
craggy isles in Bristol Bay that make
up Alaska’s Walrus Islands State Game
Sanctuary. For millennia it’s been an
important resting place—known as a
WALRUSES SING
haul-out—for male Pacific walruses,
which gather on its shores by the thou-
sands every summer to recuperate
after mating season. The Indigenous
Yupik people, who have long hunted
walruses sustainably on Round Island,
O N A R E M OT E A L A S K A I S L A N D,
U N F O R G E T TA B L E M E L O D I E S C O M E call it Qayassiq: “place to go in a kayak.”
FROM A SURPRISING SOURCE . In the early 1900s, commercial
hunting decimated the walrus popu-
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS lation. By the time the sanctuary was
BY ACACIA JOHNSON created and all hunting banned, in
1960, Round Island was one of North
America’s last Pacific walrus haul-outs.
Despite weighing in at over a ton each,
walruses are quite sensitive to distur-
bance. Boat traffic and loud noises can
cause them to stampede into the water,
sometimes leading to injury or death
for animals in the frenzy. If a site is dis-
turbed frequently enough, the walruses
may abandon it completely.
Pacific walruses wallow

in the shallows off Round
Island, which is open to
adventurous travelers for
a few months each year.
E X P L O R E | CLOSER LOOK
Thanks to the sanctuary, Round Island remains a some of the region’s most consistent. As temperatures
seasonal home for walruses. Today the sanctuary is rise, Archibald says, effects on the island provide
co-managed by the Qayassiq Walrus Commission, valuable insight into the broader marine ecosystem.
with representatives from nine Yupik communities Archibald leads us up to a viewpoint for First Beach.
who ensure that traditional knowledge is considered. When we peer over the edge, we see hundreds of
As the walrus population recovered, tribal leaders walruses below. We smell them too: salty, marine, and
successfully petitioned to reinstitute subsistence fecund. For hours each day, my brother and I wander
harvest. Since 1985 a state-run program has allowed among the overlooks, watching the walruses. They’re
visitors to the island from May to August. But they social animals, piling onshore in a mosaic of blubber
are few, partly because getting there requires a boat and tusks. In the water, they’re graceful swimmers. As
ride across at least 20 miles of the Bering Sea. we chat with Archibald one afternoon, she explains
I’ve come to Round Island with my brother, a wild- that walruses are a keystone species, helping to shape
life biologist, to see walruses. As we approach by boat, their entire biotic community. Despite this, and their
the island appears enchanted: a dome vulnerability to melting sea ice, they’re
of green rising from the sea, its summit often a low priority for conservation.
shrouded in mist. Margaret Archibald, Walruses are hard to track, and exist-
ALASKA
one of two Alaska Department of Fish (U.S.) ing data have been deemed insuffi-
and Game technicians who staff the cient to classify them as endangered.
Round Island
island each summer, greets us. “I apol- Bristol Archibald says that experiencing
Bay
ogize in advance if I’m a chatterbox,” walruses in person is a great way to
she says. “You two are the first visitors encourage their conservation. “Once
we’ve had in weeks.” people come here and see them, they’re going to
The landing beach is packed with sleeping wal- forever be more aware of walrus habitat—and the fact
ruses. To avoid disturbing them, we unload a short that walrus are real animals,” she says, “not a sticker
distance away, keeping our voices low. After pitching or an emoji.” Observing them—their different colors,
our tent in the campground, we join Archibald on her their battle scars, their antics—reminds me that they
daily rounds. It’s her job to maintain the trails, over- are individuals, with personalities and emotions.
see the visitors program, and enforce the three-mile On our last morning, I climb to a craggy peninsula
exclusion zone protecting the island from boat traffic where seabirds nest. The beach below is full of wal-
and commercial fishing. But she considers her most ruses glinting amber in the sunrise, and more wallow
important task to be the daily counts of walruses, offshore, chiming softly as they wait for space to join
seabirds, and Steller sea lions. Bristol Bay and its the crowd. As I scan the coastline, I realize that I am
fisheries are a vital ecosystem for Alaska’s economy, now seeing walruses with fresh eyes. j
and data collected about Round Island’s residents are Acacia Johnson is an Alaska-based photographer and writer.
Margaret Archibald (at right) and Matthew Lohrstorfer, Alaska Department of Fish and Game technicians, monitor the
island’s wildlife, including the walruses that rest on its shores.
NGM MAPS
N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C APRIL 2022
Rainforest Tepuis . . . . . . . . P. 36
Seahorse Threats . . . . . . . . P. 72
Ganges Pollution . . . . . . . . P. 86
Songbirds in Cuba. . . . . P. 110
Fishers of Ghana . . . . . . . . P. 120
F EAT U R E S
‘IT’S EASY TO SEE THE SEAHORSE’S
72 ALLURE, WITH ITS FANCIFUL BLEND

OF TRAITS THAT SEEM BORROWED
FROM OTHER ANIMALS: A HORSE’S
HEAD, A KANGARO O’S P OUCH,
A M O N K E Y ’ S P R E H E N S I L E TA I L .’
PHOTO: DAVID LIITTSCHWAGER

UP THE M
Mount Roraima rises

from the rainforest
where the borders
of Guyana, Brazil,
and Venezuela meet.
Locals call it and similar
flat-topped mountains
tepuis (pronounced
tuh-POOH-eez),
or “sprouting rocks.”
They’re the remnants
of a primeval plateau
that eroded over
millions of years.
36
B Y Mark Synnott
MOUNTAIN, TO A WORLD APART PHOTO GRAPHS BY

Renan Ozturk
A FLAT-TOPPED PEAK HIGH ABOVE THE AMAZON
RAINFOREST GIVES RESEARCHERS A CHANCE TO IDENTIFY
NEW SPECIES
AND UNLOCK SECRETS OF
EVOLUTION.
THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE: GETTING THERE.
O
ON A PITCH-BLACK FEBRUARY NIGHT,
Bruce Means stood alone, deep in the Pakaraima Mountains

in northwestern Guyana. Scanning the cloud forest with his
headlamp, he peered through his foggy glasses at a sea of
ancient trees cloaked in beards of verdant moss. The humid
air, ripe with the smell of decaying plants and wood, trilled
with a melodious symphony of frogs, drawing him like a siren
song so deep into the jungle that he wondered if he would
ever make it back out.
Grasping a sapling in one hand for balance, Bruce took
Bruce Means looks
under rocks for frogs
and other species
unknown to science.
During the expedition,
the 79-year-old biol-
a shaky step forward. His legs quivered as they sank into ogist explored many
the boggy leaf litter, and he cursed his 79-year-old body. At watery habitats. Even
the beginning of this expedition, Bruce had told me that he a pond can be a tiny
universe of life, he says,
planned to start slowly but would grow stronger each day as likely to contain species
he acclimated to life in the bush. that exist nowhere else.
After all, during his career as a conservation biologist, he’d
made 32 previous expeditions to this region. I’d seen a photo
of him in his younger days—a six-foot-four, broad-shouldered
backwoodsman, with his long hair pulled into a ponytail and The National
a huge snake draped over his neck. Geographic Society,
committed to illuminat-
He’d told me stories about riding rickety buses in the 1980s ing and protecting the
across the plains of Venezuela’s Gran Sabana and then setting wonder of our world,
off into the mountains, where he hunted for new species of has funded Explorers
Bruce Means and Mark
amphibians and reptiles. Once, he’d spent days alone on the Synnott’s expeditions
summit of an obscure peak, sometimes naked, living as close in South America.
to the natural world as he could. These were all obvious to everyone on our expedition that he
an extension of the explorations he’d made as a was growing weaker each day. At night, a rattly
kid in Southern California, tramping through the cough kept him awake, and as he lay in his ham-
Santa Monica hills looking for alligator lizards mock, he thought about home back in Tallahas-
and tarantulas, or, as he likes to say, “small expe- see, Florida, where his wife and two grown sons
riences of the magnificence of nature.” had practically begged him not to go on this trip.
It was that philosophy that had led him here, The wilds of the Guiana Highlands are no place
now. Sure, the ponytail was gray and thin, and at for an out-of-shape septuagenarian.
285 pounds, he was well over his fighting weight, And yet, I’d seen Bruce rally before. We’d made
but he assured me he still had the fire. Soon, he three previous trips to this region, a remote hot
would find his rhythm. spot of biodiversity called the Paikwa River Basin,
But the jungle—with its swarming insects, that lies on the northern edge of the Amazon rain-
incessant rain, and sucking bogs that threaten forest. Bruce’s main interest here was frogs, and if
to swallow a person whole—has a way of wear- the planet held a frog paradise, this was surely it.
ing one down, and after a week of rugged bush- Frogs play a critical role in ecosystems around
whacking and endless river crossings, it was the world, but nowhere have they existed for
U P T H E M O U N TA I N , TO A W O R L D A PA RT 43
Armed with a machete
and walking sticks,
Bennett Morris
(at right), along with
other Indigenous
Akawaio guides,
leads the team on the
40-mile trek through
the dense jungle of
the Upper Paikwa River
Basin to the base of
the tepui known as
Mount Weiassipu.
Federico “Fuco” Pisani,
one of the world’s
most experienced
tepui mountaineers,
leads climber Alex
Honnold up a section of
Weiassipu. They hoped
to find new frog spe-
cies on the rugged cliff
faces, the one tepui
environment scientists
have never studied.
MATTHEW IRVING
longer than in equatorial rainforests like this one.
For millions of years, the frogs here have followed
an array of evolutionary pathways, resulting in
a profusion of species in all shapes, sizes, and
colors, and with astonishing adaptations.
More than a thousand amphibian species have
been described in the Amazon Basin alone—
from jewel-like poison dart frogs (named for
their primary use among Indigenous people),
to glass frogs (with skin so thin it reveals their
beating hearts), to milk frogs (which live high
in the canopy inside water-filled tree holes), to
the recently discovered zombie frogs (that spend
most of their lives underground). Many of these
have yielded breakthroughs in medicine, includ-
ing new types of antibiotics and painkillers and
potential cancer and Alzheimer’s treatments.
Scientists believe they’ve identified only a
fraction of the world’s frog species. Meanwhile,
the ones we do know of are disappearing at an Akawaio team member
alarming rate. By some estimates, up to 200 frog Franklin George rests
species may have gone extinct since the 1970s, after a day of hacking
through the jungle
and Bruce and other biologists fear that many and hauling supplies,
others will die out before we even know they often under a steady
exist. What secrets about evolution, medicine, rain. During the trek to
Weiassipu, the team set
or other mysteries would be lost with them? up shelter each evening
Bruce refused to dwell on such gloomy rumi- and wrung out their
nations. He focused instead on the wealth of clothes. “The jungle
just swallows you down
biological treasures these rainforests still held. day after day,” says
“The potential for future discoveries in the writer Mark Synnott.
Paikwa is virtually limitless,” he told me, his “We were constantly
soaked and slathered
voice filled with his trademark enthusiasm. But in mud. We called it
he also knew that time was running out—not living in mud world.”
just for the frogs but for him too.
G
U YA N A I S S O M E T H I N G of
an oddity as the only English- rocks”—sometimes called “houses of the gods.”
speaking nation in South America, Unlike typical mountain ranges that often
a legacy of its history as Britain’s form in linked chains, tepuis tend to stand
only long-term colony on the conti- alone, emerging from the rainforest like islands
nent. Most of the country is covered poking out of a foggy ocean. A few of their
in untracked rainforest, but in the summits can be reached by hiking routes, but
far northwestern corner, the Pakaraima Moun- most are ringed with sheer cliffs—some up to
tains run along Guyana’s border with Brazil and 3,000 feet tall—and often are festooned with
Venezuela. Here, several table-topped moun- spectacular waterfalls.
tains, which resemble the monumental mesas Geologists tell us that tepuis are the remnants
in the deserts of the American Southwest, rise of an ancient plateau, called the Guiana Shield,
sharply above the dark green canopy of the that once formed the heart of the supercontinent
Paikwa River Basin. To the local Pemon peo- known as Gondwana. Hundreds of millions of
ple who’ve lived in their shadows for centuries, years ago, when this part of South America was
these otherworldly peaks are known as tepuis connected to Africa, the Guiana Shield stretched
(pronounced tuh-POOH-eez)—or “sprouting across parts of what is modern-day Guyana,
French Guiana, Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, the English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh, who
and Suriname. This mass of ancient sandstone led an expedition up the Orinoco in 1595 while
and quartzite gradually fractured and eroded searching for El Dorado, the fabled lost city
until roughly 30 million years ago, when the of gold. Raleigh wrote about seeing a crystal
hundred or so tepuis that exist today took on mountain in the distance, which might have
something resembling their present form. been Mount Roraima: “It appeared like a white
Gondwana split apart eons ago, but this part church-tower of an exceeding height. There fall-
of South America still holds many clues to its eth over it a mighty river which toucheth no part
shared past with Africa. Today some of the of the side of the mountain, but rusheth over
species endemic to tepuis are closely related to the top of it, and falleth to the ground with so
plants and animals found in West Africa, and the terrible a noise and clamour, as if a thousand
types of diamonds mined in Sierra Leone and
Guinea are the same as those that erode from EXPLORER: THE LAST TEPUI
tepui cliffs and are carried downstream in the Follow as the team searches for
new species on South America’s
Paikwa and other rivers. sky islands, available to stream
The first European to see a tepui was probably on Disney+ starting April 22.
Synnott and Honnold
stand below a cascade
called Double Drop Falls,
where they established
a base camp. From
there, the team cut a
five-mile trail through
pristine rainforest to
the base of Weiassipu.
Then they climbed the
tepui, searching for
frogs and other species.
MATTHEW IRVING
great bells were knocked one against another.” or its relationship to others in the genus known
I first learned of these otherworldly rock for- as pebble toads.
mations as a boy, when I read Sir Arthur Conan The “Oreo,” as Bruce called it, was chocolate
Doyle’s 1912 classic, The Lost World. In this brown, about the size of his thumbnail, with
science-fiction tale, a scientist discovers dino- four-toed feet that reminded me of Mickey
saurs and protohumans living on an isolated Mouse’s cartoon hands—an evolutionary adap-
plateau hidden deep in the Amazon jungle. That tation that enables these frogs to climb like no
book and its protagonist, the ebullient Profes- other. It was the seventh known species from the
sor Challenger, jumped to mind when I first Oreophrynella genus. Each of these species lives
met Bruce in 2001 through mutual friends at separately from the others; six are found only on
‘TEPUIS ARE LIKE THE GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS,’ BRUCE ONCE TOLD ME,
the National Geographic Society. He recounted their own tepui summits and one in the cloud
some of his explorations of tepuis, describing forests of the Paikwa River Basin.
them as individual laboratories for evolution— They’ve each followed distinct evolution-
islands in the sky—that have been completely ary paths, but at least two share a remarkable
isolated for so long that some frog species exist adaptation that allows them to escape preda-
on the summit of a single tepui and nowhere tors. When a tarantula or scorpion attacks, these
else on Earth. frogs curl into tight, pebble-size balls and roll
“Tepuis are like the Galápagos Islands,” he and bounce down tree branches, vines, leaves,
once told me, “but so much older and more or rocky surfaces until they’re out of harm’s
difficult to study.” way. By the end of that trip with Bruce, I wasn’t
He had been looking for someone to help sure who was more charming, these minuscule
him access the most inaccessible terrain on and frogs or the man who had dedicated his life to
around the tepuis. With my background as a pro- studying them.
fessional climber, I could do just that. So in 2003 There was another frog on top of Weiassipu
and 2006, we spent weeks searching for new that Bruce had photographed and captured but
frog species in the jungle below Roraima. While wanted to study more. This one had classic tree-
flying home in a helicopter after the second trip, frog hind feet designed for climbing. Based on
we passed over a small tepui that wasn’t on our its size, brown color, and white-speckled belly,
map. Its summit was incised by a 600-foot-deep Bruce was confident that it was a new species of
sinkhole with a thick forest at its bottom. Bruce the genus Stefania.
grabbed me by the shirt and shouted in my face, For years, he and his collaborator, Belgian
over the sound of the rotors, “Mark, I need to biologist Philippe Kok, had been building
be in that hole!” Stefania’s evolutionary tree. By charting the
Six years later, in 2012, a helicopter dropped DNA from other Stefania frogs, they concluded
Bruce and me on top of that tepui, called Mount there were missing species. If Bruce could col-
Weiassipu (pronounced why-OSS-i-pooh), and I lect this elusive frog on top of Weiassipu and
helped him rappel into the sinkhole. After five prove through DNA analysis that its ancestors
days of camping at the bottom and crawling evolved for millions of years to suit that ecosys-
around at night through what Bruce described tem, cut off from the rest of the world, he’d be
as “a lost world within a lost world,” he found a a step closer to a more complete understanding
tiny frog he described as a “missing link” in tepui of how life evolves on tepuis.
evolutionary biology. A single specimen of this So Bruce had proposed one final expedition
species, named Oreophrynella weiassipuensis, to the Guiana Highlands to find this Stefania
had been collected by a team of spelunkers in and to sample the species richness of other
2000, but it hadn’t been properly preserved, amphibians and reptiles in the Paikwa River
and as a result, very little was known about it Basin. We’d travel by bush plane and dugout
canoe along the Kukui and Ataro Rivers, then riverbank, landing facedown in a creek. After
trek 40 miles through untracked jungle to it was clear he wasn’t hurt, someone broke the
Weiassipu, which we would attempt to climb tension with a joke about the jungle being guilty
via its sheer north face. “This is probably the of “elder abuse.”
last one I’ve got in me,” Bruce said. “But I’ll get Everyone laughed—including Bruce. But as
there. Even if I have to crawl.” he continued to struggle over the next several
My challenge was to devise a way to help days and as the trail grew more treacherous, the
Bruce look for new species in the one tepui envi- humor died off. Bruce’s safety became an ever
ronment that no scientist had ever studied: the present worry for our team.
cliff faces. But safely hauling a man who would After a week of this, we finally set up a base
‘BUT SO MUCH OLDER AND MORE DIFFICULT TO STUDY.’
turn 80 on this expedition up a big-wall rock camp of sorts downstream from a roaring 200-
climb would take skills well beyond my own. So foot cascade that Bruce called Double Drop
I recruited two ringers: climbing superstar Alex Falls. It looked like a gargantuan two-hump
Honnold, 35, whose ropeless ascent of El Capitan waterslide and hammered into a pool with such
in Yosemite National Park was documented in force it filled the air with a fine mist that drifted
the film Free Solo, and Federico “Fuco” Pisani, over the camp.
46, a Venezuelan-Italian and one of the world’s The team gathered under a tarp, sitting on a
most experienced tepui climbers. bench around a crude table made from fallen
logs, to take stock of our situation. Bruce spread
B
a map across the table, and with a wrinkled fin-
RUCE SUMMONED his reserves ger, he traced the route that still lay between us
and pushed on through the jungle and Weiassipu. To the south lay a valley that was
in search of frogs. unexplored, according to our team’s Akawaio
For days we’d b e en trudg- guides, members of the small Indigenous group
ing across a swampy floodplain that lives in the area where Guyana, Venezuela,
through ankle-deep mud that and Brazil converge around Roraima. Above the
almost sucked our boots right off roaring falls rose the massive tepui, Weiassipu,
our feet. It rained incessantly, and even when which remained hidden behind thick forest
the sun poked through the low clouds, it never canopy and swirling clouds.
penetrated the dense canopy overhead. Down Sitting across from me at the table, Alex was
in the steamy understory, mosquitoes and practically vibrating, so eager was he to get to
biting flies reigned, and our sweat-soaked the mountain where he could climb his way up
clothes, slick with mud and ripped by thorns, and out of what he called “mud world.” Fuco,
stuck to our rashy skin. Every day we crossed bespectacled and with thick curly brown hair
countless tea-colored rivers and creeks via flecked with gray, sat quietly next to me. He’d
precarious log bridges. The slow-moving water, led more than 20 expeditions to the tepuis over
which was also our drinking source, was stained the past 27 years, but he’d never been involved
from decaying vegetation—something that no in a scientific expedition on a tepui. He’d always
amount of purifying could remove. wanted to be a scientist, even pursuing a Ph.D.
Even Alex found the conditions challenging. in biology at one point, and I noticed that Bruce
But for Bruce, the trek had devolved into a har- often called on Fuco when trying to identify the
rowing ordeal. He fell often and hard. Lacking flora and fauna that surrounded us.
the balance and confidence to cross the many Standing behind Alex were the leaders of the
log bridges, he opted instead to slide down the 70-strong team of local Akawaio people who were
steep embankments and wade or swim across supporting our expedition as guides and porters.
the water. Once, he’d somersaulted down a steep Edward Jameson and Troy Henry were legendary
SKY-HIGH ARCHIPELAGO
Area enlarged
at right
SOUTH
AMERICA
Just as flora and fauna evolved on remote islands across the
oceans, so too did plants and animals isolated on the summits
of tepuis, rock plateaus rising out of South American rainforests.
Slow weathering honed their sheer cliffs and hollowed valleys
between them. Scientists believe these sky islands each fostered
unique life-forms, separated by oceans of tropical lowlands. Cerro
Marahuaca
Cerro Duida Cerro Huha
Cerro Curutú
A M A Z O N
s IL
BRAZ
n UE L A Caroní
B A S I N i VENEZ
a
t
n
u
o Cerro el Abismo Uonán-tepuí
M G U
a Caruay
m More than 65 percent of Canaima
i Apongua o
National Park consists of tepuis.
a The park was made a UNESCO Tepuy Guanama
r World Heritage site in 1994. Uaramapa-tepuí
a
IL Caron
k
í
BRA
Z
L A Acurima i-tepuí
Pa u
a
Pacaraima E Z UE
VEN
P
Santa Elena
de Uairén
Tepuy M A
Tepuy I
Asapue Acurineima
A
Cuqu
en á n N
Cerro Cusu Uruma-tepuí A
C Yur
H I G
uani
A B A N A
s
S
in
N P a r a i- te p u í
ta
A Cerro
un
Uadam-tepuí R Cuquenán
G
Mo
Cerro
The Gran Sabana is a grass- Yuruaní
land region on the Guiana C u quen á n
Pa k a r a i m a
9,219 ft
Highlands. Forested valleys 2,810 m
weave through the plains.
Mount Roraima
pó
Arabo
Sierra de Sol MOUNT WEIASSIPU

View direction, Sloth Camp
VENEZUEL next pages
A
BRAZI
s
L Double Drop Falls

n
i Mt. Appokailang
go
a
M O N T E R O R A I M A N. P. Cot
in
u nt
o
M
a
i mZ I L Mt. Maringma
a NA Route of
GU A
r
A
BR
expedition
a
Y
ak
A ra b a r u
P
MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK, NGM STAFF. TOMÁS MÜLLER

SOURCES: USGS; NASA/JPL; ESA; MERIT DEM
MONTE RORAIMA
NATIONAL PARK Wayalayeng
ROCK OF THE AGES VENEZUEL A
Orinoco
Georgetown
ATLANTIC OCEAN
The formation known as the GUYANA Paramaribo

GU IANA
Guiana Shield spans more than Direction of Cayenne
H IGHL ANDS
600,000 square miles. It’s a G U I A N view below
remnant of an ancient seafloor, COLOMBIA SURINAME FR. GUIANA
A (FRANCE)
uplifted roughly 165 million S H
years ago when Africa and I E
South America began breaking L
into two distinct continents. D
B R A Z I L
Ama
zo
Manaus
n
A M A Z O N B A S I N
Cerro
Jumpetiri
Cerro Guaiquinima
Angel Falls
Aprada- Caroní World’s highest waterfall
tepuí 3,212 ft
979 m
AUYÁN-TEPU
Í
CHIMANTÁ MASSIF
8,852 ft
2,698 m Camarcaibarai-tepuí
Aparamán-tepuí
I A N A Car
rao
Aurén-tepuí ía Sentip
uí
Serran
Ptari-tepuí
So
ro Sierr
rop a d
án- e
Cauanarú- tepu Le
Fila
tepuí í m
a
L P A R K
de
O N A Ti
l
A T I gre
N Luepa Cerro
Venamo
6,201 ft
1,890 m La Escalera
VE
N
H L A N D S GU EZ.
YA Ven
Caraurén- Irú-tepuí NA am
tepuí Cada-tepuí o
Tramen-tepuí
LA
N E ZUE
O VE ANA
U O R GUY
T O
A
E R R Mt. Tulameng
SI
Paruima
Mission Ka
m
ar
an
g
The expedition traveled

through dense jungle
to reach the relatively unex-
plored Mount Weiassipu.
Ebo
ro
pu
Mo
un Waramadan
N ta
in
Ka
SCALE VARIES IN THIS PERSPECTIVE. ko
THE DISTANCE FROM MT. RORAIMA
TO CERRO VENAMO IS 70 MILES.
COMPLEX FORMATIONS VARYING VEGETATION
p
Water expands natural fissures in Outside pressures About a quarter of tepui plant
the rock, weathering it away into large species are endemic. Plants at the
Despite limits on visitors in a few of the
formations on tepui summits. Caves highest altitudes are exposed to
accessible tepuis, many are trampling
are carved into the rock by under- intense solar radiation and frequent
these fragile habitats and leaving behind
ground rivers that emerge from the heavy rains. In the short dry season,
environmentally destructive waste.
cliff faces as waterfalls. they’re stressed by drought.
Connected
caves Water
Fracture
Arabopó River
Nort
Boundary
Underground
tripoint
rivers
Structures within Cotingo River

Ancient marine deposits are vis- Connected
ible today as layers of sandstone caves
with varying patterns and grain
sizes. Chimneys of igneous rock
Waterfall
can be found inside the layers. Rain dra
tepuis v
which fl
South A
Sill est rive
the Ama
Dike
Sinkhole
Cave discoveries
Scientists recently discovered opal
stalactites, boulder-size colonies
600
of bacteria, underwater crickets, feet deep
and a new mineral, rossiantonite,
inside miles-long horizontal hollows.
National Geographic Explorers
NATURE’S LABORATORY
Bruce Means and Mark Synnott
rappelled into this sinkhole
in 2012 and found what Means
called “a lost world within
a lost world.”
Tepuis, island-like landforms towering thousands of feet above South American

savannas and rainforests, remain mostly untouched by humans. During the M O U N T
past few decades, scientists have discovered a broad array of endemic plant W E I A S S I P U
and animal species living in the tepuis’ high reaches and hidden interiors.
The heavy rains of the long wet season wane

in December, leading to a short dry season.
Mt. Roraima
ISOLATED TREASURES
Summit (9,220) Scientists are studying a new
WET D RY species found in the sinkhole above—
7,670 feet the Weiassipu pebble toad—to
see if it has genetic links to toads
Mt. Weiassipu
Mar. Dec. Feb. Base (1,550) discovered on other tepuis.
BELLWETHERS OF CHANGE
Insect Aromatic Tentacles
nectar grasp prey
Downward-
pointing hairs Summit soils are Altitude adjustments A warming climate and decreasing
trap prey nutrient-poor; several precipitation threaten endemic frogs
As elevation increases,
plants are carnivorous, and toads living on top of tepuis and in
temperatures cool and
luring insects with the rainforests far below. Many species
rainfall increases—to some
nectar and vivid colors. are narrowly adapted to climate zones.
13 feet each year.
Pitcher plant Sundew F RO G S S H OW N AC T UA L S I Z E
C E R R O C U Q U E N Á N
54°F 40°F Roraima

Diverse zones SU MM IT AVERAG E TEM P ERATU RE pebble toad
On the summit, shrubs, brome- Oreophrynella quelchii uses its oppos-
liads, and carnivorous plants able back toes to grip and climb over
thern labyrinth sprout up around pools of rocks and plants. It escapes predators
water or in rock crevices. by balling up and rolling away.
Lake
Gladys
Headwaters of the
Paikwa River S UM MI T
Roraima
ains from
rocket frog
via waterfalls,
low to some of C L I F F
America’s larg-
rs, including Found in high meadows, Anomaloglos-
azon. sus roraima tadpoles develop in water
that gets trapped between the leaves
of bucket-like bromeliad plants.
Here, moss- and epiphyte-
covered trees are surrounded
by shrubs, bromeliads, and herbs
rooted in a thick layer of peat.
T A L U S
Weiassipu
pebble toad
Oreophrynella weiassipuensis hatches

fully formed from its soft egg. It spends
its days in wet moss and its nights
These lower slopes feature thick resting on leaves.
tropical forests of evergreens, L O W E R
some up to a hundred feet tall, S L O P E
rising over dense undergrowth.
FOREST
HEIGHT
C O M PA R I S O N
N
Ro 100 feet
ute
of
ex
pe Pancake frog
di
t
io
n
Otophryne robusta mimics the leaf

75°F 63°F litter of the forest floor to blend into
its environment. Its tadpoles burrow
Summit Talus Lower slope S LO P E AVERAG E TEM P ERATUR E in sandy stream bottoms.
MANUEL CANALES, PATRICIA HEALY, TAYLOR MAGGIACOMO, MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK, NGM STAFF. ART: ANTOINE COLLIGNON, GAËLLE SELLIGNON. SOURCES: ROMAN AUBRECHT, COMENIUS UNIVERSITY; MAREK AUDY; PAUL E. BERRY,
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN; TOMÁŠ DERKA, COMENIUS UNIVERSITY; BRUCE MEANS, FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY; ANDREJ PAVLOVIČ, PALACKY UNIVERSITY; FEDERICO PISANI; FRANCESCO SAURO, UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA
DWINDLING PLATEAU Honnold, who famously
climbed Yosemite’s
El Capitan without
ropes, joined the expe-
Tepuis are carved from a seabed formed about 1.7 billion years ago. The dition to help the
movement of continental plates transformed the seabed, leaving a large team scale Weiassipu’s
plateau that eventually eroded into roughly a hundred individual summits. quartzite face. “Some
of the best rock I’ve
1.6 -1.8
ever climbed,” he says.
It’s extremely old rock
BILLION
YEARS AGO
formed on the bed of
a primordial sea some
Sands deposited thousands of STO N E O R I G I N S 1.7 billion years ago.
feet thick over the Earth’s crust
cemented into hard sedimentary
NORTH
rock called quartz sandstone.
AMERIC A
A F R I C
Area that will become A
the Guiana Shield
S O U T H
A M E R I C A
Modern
coastline
160-70 MILLION
YEARS AGO
When continental plates divided, S E PA R AT I O N
a large area in South America was S TA G E
elevated, fractured, and incised A F R I
with deep canyons. C A
Uplift
Guiana Shield
GUIANA
HIGHLANDS
A
S O U T H A M E R I C
70-40 MILLION
YEARS AGO
Rainfall over millions of W E AT H E R I N G
years released sand parti- AWAY
cles from the original stone,
hewing sheer cliff walls.
GUI A NA
HIGHLAND S
40 MILLION
YEARS AGO
Today’s tepuis are the remaining HARD

fragments of the Guiana Shield. HOLDOUTS
They’ve kept much of their current
MOUNT
shape for the past 40 million years. RORAIMA
GUIANA
Auyán-tepuí
HIGHLANDS
Cerro Guaiquinima
Chimantá N
Massif
On top of Weiassipu,
Pisani searches for
frogs among a thicket
of tank bromeliads.
Each tepui offers a
unique opportunity
to study evolution,
because many plants
and animals on its sum-
mit have been isolated
from other species
for thousands of years.
among the Akawaio for having climbed the
1,500-foot Prow route of Roraima with a British
expedition in 2019. They didn’t know it yet, but
we had brought medals from Guyana’s newly Some of the frog
elected president, Mohamed Irfaan Ali, to species encountered
on the expedition:
present to them in honor of their feat.
Short, rippling with muscle, and constantly TOP LEFT
smiling, Edward, 55, had accompanied Bruce and MacConnell’s pebble

toad (Oreophrynella
me on our previous expeditions to the region. macconnelli) inhabits
He’d grown up in this forest and could survive the forest near Double
out here more or less indefinitely with little more Drop Falls and is one of
two known species of
than his trusty machete, which he kept razor pebble toad that don’t
sharp with a file he wore on a string around his live on a tepui summit.
neck. He told me that since our last expedition, TOP RIGHT
he’d been working off and on as a mining pros- An unnamed species
pector, or “pork-knocker,” a Guyanese term that of Stefania was found
refers to the miners’ backcountry practice of in the cloud forest
below Weiassipu.
living on pickled wild bush hog.
Since I’d last seen Edward in 2006, Guyana BOTTOM LEFT
had been gripped by a gold rush. A few thousand The Roraima tree frog
(Boana roraima) lives
artisanal mines had been dug throughout the between the leaves of
country’s interior. Like most Akawaio, Edward arboreal bromeliads.
had spent much of his life farming and hunting. BOTTOM RIGHT
But the lure of earning cash, maybe even find- The Kanaima tree frog
ing life-changing treasure deep in the jungle, (Nesorohyla kanaima)
was impossible to resist. He described how the has unusually dark
eyes. “Few other frogs
miners would dig down to a layer of clay, then have irises so black
inject high-powered jets of water to blast the clay that you cannot see
into a slurry, which then was pumped to the sur- their pupils,” Bruce
Means says. It’s unclear
face, sluiced and rinsed, and then mixed with what advantage black
mercury, which binds to the gold. The chemical irises may have over
process especially worried Bruce. colorful ones.
RYAN VALASEK (TOP LEFT AND
“A teaspoonful of mercury can contaminate BOTTOM LEFT)
an entire river system,” he told me.

An Akawaio named Denver Henry showed me
a map detailing the location of dozens of mining
B
claims scattered across the rainforest surround-
ing the Paikwa River. So far, the pork-knockers RUCE EMERGED from his
had been held off by the inaccessibility of the hammock the next morning
terrain and the Akawaio’s resistance to build- wearing only muddy briefs and
ing an airstrip in their villages. But Edward told was met by a group of Akawaio
me that during the last rainy season, when the holding gallon-size Ziploc bags.
lowlands flooded, outside prospectors had come At the beginning of the trip, he’d
in with boats from Kamarang, one of the biggest announced that in order to sample
villages in the region, to explore claims. Every the biodiversity, he would pay for specimens. The
year these mines get a little closer to the Paikwa payout was 100 Guyanese dollars (about 50 cents)
River Basin. per creature, with a premium bonus for a
Around the table, we agreed Bruce needed Stefania frog, which immediately created a
time to recover, so we decided to split up. The thriving microeconomy in a land where there is
climbing team would move ahead to cut a trail little opportunity for Indigenous people to earn
to the base of Weiassipu’s north face, about five hard currency.
miles away, while Bruce and a team of Akawaio Bruce opened his journal to a blank page and
collected specimens at Double Drop Falls. started taking notes. Edward was first in line. His
baggie held four frogs. Salio Chiwakeng was next, Meanwhile, Alex, Fuco, and I loaded up with
with five lizards and six frogs. Markenson James food and gear for the climb, including a thou-
confidently delivered a large black scorpion, sand feet of rope and three hanging cots, called
Tityus obscurus, and his friend presented a spider portaledges, for camping on the side of the cliff.
fit for a Stephen King movie. Bruce pulled it out Two Akawaio guides, Harris Aaron and Franklin
of the bag with his bare hand, pinching its hairy George, led us up a narrow ridge and over a hump
body between his fingers as one might hold a into a thick forest. Wielding machetes, they
crab. “Theraphosa blondi,” he said, “aka the Goli- slashed a path through a carpet of giant ferns
ath birdeater.” A member of the tarantula family and between old-growth trees held fast in the
that happens to be the world’s largest spider by thin, sandy soil with colossal buttress roots that
mass (and yes, it eats birds), this one tipped the extended, pyramid-like, 20 feet across their bases.
scales at half a pound and was six inches across. Spiky bromeliads of every conceivable size
It stared at us with beady eyes and bared curved and color covered the ground and grew up the
black fangs that looked like a vampire’s. After sides of the trees, sprouting from clumps of moss.
jotting down a few notes, Bruce put it onto his Orchids with delicate white flowers emerged from
balding pate and let it walk around. rotten stumps. White bellbirds, rainbow-colored
E
macaws, and tiny iridescent hummingbirds ARLY THE NEXT MORNING, we
darted through the leaves, filling the air with started to climb Weiassipu. Our plan
their warbles and whistles. For brief moments was to ascend the wall via whatever
the clouds would lift, letting the sun filter through seemed to be the best route, laying a
holes in the canopy, illuminating patches of the trail of ropes anchored to the moun-
steamy forest floor where luminous blue morpho tain along the way. When the entire
butterflies flitted in shafts of light. cliff was rigged, we’d strap Bruce into
On the second day of fighting our way to the one of the portaledges and haul him up behind
base of Weiassipu, we began to catch glimpses us. From the comfort of this hanging platform,
of its towering north face through occasional Bruce would look for new species on the vertical
THIS WAS THE DIAMOND WATERFALL, WHERE LEGEND HAS IT THE PLUNGE POOL
openings in the forest. Soon we entered a maze walls that guard Weiassipu’s summit.
of jumbled, slippery boulders cloaked in a Progress was painstakingly slow, and by late
spongy blanket of electric-green moss. Grad- afternoon, Fuco and I found ourselves hud-
ually, the firm ground gave way to an elevated dling on a small ledge about 150 feet up the
lattice of deadfall that occasionally would break wall. Above us, a mud-stained rope snaked up
out from under our feet like a trapdoor. and across a 25-foot horizontal section of rock—
Late in the day I heard a loud oof behind me. known in climber parlance as a roof—to where
I looked back to see Alex hanging by his armpits. it was tied to Alex, who hung like a bat with his
One of his legs had broken through the rotten left leg hooked over a spike of rock.
trellis of dead wood and augered into a jagged “What do you think?” he called down. “Should
void between two rocks. After extricating him- I go for it?” The last section of the roof followed
self, he pulled up his pant leg. His shin was cov- a flake of rock that stuck out from the wall like
ered in a paste of blood and muck. Fuco caught a diving board. There was no way to say for sure
my eye. He didn’t say anything, but I knew what how solid it was. Earlier that day I had taken the
he was thinking: How in the world are we going first whack at this pitch, getting to where Alex
to get Bruce through this section? was now, before chickening out and handing
When we finally walked out of the forest at over the lead to Mr. Free Solo.
the base of Weiassipu just before sunset, it felt “Better to leave it for tomorrow,” yelled Fuco.
like being reborn. The clouds had lifted, and “It will be dark in a few minutes.”
the wall glowed in the dusk. Across the valley, Without saying anything else, Alex reached
we stared at the nine-mile-long east face of out to the edge of the flake with his right hand,
Roraima, where a dozen waterfalls, each as tall cut his feet loose, and swung out over the void.
as the Empire State Building, poured out of the Then he proceeded to go hand over hand across
mountain like flowing ribbons of golden silk. the flake, completely trusting that it would stay
Franklin directed our attention to the most attached to the mountain. After 15 feet or so, he
spectacular cataract, which burst from a hole in let go with one hand to chalk up his fingers.
the side of the cliff about 200 feet below the rim. Watching him dangle casually by one arm,
This, he said, was the Diamond Waterfall, where 200 feet above the jungle, I was struck by the
legend has it the plunge pool at its base sparkles uncanny resemblance he bore to a pebble toad
with diamonds the size of one’s fist. It’s a tale I’d seen clinging to Bruce’s finger a few days
that dates back to Sir Walter Raleigh, who wrote prior. Seconds later, Alex reached for another
that some of his Native guides promised to bring crack above his head, and the last thing I saw as
him to a mountain that had “very large pieces darkness enveloped the mountain was his legs
growing diamond-wise; whether it be crystal of slithering over the lip.
the mountain, Bristol diamond, or sapphire, I do That night, back down in our makeshift ham-
not yet know, but I hope the best.” mock camp at the base of the wall, Alex, Fuco,
and I were arguing about the feasibility of our the sun pulsed in a deep blue sky. Below, an ocean
plan. In setting the route, it had become clear of clouds blanketed the valley. To the west, I could
to me that hauling Bruce up the cliff like a piece see dozens of waterfalls pouring from Roraima’s
of baggage was going to be a lot more dangerous 1,500-foot-tall east face, forming halos of rain-
than any of us had expected. My biggest concern bows around the plunge pools at the base.
was that Bruce was on blood thinners for a heart After downing a cup of coffee and some energy
condition—something he had failed to disclose bars, we set off across the ledge, hoping it might
until we were well into the trek. What if he got lead to the summit. After half a mile of tunneling
hurt somehow and we couldn’t stop the bleeding? upward through thick bushes covered in spider-
Right then, a light flashed in an opening in webs, we turned a corner and found ourselves at
AT ITS BASE SPARKLES WITH DIAMONDS

THE SIZE OF ONE’S FIST.
the jungle far below, a signal from base camp. I the top of the tepui, staring across the plateau. In
turned on our radio and heard Bruce’s voice. With the span of a few feet, we stepped from a hanging
a heaviness in his speech, he told us that Brian cloud forest onto a bog covered in pitcher plants,
Irwin, our expedition doctor, had just persuaded yucca, and sundews, glistening carnivorous flora
him to pull the plug on our harebrained plan. that resembled Venus flytraps. Off in the distance,
“I can’t tell you how much this grieves me,” twin rock pinnacles rose above the sinkhole that
Bruce said. “Fuco, especially, knows the herpeto- Bruce and I had explored in 2012.
fauna well. I’ll send up the picture that I’ve It started to rain, and the clouds that had blan-
drawn of the Stefania that I’m pretty sure is new keted the valley began curling over the summit
to science up there.” rim and enveloping us. Fuco and I found shel-
“OK, Bruce,” Fuco said. “I’m going to do my ter under a mushroom-shaped rock, where we
best to find the lucky Stefania.” huddled, soaked and shivering, with my poncho
The next morning, the entire valley below draped over us like a tarp. Alex, meanwhile, had
Weiassipu was enveloped in the same gray mist disappeared, presumably to go climb something.
that we had been living in for days. I now under- Fuco called Bruce on the radio. “Where is the
stood why Bruce called this zone a cloud forest. best place to find that lucky Stefania?” he asked.
This basin seemed to create its own weather, and I felt bad for Fuco because I knew that he car-
it was a rare moment when we could see more ried the weight of everyone’s expectations. Bruce
than a hundred feet in any direction. It rained told him to look on the branches of small trees
for hours, but luckily the wall was overhung just and shrubbery. But he also mentioned that Ste-
enough that we usually avoided getting wet. fania like to hide inside clumps of moss during
While Alex led the way, Fuco and I followed, the day and that he usually finds them at night
looking for frogs inside cracks and digging into when their eyes catch the beam of his headlamp.
any patches of soil we found. At the end of each Fuco and I spent the afternoon wandering in
pitch, we used pulleys to haul up heavy bags that the fog and rain, poking through thick moss and
held everything we needed to survive on the wall combing branches and leaves, hoping to spot
for a few days. It was an exhausting day, during one of the minute frogs, or any kind of verte-
which the only creatures we found were a centi- brate, but all we found were some tadpoles from
pede with an orange stripe on its back and a big, a known species of frog. Fuco went out again
possibly carnivorous, cricket. It wasn’t until well that night in yet another rainstorm but found
after sunset that we crawled into our portaledges, nothing. It felt like a major defeat. Although the
anchored to the wall next to a narrow ledge 700 expedition had been designed to sample a broad
feet above the jungle. We fell asleep to the sound range of fauna, the focus had been to find frogs
of rain pattering against our nylon rainflies. on this tepui, especially the new species of
When the sun rose the next morning, I Stefania. That this was probably Bruce’s last
unzipped the door. The clouds were gone, and expedition made our failure especially crushing.
The nine-mile-long
east face of Roraima,
Guyana’s highest
point, towers above
the Paikwa River Basin.
Frequent rain on its
summit drains into the
watersheds of three of
South America’s major
rivers: the Essequibo,
Amazon, and Orinoco.
T
WO DAYS LATER we’d run out
of supplies and were forced to head
down the mountain. Bruce had relo-
cated to a new spot, “Sloth Camp,” a
day’s hike above Double Drop Falls.
We found him sitting at a workbench
sketching a rubbery brown frog, its
body laid out on a metal tray next to his note-
book. His field lab was covered with several glass
jars of formaldehyde, filled with frogs, lizards,
and snakes. He lit up when he saw us, but his eyes
were puffy and red rimmed. His safari shirt was
ripped and splotched with mud. As he gripped the
edge of the table and tried to stand, he grimaced,
and I realized that he was in a great deal of pain.
“I’m so sorry we didn’t find the Stefania,” Fuco
said, handing Bruce a baggie that contained the
centipede and cricket.
“It’s OK,” said Bruce. “The fact that you didn’t
find any frogs up there is actually a scientific
result in its own right.” I could see that a devilish Means pauses for
grin was spreading across his face. He led us over a moment by Double
Drop Falls before leav-
to the workbench, where he picked up the brown ing the rainforest he’s
frog and held it up for us to see. A small white studied for 35 years.
tag with some numbers was attached to its foot. The 2021 expedition
was his 33rd and final
“Is that … ?” I said, recognizing it from the scientific mission to
sketch of the Stefania that Bruce had sent us. the Upper Paikwa, yet
“I won’t know for sure until I’ve been able to much remains to be
discovered. Only about
do the DNA analysis,” Bruce said, “but I’m about half of the region’s frog
95 percent sure that this is a new species of Ste- species have been
fania.” He explained that it was different from scientifically identified,
Means says. “It’s up to
the one he’d seen all those years ago on top of someone else to pick
Weiassipu—the one Fuco, Alex, and I had just up where I’ve left off.”
been killing ourselves to find—but it was almost
definitely another missing link in the Stefania
evolutionary tree that he and Philippe Kok had
been working on for years.
Bruce put the frog back down and started pull- make the trek out. The only option was to call in
ing out other specimens to show us. “It’s funny an emergency helicopter rescue.
how it worked out,” he said. “Me not going up The canopy was so thick that our satellite
the wall turned out to be a blessing in disguise, phone didn’t work, but after several hours we
because it gave me time to thoroughly explore finally managed to text our coordinates to our
this cloud forest, which no scientists have ever outfitter back in Guyana’s capital, Georgetown.
investigated before.” The next day a helicopter descended into the
In all, Bruce was confident he’d found six spe- small opening at the base of Double Drop Falls.
cies new to science, including a nonvenomous After a round of hugs, Bruce headed for the chop-
colubrid snake and a spectacled lizard, which per, only to trip and fall one last time. As the heli-
had a transparent lower eyelid that allowed it copter climbed out over the jungle, I saw Bruce
to see when its eyes were closed. in the passenger seat looking out the window.
That evening, over a dinner of watery noodles, I knew he could see Weiassipu and Roraima to
we discussed what had long been the elephant in the south and west, rising from the cloud forest,
the room. Bruce’s condition had deteriorated to their waterfalls casting rainbows and diamonds
the point that there was simply no way he could into the rivers far below. Ahead, the veiny path
of the sparkling Paikwa River twisted northward, River Basin and the tepuis that surround it. And
growing turbid as it passed through the scars of I thought about how my old friend would prob-
the encroaching mines, which every year draw a ably never see this place again—and about the
little bit closer to this Shangri-la of biodiversity. new species that he now carried in the water-
As I turned to begin packing up for the long proof bag between his feet.
trek back out of the jungle, Edward pulled me If the tepui gods were smiling, maybe one of
aside. From an inside pocket he produced a these creatures might prove so rare and singular
small plastic vial holding a pea-size raw dia- that the world would finally realize what Bruce
mond. Now that our expedition was over, he was Means has known all along: The real treasures
hoping I might buy it from him. Holding that of El Dorado aren’t gold and diamonds—they’re
tiny stone between my fingers, I thought about the plants and animals that call this magical
all the pork-knockers who wanted to dig mines place home. j
to pull these out of the ground and all the money
they could provide to their families. I marveled Writer Mark Synnott and photographer Renan
Ozturk last teamed up to search for George
at how such a small rock could threaten some- Mallory’s lost camera on Mount Everest. Their
thing as ancient and primordial as the Paikwa story appeared in the July 2020 issue.
The
Weird
Wonder of
S EA HO
72
A pair of western spiny
seahorses (male at
far left) from Australia
intertwine tails for sta-
bility. Seahorses inhabit
coastal waters nearly
worldwide, clinging
to seagrasses, corals,
and sponges. Their
populations are being
squeezed by overfish-
ing and habitat loss.
HIPPOCAMPUS ANGUSTUS
SEAHORSE WORLD,
BEAUTY POINT, TASMANIA
They look like a mix of other

animals, the males give birth,
and we still have much to
learn about them. Now these
unique fish are threatened.
BY JENNIFER S. HOLLAND P H OTO G R A P H S B Y DAV I D L I I T T S C H WAG E R

Pacific Longsnout Tiger tail Long-snouted
seahorse seahorse seahorse seahorse
H. ingens H. reidi H. comes H. guttulatus
The seahorses in this sample are shown almost life-size. All seahorse species belong to the genus
A sampling of the
world’s 46 identified
seahorse species
reveals their array
of sizes, colors, crowns,
fins, and frills.
Pot-bellied Barbour’s Short-snouted White’s Dwarf

seahorse seahorse seahorse seahorse seahorse
H. abdominalis H. barbouri H. hippocampus H. whitei H. zosterae
Hippocampus, from the ancient Greek for “horse” and “sea monster.”
BIRCH AQUARIUM AT SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY, LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA; RAMALHETE MARINE STATION, UNIVERSITY OF THE ALGARVE, FARO, PORTUGAL
M
Miguel Correia pointed at the seafloor. I stared and
shook my head. He jabbed a gloved finger at the spot.
I swam closer and stared harder. Sand. Algae. Rocks.
A spiral of sea cucumber poop. I exhaled a swarm of
bubbles in frustration.¶ And then, suddenly, there
it was, tucked into the seaweed right where I’d been
looking: a three-inch-tall, long-snouted seahorse,
Hippocampus guttulatus, muddied yellow with
a smattering of dark freckles and a mane of skin
filaments. Later that dive I spotted (also with help)
Dried seahorses
confiscated at San
Francisco Interna-
tional Airport were
shipped from Asia,
where each year
millions are ground
up for traditional
medicines. Biologists
worry about illegal
trade and other
threats depleting
wild populations.
HIPPOCAMPUS KELLOGGI
CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF
SCIENCES, SAN FRANCISCO
its short-snouted cousin, Hippocampus hippocam-

pus, the other seahorse native to this coastal lagoon
in Portugal called Ria Formosa. ¶ Every continent
but Antarctica has varieties of these fabled fish in
its coastal waters. Worldwide, scientists recognize
46 species, the smallest no bigger than a lima bean,
the largest the size of a baseball glove. And that
number is likely to rise: Four new species were
named in just the past decade.
Stripped from the
seabed as bycatch,
the fish are sold
around the world for
traditional Chinese
medicine and
for trinkets.
A male pot-bellied seahorse displays a crown of skin filaments as individual as a human fingerprint.
BIRCH AQUARIUM 79
Newborn seahorses
emerge from a male’s
pouch, where a female
deposited her eggs
for incubation. This
pot-bellied seahorse
may give birth to hun-
dreds of young, most
of which will be gob-
bled up by predators.
SEAHORSE WORLD
It wasn’t long ago that Ria Formosa, in the
Algarve region of Portugal, was home to as many
The female
as two million seahorses, says Correia, a biolo- impregnates the
gist at the University of the Algarve’s Center for
Marine Sciences. He and colleagues breed and
male rather than
study the animals in a small waterfront facility, the reverse,
and they’ve seen populations of both species
decline dramatically. “We’ve lost up to 90 per-
an evolutionary
cent in less than 20 years,” he says. quirk unique
Such falloff appears widespread, in part
because seahorses live in the most hammered
to seahorses.
marine habitats in the world—including estuar-
ies, mangroves, seagrass beds, and coral reefs.
In Ria Formosa, for example, human activity—
from farming of clams to illegal bottom trawl-
ing—buries or rips up the seagrass beds that
seahorses prefer. changes and tail embraces. They may tango for
The hardest hitter globally is unregulated days and stay together for an entire season.
fishing, which fuels a wide-reaching trade in And here’s the twist: The female impregnates
dried seahorses. Stripped from the seabed as the male rather than the reverse, an evolution-
bycatch—the incidental capture in bottom ary quirk unique to seahorses and their close
trawlers and other catchall gear—the fish are relatives. She deposits her yolk-rich eggs into his
sold around the world for traditional Chinese belly pouch through a port on her trunk called
medicine and for trinkets. A much smaller num- an ovipositor. Several weeks later the distended
ber are sold live for the aquarium trade, mostly male goes into body-spasming labor, ejecting
to U.S. consumers. dozens to thousands of young—depending on
It’s easy to see the seahorse’s allure, with its the species’ size—into the current. Offspring
fanciful blend of traits that seem borrowed from drift awhile before settling down, and only a
other animals: a horse’s head, a chameleon’s scant few avoid being eaten by predators in
independent eyes and camo skills, a kangaroo’s those early days.
pouch, a monkey’s prehensile tail. Hippocampus When a seahorse needs to move from here
comes in colors rivaling Crayola’s Big Box and to there, it swims upright with the frantic flut-
in a multitude of bumps and blotches, stripes ter of its dorsal fin at up to 70 beats per second
and speckles, spikes and lacy skin extensions. A and steers with its pair of pectoral fins. To stay
seahorse has bony plates instead of scales, and, put, it uses its flexible tail to grab onto seagrass,
with no stomach to store food, it almost con- coral, or other fixed items on the seafloor. The
stantly sucks up copepods, shrimp, fish larvae, seahorse’s excellent camouflage then makes it
and other tiny edibles. all but invisible.
These sit-and-wait predators are dancers of a For all their notoriety—who wouldn’t recog-
sort. During courtship, a pair rises and falls face- nize a seahorse?—much about the fish remains
to-face in the water, communicating with color little known, including where they live and
precisely how their populations are faring. The
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species includes
Photographing his
subjects in research labs all Hippocampus species, and many are listed
and public aquariums, as data deficient.
David Liittschwager “For the vast majority of species,” says marine
captures the singular
beauty of three biologist Amanda Vincent of the University of
groups of mysterious British Columbia (UBC), “beyond taxonomy and
sea creatures in a a basic description, we know almost nothing.”
new book, Octopus,
Seahorse, Jellyfish, from Vincent is the director of Project Seahorse, a con-
National Geographic. servation alliance between UBC, where Vincent
SEAHORSES 81
Meet the Cousins
Seahorses, pipefish, the family traits are such as the weedy sea
and sea dragons long snouts, fused dragon (inset below)
belong to a family of jaws, and bony body and the ribboned
fish known as Syng- armor. After fertilizing pipefish (right), are
nathidae, a taxonomic the eggs, males carry masters of disguise.
group that includes them during incuba- HALIICHTHYS TAENIOPHORUS (RIGHT)
295 species. Among tion. Many species, BIRCH AQUARIUM
PHYLLOPTERYX TAENIOLATUS (ABOVE), AQUARIUM OF THE PACIFIC, LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA

example, that dried seahorses boost virility,
Commercial fishing have anti-inflammatory properties, and can
operations scoop treat everything from asthma to incontinence.
up at least 76 million of the pressures on seahorses, I

TO G E T A S E N S E
seahorses a year. visited a warehouse at the California Academy

of Sciences, where Hamilton rummaged through
Some 80 countries one of many boxes of plastic bags bulging with
are involved in brittle skeletons that had been confiscated at
San Francisco International Airport. There were
trading them. hundreds, maybe thousands, of fish, “represent-
ing just a year’s worth of what was stopped at a
single port,” she told me.
Occasionally officials seize a supersize haul:
In 2019 in Lima, Peru, more than 12 million
dried seahorses were confiscated from a sin-
is a professor at its Institute for the Oceans and gle Asia-bound ship—a load worth some six
Fisheries, and the Zoological Society of London. million dollars on the black market. But more
Such a knowledge gap, blamed in part on the often, seahorse shipments escape detection,
dearth of scientists who study seahorses, is espe- Hamilton said, with incalculable losses to each
cially problematic for a fish that’s so exploited. exploited species.
Project Seahorse estimates that commercial On a positive note, in 2020 the Portuguese
fishing operations scoop up at least 76 million government created two small marine protected
seahorses a year; some 80 countries are involved areas within Ria Formosa to act as seahorse
in trading them. “Fishermen used to throw them sanctuaries. It’s good news, but experts say the
back,” notes Healy Hamilton, chief scientist of key to maintaining seahorse numbers is better
NatureServe, a Virginia-based conservation fisheries management, with severe limits and
group, “but now in many places you’ll see a even bans on trawling. Market demand doesn’t
[buyer] on the dock just waiting to take them.” have to be a death sentence for Hippocampus,
While some fishermen target seahorses, it’s Foster says—“if we can get CITES rules to work
bycatch that’s devastating seahorse populations, as intended to support sustainable legal trade.”
says Project Seahorse’s program manager, Sarah Meanwhile, Asia’s consumption of seahorse
Foster. Global exports should have edged toward products could shrink on its own “as younger,
sustainability after 2004, when worries about more progressive-minded people move away
extensive international trade prompted new reg- from using wildlife in traditional ways,” Foster
ulations under the Convention on International says. The traditional-medicine community ulti-
Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and mately shares a goal with conservationists, she
Flora (CITES). “Unfortunately, it seems that most says. Traders and users often are vilified, “but in
trade in dried seahorses has just moved under- the end we all have incentives to keep seahorses
ground,” Vincent says. The good news is that the from disappearing.”
live trade is relying more on captive breeding, Acting on those incentives matters because
reducing pressure on wild populations, she says. “there is absolutely no way seahorses can sus-
Field surveys and CITES records have exposed tain today’s level of exploitation,” Hamilton
Southeast Asia, especially Thailand, as the said from her perch overlooking the warehouse
main supplier of seahorses, and indicate that shelves. “And people need to know: We are
two West African countries, Guinea and Sene- headed towards a world bereft of too many of
gal, have increased their exports. Hong Kong is these extraordinary fishes.” j
by far the top importer, with heavy shipments
also to Taiwan and mainland China. Most of Longtime contributor Jennifer S. Holland is
writing a book about dog intelligence, due out
the demand for seahorses reflects their use in in 2023. David Liittschwager has published
traditional medicines. Vendors promise, for seven books, including A World in One Cubic Foot.
The vibrant long-
snouted seahorse
can fade to a muddy
green by contracting
muscles attached to
pigment-filled sacs
under its skin. How
bright is the future
for these fanciful fish?
That’s up to us.
RAMALHETE MARINE STATION
SEAHORSES 85
PLASTIC RUNS
THROUGH IT
BY LAURA PARKER
P H O T O G R A P H S B Y S A R A H Y LTO N
86
The Ganges River
is a sacred
waterway in India.
It’s also a major
source of the
manufactured
waste that fouls
the ocean.
Two rivers, the

Bhagirathi and the
Alaknanda, converge in
the western Himalaya
to form the Ganges,
at the Indian town of
Devaprayag—Sanskrit
for “holy confluence.”
The amount of plastic
waste flowing out
of the Ganges is esti-
mated at more than
6,000 tons a year.
A National
Geographic
expedition
set out to
document
the extent
of plastic
pollution in
the river—and
its sources
on land.
Fisherman Babu
Sahni, 30, and his son
Himanshu Kumar
Sahni, eight, approach
a bank on the Punpun
River, a Ganges tribu-
tary. Throughout rural
India, trash collection is
rare, and ad hoc dump
sites like this one are
common. Most plastic
waste in the ocean
gets there by washing
off the land.
The National
Geographic Society,
committed to illuminat-
ing and protecting the
wonder of our world,
funded Explorer Sara
Hylton’s reporting along
the Ganges River.
ILLUSTRATION BY JOE MCKENDRY
Kolkata’s Mullick
Ghat flower market
is jammed before
the Durga Puja festival.
In operation since the
1850s near the Hooghly
River, a branch of the
Ganges, the market
now features plastic
flowers as well as real
ones. Both are some-
times scattered on
the river as offerings.
I
IN THE PAST DECADE , as the world has awakened
to the growing accumulation of plastic debris
in our oceans, the efforts to solve the mounting
crisis have been numerous, imaginative—and
insufficient. By 2040, the amount of plastic flow-
ing annually into the sea is forecast nearly to
triple, to 32 million tons a year. That means by
the time a baby born this year graduates from
high school, there will be, on average, a hundred
pounds of plastic trash for every yard of coast-
line around the globe.
The message from scientists is, it’s not too late
to fix it. But it’s past time for small steps.
Most of the research about plastic waste has
focused on plastic already in the oceans and its
potential for harm—it poses a lethal threat to a
wide range of wildlife, from plankton on up to fish,
turtles, and whales. Less is known about how the
waste gets to the ocean. But it’s clear that rivers,
PLASTIC RUNS THROUGH IT 91

Sita Ram Sahni
(seated), 70, and his
nephew Vinod Sahni,
50, pose in front of
their home on the
Ganges’s north bank
in Bihar. The Sahni
family has fished the
river for more than
50 years. Their nets,
once made of cotton,
are now made of blue
nylon, a kind of plastic.
OPPOSITE
Nylon nets are

commonly used—and
frequently replaced—
on the Ganges, one
of the world’s largest
inland fisheries. When
lost or discarded
in the river, the
nets can entangle
turtles, otters, and
endangered river
dolphins. Over time,
they break down
into microplastics.
especially rivers in Asia, are major arteries. know what it is,” said Jenna Jambeck, a Uni-
In 2019 the National Geographic Society spon- versity of Georgia environmental engineering
sored a research expedition to one of those rivers: professor who was one of the leaders of the
the Ganges, which flows across northern India expedition. It was her groundbreaking research
and Bangladesh, through one of the largest and in 2015, including her calculation that an aver-
most heavily populated river basins in the world. age of 8.8 million tons of plastic end up in the
A team of 40 scientists, engineers, and support oceans every year, that captured the world’s
staff from India, Bangladesh, the United States, attention and helped transform marine plastics
and the United Kingdom traveled the full length into a top environmental concern. Like most
of the river twice, before and after the monsoon experts, Jambeck believes the solution lies not
rains that dramatically swell it. Sampling the in cleaning up the oceans but in reducing and
river and the land and air around it, and inter- containing plastic waste on land, where most
viewing more than 1,400 residents, the team of it originates.
sought to find out where, why, and what kind of On a balmy November afternoon, I met Jam-
plastic was getting into the Ganges—and from beck in the ancient Indian city of Patna, which
there into the Indian Ocean. sprawls along the south bank of the Ganges,
“The problem can’t be solved if you don’t some 500 miles inland from the mouth of the
river in the Bay of Bengal. In a busy commercial said, you need to know what’s “leaking out of the
district, Jambeck walked slowly along a row of system” and what’s not.
shops and cafés, her eyes on the ground. She “Do you want to ban what ends up on the
counted litter piece by piece, logging each one ground? Do you want a tax? Something else?”
into a phone app that recorded its location. she asked. “Or, if you’ve banned plastic bags, for
There were a lot of pieces to log: Patna, a rapidly example, is your ban working?”
growing city of more than two million, has had The top three plastic items Jambeck doc-
municipal house-to-house trash pickup only umented on Indian streets were filmy food
since 2018, and the practice of dumping trash wrapp ers, cigarette butts, and tobacco
in the streets has long been a problem. “sachets”—single-serving packets that are sold
During the 98-day expedition, Jambeck and by the billions in Africa and Asia to deliver a wide
her team conducted 146 such litter transects, range of products. About 40 percent of the lit-
each about the length of a city block, in 18 cities tered items carried international brand names,
and villages along the river. They recorded 89,691 including brands from companies headquartered
individual littered pieces. They also cataloged in the U.S. or the U.K. Getting the attention of
the products sold in nearby shops—because to such companies was one of Jambeck’s purposes
design solutions to the waste problem, Jambeck in doing this research.

INDIA’S RIVER
HARSIL
Bhagirathi R.
OF PLASTIC RISHIKESH Devaprayag

Haridwar Alaknanda
ur
The holy Ganga, aka Ganges, is now heavily polluted, ndp
a
a massive waterway carrying the detritus of millions Ch
Delhi
of humans out to sea. In 2019 the National New Delhi
Geographic Society sent a team to survey the
R am
Ganges River Basin specifically for plastics.
The researchers studied dozens of sites ANUPSHAHR
ra
A
gan
on land and water in multiple locations,
Gar
ga
G
following the river’s 1,560-mile
N
an ang
Jaipur Aligarh
journey from Himalayan SIN
ga es)
(G
B A Chauka
glaciers to its delta on S R.
G
E
the Indian Ocean. NG Agra
GA
E
bal
Cham
S
KANNAUJ
I A
S Populated and polluted
A Brahmaputra
Gwalior
Ganges Basin The Ganges has become Lucknow
Basin one of the most populous
river basins on Earth, home Kanpur
to more than 400 million Betwa
Ya
INDIA people. Every year the m
river carries an estimated
un
6,200 metric tons of plastic
a
INDIAN waste to the sea. I N D I A
OCEAN
0 mi 50
G A N G E S Prayagraj
(Allahabad)
0 km 50 Tons
Indore
Built-up Bhopal
area N
Seasons of trash
Plastic waste and other trash accumulate in and along the
Ganges and its tributaries all year. But most of the waste is
flushed into the river and out to the Bay of Bengal during
SA
the monsoon rains, which last from June to September.

Bu
H
rh
IB
iG
G
A
an
N
da
Farakka
J
Average flow in
k
PA
the Ganges watershed Barrage

TN
1,000 Average flow 10,000

Kosi
A
in cubic meters
per second Peak (post-monsoon) flow
Ghaghara
Gandak
A
N
R I kna
VA
Al
K Amga
U
R
SH n
PS
a
a
RA
H
N ng
G AS
I K da
A
N a
om I
N
RS
AU
ES
at
IL
Padma
Bhagirathi Ganga (Ganges)

Yamuna
Hooghly
Peak (post-monsoon) flow data unavailable below Farakka Barrage

Punpun
Son
JASON TREAT, NGM STAFF; NAT CASE

ns
SOURCES: JENNA JAMBECK AND KATHRYN YOUNGBLOOD,

To
UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA; IMOGEN NAPPER, UNIVERSITY

OF PLYMOUTH; SHARAD K. JAIN AND OTHERS, HYDROLOGY
AND WATER RESOURCES OF INDIA; SANA KHAN AND OTHERS,
HYDROLOGICAL SCIENCES JOURNAL, 2018; LANDSCAN, 2018
14
Microplastic density
at sampling sites
Particles per liter
In water and on land Litter density
12 per 1,000 people
in items per
Surveys were taken before and square meter
Pre-monsoon Post-monsoon
after the monsoon season, which 10
(May-June) (Oct.-Dec.)
washes waterborne plastic toward
8
0.025 the sea. One team examined
0.075 microplastic density in the Ganges;
6
0.125 another studied locations on land.
Low population areas often had
4
more plastic waste per capita than
densely populated ones, mostly
2
due to poor waste management
in rural areas.
Areas with Between Less than
H
more than 2,000 and 2,000

10,000 people 10,000
I
Ya
rl
ung C H I N A
Zan
M (B
rah gbo
map
utra
N E P A L )
A GA
NG
ES Monsoon flood
Rap BA During the summer, winds
ti SIN
Faizabad L from the Indian Ocean flow
up the Himalaya and shed
G Kathmandu their moisture. The result:
ha
gh Go A monsoon rains that deluge
rak
G
Gan
a n the Ganges Basin.

P hpur
om
Su u
n Ar Y
ra
ati
L
ak
Ko
A
si
A
B A S II N Thimphu
Chhapra
N
si B H U TA N
Bu
PATNA
Ko
VARANASI
rh
iG
an
da Bhagalpur
n n k
So u
P unp Ga
nga Brah
(Ga Ti
s
map u tr a
nges
)
ta
SAHIBGANJ
IN
a
S Faar
F
Far
arak
arakk
aakk
kk
kka Baarr
arrr
rrage
ag
gee
g
BA
Jamun
S
GE
Pa
GAN dm
a
B A N G L A D E S H
D
A tangled delta
am
The world’s largest river delta

od
r RAJBARI
a
is formed by the intertwining of

Dhaka
ly
the Ganges and Brahmaputra

ogh
Rivers in Bangladesh, where they

Ho
empty their plastic-laden water

into the Bay of Bengal. The Farakka G A N G E S CHANDPUR
Barrage, a gated dam completed Howrah Khulna
Kolkata
in the 1970s, diverts some of this
water to the Hooghly River. R I V E R D E L T A BHOLA
Meghna R.
Sagar I.
Bay of Bengal
“We need those people who are 6,000 miles lethal counts of fecal bacteria, belief in the
away to come to the table and be open to mythic purity of the Ganges endures—and it
change,” she told me. complicates long-running efforts to clean up the
Like climate change, plastic waste is a side river. Sudipta Sen, who grew up in Kolkata and
effect of our hydrocarbon habit—most plastics teaches South Asian history at the University
are made from oil and gas—and its impacts, as of California, Davis, spent 14 years writing his
well as the solutions to the problem, are both book Ganges: The Many Pasts of an Indian River.
local and global. At least some of the litter I He found the paradox of the modern river, so
watched Jambeck record in Patna eventually worshipped and yet so neglected, frustrating
would make its way into an open curb drain. to write about.
From there a large pipe emptied it directly “The river is really two rivers,” Sen said.
into the river, setting it on a course for the Bay “There is this belief that the river can clean
of Bengal. itself and has magical properties. If the river
can clean itself, then why should we have to
worry about it? I have seen this. I have heard
many people say the river cannot be polluted;
it can go on forever.”
T
HE GANGES RIVER IS
o n e o f t h e wo r l d ’s The Ganges reinforces that story line during
largest, worshipped the summer monsoon, when it is said to be “in
by a billion Hindus as swell.” At Patna, where the river is joined by sev-
Mother Ganga, a living eral large tributaries, widening considerably, the
goddess with power to monsoon converts it into a raging torrent that
cleanse the soul. The regularly floods Bihar, the mostly rural state of
headwaters emerge from the Gangotri Glacier which Patna is the capital.
high in the western Himalaya, just a few miles Early one morning, with members of the
from Tibet, and then drop down steep mountain National Geographic expedition, I crossed from
canyons to India’s fertile northern plain. There Patna to the Ganges’s north side and drove to
the river meanders east across the subcontinent a small village fringed with banana palms and
into Bangladesh, broadening as it absorbs 10 populated by farmers and fishermen, who eke
large tributaries. Just after it merges with the out a living catching carp. Frayed blue-nylon
Brahmaputra, the Ganges empties into the Bay fishing nets lay in piles near a group of brick
of Bengal. It’s the world’s third largest fresh- houses and thatched-roof shanties. Abandoned
water outlet to the ocean, after the Amazon and fishing nets are a significant source of plastic
the Congo. It supports more than a quarter of pollution in the Ganges, one that endangers river
India’s 1.4 billion people, all of Nepal, and part dolphins, turtles, and otters.
of Bangladesh. A large earthen berm stood between the river
So sacred is the river that its water, Ganga and the homes, but during the recent monsoon
jal, has been hauled home in jugs by con- season, it hadn’t been enough to protect them.
quering armies and guidebook-toting tourists. Some of the locals had only recently returned
Seventeenth-century traders believed it stayed after evacuating during the flood. Chip bags and
“fresher” on long sailing voyages than water other litter were scattered about. Not a trash bin
drawn elsewhere. Sir Edmund Hillary, who con- was in sight.
quered Everest, was a fan. You can buy it today The fisherman I had come to see was asleep,
in blue bottles from Walmart. so I climbed over the berm, still covered with
Sadly, the Ganges also has long been one of the sandbags, and sat on the ghat—the steps down
world’s most polluted rivers, befouled by poison- to the river—watching people go about their
ous effluents from hundreds of factories, some morning chores. Five women crouched on the
dating to the British colonial period. The facto- bottom step and washed clothes in the murky
ries add arsenic, chromium, mercury, and other water. Several men arrived to bathe. Each
metals to the hundreds of millions of gallons of emptied shampoo from a plastic sachet before
raw sewage that still flow in daily. Plastic waste discarding it in the river. When the men had
is only the most recent insult. finished, they offered water back to Ganga in
Yet even in the face of it, and of sometimes cupped, uplifted hands.
I
N KOLKATA, I MET A FLOWER VENDOR
named Goutam Mukherjee who
told me he gave up selling fresh
flowers years ago. We were standing
in the center of one of Asia’s largest
Affordable
and most famous wholesale flower plastic goods
markets, where his booth was sur-
rounded by stalls hawking garlands of fresh marigolds and other
made life
fragrant blossoms. Mukherjee ticked off the reasons why his
plastic flowers, which were imported from China, were better
better in
than the real thing: They cost less, look real, and don’t wilt. India, but
The miracle of plastics arrived in India recently enough that
there is no Hindi word for the stuff, and in some places take-out
the pileup of
food still comes wrapped in banana leaves. The love affair really
took off in the 1990s, as the rapid growth of the global plastics
plastic waste
industry coincided with the liberalizing of India’s economy. If outpaced the
in the U.S. the golden age of plastics ushered in the throwaway
culture of convenience, in India, affordable plastic consumer
nation’s ability
goods simply made life better—not only for the expanding
middle class but also for those who live near the bottom rung.
to contain it.
Plastic storage containers, bags, and food wrap helped keep
food fresh longer. Barefoot children could get cheap shoes, and
inexpensive synthetic fabrics allowed them more clothes. Tiny
sachets provided people with access to products they couldn’t
afford to buy in larger volumes.
Yet even with the improving quality of life, the romance
faded fast. Before the decade ended, India found itself swim-
ming in plastic packaging waste that outpaced any ability to
contain it. By the mid-1990s, newspaper accounts sounded the
alarm. Plastic bags, handed out by the thousands in depart-
ment stores in Mumbai, were “suffocating the city.” Delhi
landfills were an impending “eco disaster.”
The problem has since spread beyond cities to rural areas
and even nature reserves, where numerous species, from
leopards to foxes to birds, have been seen eating plastic. At
the Rajaji National Park outside Rishikesh, a pilgrimage city
in the Himalayan foothills made famous in the West by the
Beatles, who spent several weeks there in 1968, elephants are
eating plastics in dump sites around the edges of the park.
“There are many places just outside the forest where vil-
lagers throw trash out, and the wild animals go there to eat,”
ranger Mohammad Yusuf told me, as we toured the park’s
grassy meadows and stands of tall pines. “I have seen plastic
in elephant poop many times in the last five years.”
In nearly every nation struggling to contain plastic waste,
the problem is primarily packaging, most of which is dis-
carded immediately after use. Globally, it accounts for 36
percent of the nearly 500 million tons of plastic manufactured
annually. India’s problem has less to do with per capita con-
sumption than lack of adequate waste collection. In the United
States, a person creates an average of 286 pounds of plastic
waste a year—the highest rate in the world and more than
six times India’s rate of 44 pounds per person. But the U.S.

‘The biggest
waste
management
infrastructure
is the river
itself … That’s
not an easy
thing to fix.’
Heather Koldewey,
National Geographic
expedition co-leader
Tannery workers hang

hides to dry on wooden
poles on the banks
of a canal in Kolkata.
The canal carries
factory waste, plastic
trash, and other
pollutants toward
the Ganges Delta and
the Bay of Bengal.
People in the Ganges
Basin use stairways
such as the Chandi
Ghat in Haridwar to
reach the river for a
dip in what they see as
purifying waters.
Hindu belief in the
river’s cleansing
powers draws millions
of pilgrims to the
river every year,
including during the
COVID-19 pandemic.
OPPOSITE
Swami Shivanand
Saraswati, 75, bathes
in the Ganges at his
Matri Sadan ashram
in Haridwar. He leads
a long-running and
ambitious campaign to
protect the river from
mining, new dams, and
pollution. Plastic waste
is just one of many
pollutants to befoul it.
has a more or less functioning system of trash One large municipal dump the team visited—
collection and disposal. unofficial, but used by city trucks—was so close
Trash collection in India’s cities is often to the riverbank that the Ganges devoured a
inefficient, and collection rates are low. The portion of it during each monsoon.
situation is more disheartening in rural areas, “As soon as you’d get to a town or anything
where about two-thirds of Indians live. In the smaller, there was no waste management at
state of Bihar, which has a population of 129 all … It was like they fell off a cliff,” Koldewey told
million, roughly the size of Japan’s, plastic me on the river one morning, as she collected
waste gets burned or dumped in ad hoc sites, water samples from an inflatable boat. “The fact
where foraging cows and other animals inad- is, the biggest waste management infrastructure
vertently consume it. Or it’s deposited on a is the river itself. People would put their waste
sandbar for Ganga to carry away. along dry river channels in recognition that it
Heather Koldewey, a marine and freshwater would all be taken away.
scientist at the Zoological Society of London “That’s not an easy thing to fix. If you are
and co-leader of the expedition, says she came replacing the river with a waste management
to understand the river’s flushing power in a system that is equivalent, that becomes quite
new light as she traveled the length of the river. significant in terms of cost.”
ocean—or at least make a big dent in the prob-
C
OULD YOU INSTEAD
just collect waste lem. That hope turns out to have been naive. A
from the river itself ? more recent and comprehensive survey by some
I n 2 0 1 7, a s g l o b a l of the same scientists found that you’d actually
concern about ocean have to clean more than a thousand rivers to
plastics was cresting, cut the amount flowing from rivers to the sea
two studies were pub- by 80 percent.
lished that came to a surprising conclusion: A Nevertheless, in Asia, Africa, and both Amer-
small number of rivers—one study identified icas, river-cleansing operations are under way,
10, the other 20—were responsible for the over- and they’re doing some good. The grandfather
whelming bulk of what rivers put into the ocean. of the effort is Mr. Trash Wheel, a googly-eyed
Most of the rivers on the two lists were in Asia. trash-eating barge that has been collecting rub-
The Ganges figured prominently on both. bish in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor since 2014. But
The image of waste-choked rivers was shock- the most ambitious river cleaner is Boyan Slat,
ing, but the studies’ conclusions suggested a the 27-year-old founder of the Ocean Cleanup,
silver lining: By cleaning up just a few rivers, a nonprofit in the Netherlands.
one might stanch the flow of plastic into the Slat came to fame as a teenager, when he

The Ganges is
worshipped
by Hindus as a
goddess with
the power to
cleanse souls—
and itself. That
complicates
efforts to clean
up the river.
Celebrants transport
a likeness of the god-
dess Durga through
the streets of Howrah,
near Kolkata, during
the Durga Puja festi-
val. It ends with the
immersion of the idols
in the local river—the
Hooghly in this case.
Hindu rituals often
involve offerings to the
Ganges or its branches.
Plastic is banned now
in many temples.
A dump in Patna
illustrates a pervasive
problem in the Ganges
Basin: Lack of adequate
trash collection has
resulted in plastic
being strewn in areas
where the monsoon
rains wash it and other
waste into the river.
OPPOSITE
A woman in Rishikesh
sorts plastic waste by
hand, paying particular
attention to the most
valuable kind: bottles
made of polyethylene
terephthalate, or PET,
which can readily
be recycled to make
clothing, for example.
Thanks to waste
pickers, India has a far
higher plastic recycling
rate than the United
States. But much plastic
trash has no value.
announced a grand plan to sweep up the Great rivers. It was his organization that funded the
Pacific Garbage Patch, a collection of loose new study showing how many rivers were sig-
marine debris, much of it plastic, that swirls nificant sources of plastic pollution. In 2019, he
around the North Pacific. He raised $30 mil- unveiled a solar-powered barge similar in design
lion and launched his contraption: a floating, to Mr. Trash Wheel and announced plans to
2,000-foot-long, U-shaped boom that skims clean the thousand worst rivers within five years.
waste from surface waters. Several marine sci- The pandemic delayed work; so far, Slat’s “Inter-
entists told him it was a terrible idea—that he ceptors” are operating in Indonesia, Malaysia,
would have to operate his device indefinitely, Vietnam, and the Dominican Republic. Together
at unsustainable costs, as long as plastic flows with the Pacific device, they have collected more
into the Pacific, and that it would be virtually than 2.4 million pounds of trash.
impossible to remove microplastics because Though Slat has taken on the Pacific, even he
they are so tiny and spread throughout the water thinks trying to skim plastic from large conti-
column. But Slat persisted, and his device is still nental rivers, including the Ganges, would be
out there, mostly gathering abandoned fishing the wrong approach.
nets. Even critics praise it for that. “It’s too wide, and the trash is diffuse,” he said.
Meanwhile, Slat has turned his attention to The better strategy would be to attack smaller
tributaries, to “go to the cities in the delta (Dhaka hand in hand with policy changes and behavior
and Kolkata) and deploy in the small streams changes as well.”
of these cities.”
After I returned from India, I visited John
Kellett, the inventor of Mr. Trash Wheel, at his
marina in an inlet south of Baltimore. He was
W
ASTE COLLECTION IN
finishing work on his fourth trash wheel, which India would be even
later was deployed on a stream near the down- more dysfunctional
town football stadium of the Baltimore Ravens. if it weren’t for the
The four have collected 3.5 million pounds of “informal sector”: the
trash and dramatically transformed the har- army of independent
bor’s appearance. But Kellett was skeptical of operators who collect
a global effort. plastic waste from households to sell for recy-
“It’s good that the interest in it is strong, but cling, and the waste pickers, who scavenge at
it’s just one piece of the puzzle,” he said. “I don’t dumps or on the streets.
think we’re ever going to clean up the oceans These workers, estimated at nearly 1.5 million,
by tackling one river at a time. It needs to go are one reason you don’t see many plastic bottles

In Asia,
Africa, and
both Americas,
river-cleansing
operations are
under way. But
the Ganges is
too wide, and
the trash in it
too diffuse.
In Patna, a boatman
surveys the Ganges
near a recently con-
structed expressway.
The country’s rapid
development has
fueled demand for
plastics, and its plastics
industry is now one of
the world’s largest.
on Indian streets—bottles are the highest value elsewhere, Ballani’s group favors recycling and
recyclables. Plastic waste makes up roughly half opposes bans, arguing that they cost jobs and that
of waste pickers’ earnings, and bottles made of the problem is not single-use plastics themselves
polyethylene terephthalate (PET) account for but the way people dispose of them.
about half of the plastics collected, Bharati Since 2016 the Indian government has been
Chaturvedi, director of Chintan, a nonprofit that working on new regulations that would require
supports waste pickers, told me. producers of plastic packaging to take respon-
The informal sector is largely responsible for sibility for the cost of collecting and recycling
India’s high recycling rate, estimated at 60 per- their disposable products. Similar regulations,
cent. (In contrast, the U.S. recycles less than 30 known as extended producer responsibility, or
percent of its trash overall and just 9 percent of EPR, have helped curb plastic waste in the Euro-
plastic.) But there’s no money in nonrecyclables, pean Union since the mid-1990s. In the U.S., the
and so bags, food wrappers, sachets, and so on plastics industry has opposed national legisla-
don’t get picked up. Instead they litter Indian tion. Only Maine and Oregon have passed laws
streets and wash into the Ganges. requiring EPR for plastic packaging.
Last October, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Meanwhile, the amount of plastic waste flowing
launched phase two of his “Clean India” cam- into the ocean keeps increasing. The forecast that
paign. In the first phase, the country had installed it will almost triple by 2040 under a business-as-
nearly 90 million toilets in a bid to end open defe- usual scenario comes from a report drafted by
cation, which remains common in India. One goal Pew Charitable Trusts and Systemiq, a London-
of the second phase is to make cities garbage free. based environmental and investment company.
Modi’s government is building waste-to-energy All the localized bag bans, bottle bills, and recy-
plants—that is, incinerators that generate electric- cling commitments you hear about would at best
ity. It also has announced a wide-ranging national shave a few percent off business as usual, the
ban on the manufacture and use of single-use report concludes; solving the plastic waste prob-
plastics. Scheduled to take effect in July, the ban lem will require all of the above. But it also will
will cover thin shopping bags, foam containers, require governments to fundamentally realign
cutlery, cups, plates, straws, candy and ice-cream the plastics industry’s economic incentives. In
sticks, certain films, and other disposable plastics. particular, if we don’t want plastic waste in the
In India, however, the gap between ambitious ocean to double or triple, we have to keep plas-
national legislation and its enforcement at the tic production from doubling on land—which is
local and state levels is sometimes large. Existing what the industry is projected to do if it’s allowed
federal waste regulations are “absolutely marvel- to do business as usual.
ous, everything you could ever want,” said Robin Pew and Systemiq are hardly the only voices
Jeffrey, co-author with Assa Doron of Waste of prescribing such an approach. In December
a Nation, a study of India’s garbage. “Except 2021, the National Academies of Sciences, Engi-
nobody in the country could come within a neering, and Medicine recommended the U.S.
bull’s roar of achieving them.” India has been develop a national strategy to reduce plastic
trying for more than 35 years to limit discharges waste, one that could include a cap on virgin
of sewage and factory waste into the Ganges—so plastic production. Such a cap would help
far with little success. address the climate crisis as well; the plastics
The pandemic slowed government action on industry accounts for about 6 percent of global
projects to clean India. It also led to a surge in oil consumption. The two crises are linked.
plastic waste here, as it did globally, as people And the suggestion that the solution to both
in lockdown ordered more take-out food and requires leaving oil in the ground, which once
home deliveries. was considered radical, has become part of the
“Post-pandemic, civil society has a better mainstream conversation.
appreciation for plastic and its role in saving In India too, the calls for action have become
humankind,” said Deepak Ballani, director gen- more urgent and widespread. Brajesh Kumar
eral of the All India Plastics Manufacturers’ Asso- Dubey, an environmental engineering professor at
ciation. “At the same time, the awareness about the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, told
environmental impact resulting from littering has me he was surprised, as he traveled the Ganges
increased severalfold.” Like the plastics industry Basin on the National Geographic expedition, to
meet so many “small islands of people” working to raise aware-
ness about environmental issues. But then, his country has
changed so much, and developed so fast, in the past 30 years.
“If someone can bring all these islands together, it can
achieve more and tackle this problem in a much better way.
A cap on
Behavior will change,” Dubey said. “I am very much an virgin plastic
optimist, a glass-half-full person.”
production
would help
address the
U
NLIKE THE EFFORT TO FIGHT
climate change, cleaning up plas-
tic litter in a river basin would have
climate crisis
an immediate and visible benefit
for the people who live there.
as well. The
But like the fight against climate two crises
change, the struggle can sometimes
seem almost Sisyphean—and at the same time essential, if
are linked.
we are to avoid altering the planet irrevocably.
Toward the end of my stay in India, I traveled to Sagar
Island, at the western end of the 200-mile-wide Ganges River
Delta. Sagar sits on the Bay of Bengal at the mouth of a distrib-
utary of the Ganges called the Hooghly, 75 miles downstream
from Kolkata. To Hindus, this outlet of the river has special
spiritual significance. Every January, thousands of pilgrims
come to the island to bathe in the waters where Mother Ganga
meets the sea.
At the island’s southwestern point, near a lighthouse the
British installed to guide ships into the mouth of the river
and on to Kolkata, the beach was trash free when I visited;
Ganga had done her monsoonal cleansing well. As I walked
along, passing some out-of-season pilgrims, a few stray cows,
and a funeral party scattering ashes in the water, I thought
of all the other gifts that Ganga bestows on Sagar these days.
According to measurements made by Koldewey’s team,
aside from carrying away the visible trash, the monsoon rains
wash three billion microfibers a day out the main channel of
the river into the Bay of Bengal. There they join the growing
swirl of tiny plastic fragments in the oceans, whose harmful
effects on marine life are just beginning to be understood.
One of the expedition’s experiments, dubbed Message in a
Bottle, involved releasing a fleet of 25 bottles equipped with
electronic trackers to better understand how plastic behaves
in rivers and their outlets. Three bottles were released at the
mouth in Bangladesh. In the sea, plastic moves easily and
can travel hundreds of miles in a matter of weeks. Not long
after my visit to Sagar, the three bottles passed by where I
had stood. They were riding the East India Coastal Current,
destination unknown. j
Senior writer Laura Parker’s 2018 cover story on ocean plas-

tics won a Scripps Howard Award. Photographer Sara Hylton
is based in Mumbai, where she covers stories about gender,
Indigenous people, and the environment.

WILDLIFE W AT C H
All for a Song

C U B A’ S I N FAT U AT I O N W I T H W I L D S O N G B I R D S
I S P U T T I N G T H E M AT R I S K .
BY DINA FINE MARON PHOTOGRAPHS BY KARINE AIGNER

Trapping wild
songbirds is illegal in
Cuba but has a long
tradition. Favored
species such as this
Cuban bullfinch in the
city of Cienfuegos
often are displayed on
streets and in homes.
In singing contests,
prized male birds may
be placed near each
other, spurring them
to perform.
111
U.S.
of the illegal commerce online, says Xochitl Ayón
ATLANTIC Güemes, an ornithologist and bird curator at the
FL
OCEAN National Museum of Natural History, in Havana.
O R
Cuban officials did not respond to requests for
G ul f o f I DA details about songbird trapping and smuggling
Mex ico and prosecutions for those crimes.
Keeping caged birds is seen as a tradition by
TH
Miami
Everglades
E
many Cubans, “so despite it being a violation,
ida
B
National Park
A
it has been something socially accepted,” says
H
or
Fl
A
M
f
Stra i t s o A
S Maikel Cañizares, an ornithologist at the Min-
Havana
istry of Science, Technology and Environment.
Cienfuegos C U The hobby dates back to the Spanish con-
Trinidad B querors and has become increasingly common,
A
Caribbea
says biologist Giraldo Alayón García, former
n S
150 mi ea Santiago president of the Cuban Zoological Society and
150 km de Cuba now president of Fundación Ariguanabo, a
nonprofit that promotes nature, science, and
culture. Many Cubans want to have colorful birds
The men began in their homes to enjoy their songs and beauty,
and people pass this tradition on from genera-
arriving with their tion to generation, he says.
For some Cubans, songbirds are also a busi-
champion crooners early ness. Recent food shortages and the economic
strain of U.S. policies have increased desperation
on a Sunday morning. for cash, and illegally trapping wild songbirds is
Sidestepping the tall weeds and trash mounds cheaper and easier than breeding them at home.
that blocked the narrow path, they gathered at a “The amount of money to be made from [the
secluded spot in Havana. It was September—bird songbird trade] is pretty limited,” says Lillian
migration season in Cuba—and the recent influx Guerra, professor of Cuban and Caribbean his-
of coveted songbirds had set off a flurry of illegal tory at the University of Florida. On Facebook,
trapping and selling. Painted buntings, indigo some birds may be advertised for no more than
buntings, and rose-breasted grosbeaks, a collec- $20. Competition wagers vary widely—up to
tive riot of color and song, were in high demand. thousands of dollars.
Sundays were popular for songbird competitions. The trapping of wild songbirds is taking a toll,
Days earlier, someone posted the venue on however. “Today,” says Alayón, who is 75, it’s
one of the dozen Cuban songbird Facebook “almost impossible” to find a Cuban grassquit in
groups I’d joined in July 2021. Because of corona- some places, though “they were common when
virus restrictions, I couldn’t travel to Cuba, and I was a child.” The birds, endemic to Cuba, are
a local contact agreed to attend the clandestine admired for their clear, high-pitched song and
meetup for me on condition of anonymity. the bright yellow flourish behind their eyes and
A 2011 Cuban law on biological diversity pro- around their neck. Alayón says his father used to
hibits capturing many songbirds for anything but keep Cuban grassquits but he finally persuaded
scientific research. Competitions, with wagers
on birds that sing the longest, most melodious
tunes, are illegal too. Yet people openly post foot- TOP BOTTOM
age from the contests, and some Facebook posts Officers with the Florida Men in a park in
offering songbirds for sale explicitly note ones Fish and Wildlife Con- Cienfuegos watch as
that were captura—trapped in the wild. servation Commission two birds sound off.
carry seized birdcages Some singing compe-
Pandemic lockdowns have pushed even more and traps. Nearby, titions are solely about
an entire shed is filled pride in one’s birds
Support Wildlife Watch, a reporting project with such confiscated and socializing with
that shines a light on wildlife exploitation, items, underscoring the friends; other contests
by donating to the National Geographic Society scale of illegal trapping involve lucrative—
at natgeo.org/joinus. around Miami. and illegal—wagers.
112 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C ROSEMARY WARDLEY, NGM STAFF

ALL FOR A SONG 113
Before the coronavirus
pandemic, people came
to trade, sell, or watch
birds at places like
this in Havana, where
onlookers gathered
to watch a songbird
take seeds from
a handler’s tongue.
ALL FOR A SONG 115

him to set them free. There’s “no doubt,” Alayón TOP BOTTOM
laments, that the Cuban grassquit is now “imper- A trapper holds up his Investigator Rene
iled because of the trapping activities.” male Cuban bullfinch Taboas with the Florida
in the mountains Fish and Wildlife Con-
With their vibrant red chest, blue head, and outside the town of servation Commission
green wings, painted buntings (known in Cuba as Trinidad. He’s hoping holds a confiscated
mariposa, meaning “butterfly”) also are at risk. his bird’s call will lure painted bunting as he
others of its kind to and colleagues pack up
The birds migrate between the southeastern respond and that this birds, traps, and cages
United States and the Caribbean, and their is a promising area after a sting in the
numbers have plummeted in recent decades as for trapping the birds. Miami area.
a result of habitat loss and the illegal trade in
Cuba and elsewhere, according to periodic pop-
ulation counts of North American birds. owners also may cauterize contestants’ eyes with
“There’s so little information on how many a hot spoon, hoping that territorial birds unable
birds are being captured,” says painted bunting to see their opponents will keep singing.
expert Clark Rushing, a University of Georgia Public pressure is building in Cuba to stop the
professor. In a 2004 account, three trappers songbird trade. In August 2020 President Miguel
caught roughly 700 painted buntings in one Díaz-Canel Bermúdez tweeted, in Spanish and
Cuban province in a single weekend. Such num- English: “We must tackle illegal actions against
bers are common anecdotally, Rushing says, but the flora and fauna. NO to the smuggling of wild
it’s hard to know whether they’re outliers. birds!” Accompanying his words were images of
To track the migration of painted buntings, songbirds, including the painted bunting and
five years ago Rushing and his team used nets to Cuban grassquit.
catch the birds in their breeding grounds in Florida Songbird trapping has spread to the United
and other states. The team put ID bands around States, particularly around Miami, a Cuban
the birds’ ankles, fitted them with tiny backpacks American stronghold. Thousands of songbirds
containing geolocators, and released them. The in Florida—including some, such as painted
researchers found that buntings migrating all buntings, that migrate there from Cuba—are
the way to wintering grounds in Cuba were 20 captured in woods and backyards each year.
percent less likely to return north than birds Many trappers are of Cuban descent, according
making shorter journeys. The long flight over to Florida law enforcement.
open water may explain some of the losses, Birds are also smuggled from Cuba. In January
Rushing says, but trapping also may be a factor. 2016, customs officials at Miami International
Photographer Karine Aigner says that when Airport snagged Hovary Muniz, a Miami resident
she was in Cuba, trappers agreed to sell her a who’d arrived from Cuba with nine songbirds
geolocator they’d removed from a bunting they’d concealed in a fanny pack and in plastic tubes
just captured. “We were able to confirm it was a in his underwear. After he continued selling
bird originally banded in South Carolina,” Rush- protected migratory birds while on probation,
ing says. The trappers told Aigner it wasn’t the he was sentenced to 15 months in a U.S. prison.
only banded painted bunting they’d caught. People want to be close to nature, Alayón says,
and trapping songbirds is entrenched in Cuban
of the illegal trapping, says
T E E N AG E R S D O A LOT culture. “The most difficult thing in the world
Eduardo Iñigo-Elias, a retired senior researcher in Cuba is to change the mind of the people,”
at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “They chal- he says.
lenge each other to see who can trap more birds At the Sunday songbird competition in
and get some cash,” he says. Havana, my contact reported that a police patrol
Some Cubans mourn their birds when they appeared before noon. But no one was arrested—
die. But when people train songbirds to com- the bird handlers had vanished. One onlooker
pete, they may put them in stressful situations, offered this explanation: They’d been tipped off
forcing them to learn songs played in a constant that the police were on their way. j
loop. Younger trappers are “more cruel,” Ayón
Güemes says. Some give their birds steroids to Dina Fine Maron is a staff reporter for National
Geographic’s Wildlife Watch. Karine Aigner
invigorate their performances. “Old people don’t photographed harpy eagles in the October 2020
use steroids” on their birds, she says, but young issue of the magazine.
ALL FOR A SONG 117
It can take weeks
of rehabilitation to
strengthen the wings
of confiscated song-
birds so they can fly
again. Here, west of
Miami, the conserva-
tion commission’s
Lt. Antonio Dominguez
releases rose-breasted
grosbeaks back into
the wild.
ALL FOR A SONG 119

THE
WATER
BEHIND
US
IN THE ROUGH SEAS OFF WEST AFRICA ,

FISHING I S N ’ T J U S T F O R T H E B R AV E —
I T ’ S A TRADITION T H AT S H A P E S
C OA S TA L C O M M U N I T I E S A N D T H E I R
R E S P E C T F O R N AT U R E .
E S S A Y B Y N I I AY I K W E I P A R K E S
P H OTO G R A P H S BY D E N I S DA I L L E UX
121
Along this
coast of ours,
nothing is
strange.
If you wake early enough to meet the canoes as
they come in—in Port Bouet, Côte d’Ivoire; in
Ngleshi, Ghana; in Old Jeswang, the Gambia;
in Grand-Popo, Benin; in Apam, Ghana—you
will hear fishermen speaking Fante, Ga, Ewe, all
languages of Ghana.
As the men separate into identifiable bodies in
the emerging sun, pulling in the nets, their chants
get louder: “Ee ba ei, ee ba ke loo—It is coming, it
is laden with fish.” Each net comes in heavy with
what the deep has to offer in the clutches of its
mesh. The fish flop, flail, and trampoline on the
sand, catching the sun’s light as quick hands sort
them into wide metal basins.
The catch is never the same. Yes, there are the
easily recognized commercial varieties: snapper,
grouper, tuna, mackerel, kpanla (a variety of hake).
But invariably there are the coveted: crayfish, eels,
rays, and species of odd shapes and sizes, boned
and boneless, some with features that would
excite fantasy and horror writers in the manner
Nana Adomo, covered

in sand, pauses while PREVIOUS PHOTO
she plays on the beach Fishermen prepare
in Mumford, a tradi- their boats in a small
tional fishing town on harbor in Jamestown,
Ghana’s coast along the a district of the coun-
Atlantic Ocean’s Gulf try’s capital, Accra.
of Guinea. The govern- Many people in the
ment is modernizing area fish, but this crew
the local port, adding lives at a port about
roads and a market- 60 miles away. They
place, net-mending hall, came to Jamestown
ice depot, gas station, to sell their catch and
and day care center. then stay the night.
T H E WAT E R B E H I N D U S 123
TOP LEFT
Gina Asante, a street

vendor in Winneba,
another historic fishing
port in central Ghana,
carries a cage of
chickens to be sold.
Agriculture accounts
for perhaps 50 percent
of Ghana’s workforce.
TOP RIGHT
Friends Kodjo Essel and
Kofi Ayikpah attend
the popular Aboakyere
festival in Winneba.
The festival, originating
from an ancient rite
of sacrifices offered
to the tribal god Otu,
occurs annually on the
first Saturday in May
and features activities
such as antelope hunts
and celebrations. The
powder on the festival-
goers’ faces is deco-
rative. Historically in
Ghana, white clay or
powder has been used
as a sign of victory
over evil.
BOTTOM LEFT
Children who have
decorated themselves
with talcum powder
stop for a photo while
playing in a house
under construction
by the sea in Apam,
a fishing port. They
make up games to
entertain themselves
while men fish and
women sell the catch.
BOTTOM RIGHT
Nyamo Adomako,
a young fisherman
living in Jamestown,
plays soccer with
friends when he is
not out at sea.
AFRICA
GHANA
NGM MAPS
NEXT PHOTO
Children chase each

other on the beach
in Apam. Formerly a
major harbor, the port
now is focused on
fishing. Communities
in Ghana take a break
from fishing at sea
and in freshwater one
day a week, which
enhances conservation.
The Ga, the people
I belong to, have no
fear of the unknown.
‘May strangers find
home with us’ is a
foundational philosophy
of our culture.
that open-sea Phronima creatures apparently

inspired the film Alien. But there will be no
screaming here—there will be spices to render
all species delicious.
The Ga, the people I belong to, have no fear of
the unknown. The saying “Ablekuma aba kuma
wo—May strangers find home with us”—is one
of the foundational philosophies of our cul-
ture; it is why my European surname, Parkes,
imported with a Sierra Leonean grandfather of
Jamaican heritage, is considered a Ga name. It
is an attitude echoed among most of the coastal
peoples of West Africa: They travel without hes-
itation, they embrace travelers; like the waves
that wash their feet, they come and go.
But in fishing families, Ghanaians are unique.
In 1963, the now defunct magazine West Africa
called Ghanaians “pan-African fishermen”
because of the number of countries—from
Nigeria to Senegal—where Fante, Ewe, and Ga
fishermen applied their expertise.
Raised by some of the roughest seas along the
coastline, fishermen from the Fante-speaking
western and central regions of Ghana became
not only the strongest sea swimmers in the
world (16th- and 17th-century European trav-
elers including Jean Barbot and Pieter van den
Broecke were awed by West African swimming
skills) but also expert canoers.
Even among the Ga, the most revered fisher-
men, the woleiatse, often are from the Abese-
Fante akutso (network of families), a group of
Fante naturalized as Ga people. This easy shift
in identity from Fante to Ga is rooted in shared
values that are tied to a quest to preserve their
livelihoods. Neither group fishes at sea on
AB OVE RIGHT
Tuesdays or in freshwater on Thursdays. It is
Prince Kafuta Two children at play taboo, and thus a weekly break allows water spir-
poses on a beach in take a moment to
Mumford with a toy observe their surround- its to replenish the fish—a conservation-minded
boat modeled after ings and peer up at act rooted in culture and tradition.
the town’s fishing a fish sculpture in the More tangibly, the idea of conservation guides
boats. The sea is a square on Sekondi-
key part of Ghanaian Takoradi’s beachfront. the range of skills acquired by Ghanaian fishing
identity. Along The monument to fish- communities. A large number of fishermen are
West Africa’s coast, ing is adorned with the part-time farmers, returning to the land once or
most fishermen are red, yellow, and green
from Ghana. from the Ghanaian twice annually when fish stocks are less plentiful.
flag’s stripes, as well The remainder mimic the migration patterns
as its black star. of the primary species consumed where they
live, or go to areas where alternate fish can be
found. Ladyfish, for example, which is taken in
Senegal and the Gambia, can replace bonefish,
a delicacy in the central region of Ghana.
It is also the flux of available fish that has
fueled the mastery of fish brining and smok- My cousin who shared my name, Ayikwei,
ing along the coast. Good stocks of smoked fish was one of the unreturned. In 1992, when I was
ensure that the staple protein of coastal diets is making my first journey to live outside the cap-
readily available regardless of the season. ital, Accra, in Tolon, nearly 400 miles away in
The reality of the occasional man lost at sea northern Ghana, he said something to me that I
and the unpredictability of the catch mean that carry always: You have no cause to be nervous.
fishing families ultimately latch their dreams to We are Ga; with the water behind us, we have
the twists of fate. nothing to fear.
Fishermen deliver their silvered bounty to Now, wherever I travel, in the midst of the
the women of their towns; the women sell it strange, I close my eyes and listen for water. j
and perform magic with the proceeds: trading,
farming, and educating children who run along Writer, poet, and performance artist Nii Ayikwei
the shore, making up games while the men are Parkes’s books include Tail of the Blue Bird. This
away riding waves. is his first story for National Geographic. French
photographer Denis Dailleux, of Agence VU,
Even when the men don’t return, they leave is based in Paris and Cairo. In his work, he has
something behind. explored Ghanaians’ relationship with the sea.
INSTAGRAM
PAOLO VERZONE
FROM OUR PHOTOGRAPHERS
WHO Verzone has spent years photographing something

Based in Italy and Spain, that’s hard to capture: joy. Often it’s serendipitous.
Verzone focuses on convey- “Ninety percent is unpredictable,” he says. But he
ing his subjects’ spirits as
well as their experiences.
suspected he’d find it when he went to Scotland in
WHERE
spring 2017 to cover Highland dancing, originally
Arthur’s Seat, a volcanic done by men during wartime but now performed by
peak in Edinburgh, Scotland all in lively public shows. Verzone trained his lens on
WHAT some of the country’s most talented dancers as they
Phase One XF IQ160 with practiced for the Highland games. For days he mar-
an 80mm lens
veled at the displays of athleticism, energy—and joy.
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