Fellow Purple Cooer
Tattie Weasel has tagged me. My
challenge? To reveal a memory.
This required some thought since, though having only 28
years behind me (nearly 29!) I have many memories of wonderful and exciting,
and not so wonderful let alone exciting, things that have happened.
But one of my favourite memories? It has to be of my
encounter with the "Wolves of the River" in the Amazon Basin, Peru
while I was working as an expedition journalist for The Times in 2001. Note
that my own photos are mostly slides and I don't have a slide scanner so these
are "borrowed"!
I had joined the
Biosphere Expeditions Research
Team during the summer following my second year of University. At that time
I was getting more seriously into writing and was Science Editor for the
University Magazine; a position which earned me an award from the Principal for
Outstanding Service to the Student Body. Ah the days of being really
appreciated!
I was desperate to join one of these amazing trips into the
wilderness collecting data and was sure that other folk were bound to be
interested in hearing about it: who knew, I might even get paid to go! I was
right. One phonecall to the editor of The Times later and I had myself a
commission and even some cash in advance
Before long I found myself stepping off a plane with my
friend Leigh, who had decided to make the trip too, into an unknown world of
temple-like trees, bizarre bugs and painted parrots.
On a rare day off from collecting behavioural data on
parrots or recording species along forest transects, a group of us took a trip
down river to visit
Sandoval Lake, an Oxbow off the
Madre de
Dios. We walked through a local village and, for a few Sol, were
allowed to borrow one of the locally made canoes.
Soon we were gliding across the mirror calm muddy waters,
gawping at the gaudy macaws in the towering trees, smiling at a basking turtle
complete with a butterfly on his nose, waving excitedly at long-nose bats
roosting openly on the trunks of the palms and laughing at the ungainly
movements of hoatzin as they lumbered noisily in the bushes.
This place had a profound effect on me, it immediately got
under my skin and into my soul, I felt a deep connection with the place though
why I cannot fully understand. I've been to many incredible places, but I will
never forget the feeling of deep calm that I felt out on that lake.
We paddled towards a dark little creek leading off from the
main body of water; it looked like a set for Anaconda or
Congo with its
dark waters and overhanging vines.
As we slipped along day-dreaming we were
suddenly brought back to earth by splashing and high whistles. We glanced at
each other, "otters" we whispered excitedly. James, our friend and
guide for the day, skilfully paddled our canoe silently toward the sound. Sure
enough, there appeared the eight heads of a family of giant river otters. They
regarded us calmly for a moment and the adult male periscoped high out of the
water, his large liquid chocolate eyes showing no sign of fear.
The giant river otter, locally known as Lobo de Rio [wolf of
the river], like so many rainforest species, is now extinct from much of its
former range. Fur hunting from the 1940s until 1970, decimated the population.
Add to this overfishing; mercury contamination of the water by gold miners;
irresponsible tourism; and the fact that 12.5 million hectares of rain forest
are felled every year to provide us with plywood for our DIY projects and
grazing space for our fast food, and you have a problem which isn't going away
soon.
Finding us of little consequence, he turned tail and led his
family casually off into the swamp forest, squabbling and whistling as they
went. We turned so as not to disturb them further and paddled back to the lake,
each with an indelible grin on our faces. Let's hope that I'm not among the
last to experience such an amazing encounter.
