by James Roberts

You can see the source of the Monk’s Pool from a distance, a stain of deep green bleeding out from the brown, a horse shoe indentation in the slope. Water bubbles out of the ground from a little cup sized puddle which overflows into a stream so narrow the grass obscures it for most of its short journey down this Welsh hillside. The stream reveals the poverty of the soil here, its centuries of journeying having eroded only a few inches of the turf to a bed of mudstone. Bracken and gorse carpet the hill with, here and there, the odd thorn tree, split, wind-twisted and brittle. The pool was once edged with a line of Scots Pine but the level of the water was raised in recent times, flooding the roots of most of the trees which are now bare, bleached crucifixes.

Mid winter. The pool is usually empty at this time of cold sleep. But this has been a year of anomalies and it is inhabited now by a single juvenile mute swan. A mile south the potato crop has been harvested and the sheltered fields next to the river are starting to fill up with swans, hundreds of birds, many having migrated here from as far as Scandinavia. It is an old gathering place that all the swans in the region come to. Except for the single loner fifteen hundred feet up, facing a much harsher winter.

The cob and pen arrived in early March, circling the pool over the spring passage flocks of teal and mallard, resident coots and moorhens. Small groups of Canada geese started landing soon afterwards. Almost as soon as the birds had settled the cob attacked, neck extended, head low, skidding towards them, air screaming over its wings. The geese took off, territory conceded. Later that week the swans began to build their nest inside an oval of bullrushes. Soon the pen was sitting on seven eggs while the cob defended the territory against every potential predator including the otter that started to leave its spraints on the boulders while it waited for the annual arrival of toads to their breeding ground at the pool’s shallow edges.

Six of the seven eggs hatched in early May with the first swallows arcing over the water and the sound of a pair of curlews off to the west where they were nesting near the stream. For the coming weeks the tiny cygnets would be guided around the lake by their parents, travelling single file with pen leading and cob guarding the rear unless a walker happened to stop, when the cob would paddle towards them hissing. At this time an ancient, battered old tractor started to appear by the lake, parked alongside the reed bed where the nest still held one beige egg that had not hatched. I walked up to it and an old farmer flung open the cab door. He was dressed in a wax jacket and hat that were almost rags. Inside was a sheepdog chained to the door, its teeth bared, doing its best to savage me until the farmer shouted it down. He told me that he has farmed on the hill for seventy years and this was the first time he’d ever seen swans breed on the pool.

Because they are a regular sight on urban waterways mute swans are regarded as a common bird in the UK. But the population is actually quite sparse, with only around 7000 breeding pairs. Compare this to the 100,000 pairs of mallards or the 60,000 pairs of Canada geese. An average year produces  only about 3500 successfully reared cygnets. It is possible that this was the first time swans had ever bred here.

My first experience of a wild pool was near the North Midlands housing estate where I grew up. It was located behind an old priory and had once been a mill pond, the mill itself long demolished. The pool was almost identical to the Monk’s Pool in size, though instead of being surrounded by a thousand acres of heath, it was hemmed in by a similar acreage of council houses and overlooked by a twenty storey block of flats. The pond was fed by an underground spring which trickled out from a steep embankment at its north end. It was a ghost of rural life lingering in the industrial suburban spread, managing to maintain a wild community. The water was always swarming with sticklebacks in summer and we all knew that a monster pike lurked in its trenches, some of us having had the good fortune to hook it while never managing to land it. A large, bordering willow had fallen into the pond and regrown. Within a fork in its horizontal trunk was the swans’ nest.

Every summer there were cygnets on the pond, such a regular feature that I hardly noticed them. As I reached my teens deindustrialisation began and the pond mirrored the decline of its surroundings. The spring seemed to dry up for long periods and the water became stagnant, carpeted with slime that I could smell all the way from my garden. Litter started to appear, at first the odd glass bottle thrown into the water, then, as packaging plastics began to be used more frequently the surrounding trees filled up with coloured bags that draped from the branches like dead sea creatures. The swans bred less and less succesfully and eventually stopped breeding altogether, only using the pond as an occasional stop-off point. The decades old nest filled up with litter. The water is almost lifeless now, the surrounding paths strewn with smashed glass, dangerous for wildife and people. The last time I visited the area was being menaced by a lone cob which had lost its mate. It threatened anyone who passed, wings thrashing, hissing, grief transformed into aggression.

Swans are one of the heaviest of flying birds. The serene white creature that, on water, moves without moving, its neck sinuous as a river, has to batter itself aloft. It needs an enormous amount of space to do this. The Monk’s Pool is barely large enough to allow a successful take off, requiring the bird to begin its ascent at the edge of the water and to aim itself at the gaps between the fringe of trees and bushes. It takes a full ten seconds of thrashing across the water, feet scrabbling for propulsion, wingtips slapping the surface, before a few feet of altitude is attained. Once in the air it is a noisy machine, the rapid thrum of its wingbeats drowning out the surrounding birdsong. They are not skilful flyers. In the early autumn winds I watched a pair make a wide and slow circle of the hill before navigating a route to the pool. They then became stuck as they attempted to land into the wind, suspended twenty feet above the water, moving slowly backwards. In the end they gave up and turned towards the river below and shelter from the westerly. They were replaced by a lone red kite tilting, tail fanned, wings motionless as it slid through the cracks in the gale.

Throughout the summer the swans continued to patrol the pool in military formation.  The pen pulled up weeds from the pool bed and dropped them onto the surface of the water for the cygnets to pick at daintily. They made continual, barely audible, whistling calls. They doubled in size every few weeks. By early July the cob had let down his guard a little and had begun to wander around the pool away from the family while the cygnets travelled in a cluster, following the pen but not closely.  Then, one morning, the cob was gone. I searched for hours in the reeds and surrounding bracken for signs of predation. There were none. The pen didn’t seem too concerned, she attended to her young as normal. Swans are one of many species of bird that pair for life but, as with humans, separations occur. Guillemots have been studied closely in this regard and it has been found that most separations are due to bad parenting. In these cases the deviant bird is aggressively seen off. I’m sure this was not the case with the swans. There were no signs of aggression by the cob to its young and I never saw the pen attempt to drive off its mate. The cob just left.

Mute swans can hold their territories with incredible tenacity even when those territories are unsuitable. On the river Wye, below the road bridge leading into town a low island of reeds and hazel separates the stream into a fork. A pair of swans have nested in this place every year I have lived here. In April heavy rains begin and the Wye, being a shallow, mountain river, rises rapidly until only the tops of the hazels show, the nest drowned and destroyed, the unhatched eggs washed away. It doesn’t deter them, the next year they begin again. Only this year, in a spring of little rainfall, have they succeeded in raising young. The pair were still on their patch of river in early winter with their three juveniles in tow.

Anomalous behaviour in wild animals is not rare. Anyone who spends a lot of time observing the natural world will come across unusual behaviour. As the writer Neil Ansell states in his book “Deep Country”, watching wildlife over long periods of time is like peeling an onion, you penetrate through to layer after layer of ever more complex behaviour. Mute Swans are huge birds and voracious eaters. They can consume up to 8 pounds of vegetation each day. Monk’s Pool is less than an acre in area. It is my guess that the cob left its territory so the young had an ample supply of food for the rest of their dependent stage.

“The Six Swans” is a well known oral story with variants across Germany and Scandinavia. In the tale a king gets lost hunting in the forest and meets a witch who will only agree to show him the way back to his castle if he takes her daughter as wife. The king reluctantly agrees and marries the daughter on his return. But, though his bride is beautiful, he does not trust her. He removes his children from the castle and takes them to a place where they will be hidden from their stepmother. The new queen grows suspicious and eventually finds the hidden place. When she visits it the six boys, believing her to be their father arriving, run out to greet her. The witch stepmother then turns each of them into swans. But she does not discover the seventh child, the boys’ sister. The abandoned sister searches the wild forest until she finds her swan brothers who are cursed to only be able to throw off their feathers and become human for a few minutes each day. The only way she can give them back their forms permanently is to make no sound for six years and to weave each brother a shirt of starwort. This she promises to do. The girl is then discovered in the forest by another king who falls in love with her and they marry. But the girl has inherited another wicked guardian and each time she bears a child the old woman steals it and marks the young mother’s lips with blood, accusing her of devouring her own child. The girl is mute and cannot defend herself but the king does not believe his mother. Eventually after their third child receives the same fate the king can defend his wife no more and she is condemned to burn at the stake. But by now six years has passed and she has woven the shirts of starwort except for a single sleeve. As the pyre is about to be set alight six swans swoop down to her and she throws a shirt over each one. The swans are transformed back to her brothers, one with a white wing in place of an arm. The sister can finally tell the truth and the king’s mother is forced to reveal where the children are hidden, after which she is burned to ashes.

The story was first written down by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. It was one of their favourite tales because of its theme of family fidelity. The detail that seems most strange about the story is the single white wing left in place of the brother’s arm. I think that it is a reminder of the faithfulness of creatures, that the surrounding presence of wild beings teaches and inspires us and should not be forgotten or dismissed.

The moult began in late summer, feathers rimming the pool forming a random, pale tideline. The cygnets were by now almost the size of the pen, though they still followed their mother everywhere. Their infant calls remained, the continual shy “seep” that now seemed incongrous with their size. Weeks later, with the first heavy dew settling and the ends of the bracken fronds curling and brown, the pen began flying lessons, spreading and beating its wings in front of them and then launching itself across the pool. The cygnets began to rear out of the water and test the strength of their own wings.

On a late September morning I arrived just after dawn to see the pen and only four cygnets. A few days later, there were two. Then, on a day when the first mist blurred the whole valley, I looked over a silver oval of water now empty of swans. I walked down to the nest, still perfectly intact inside its moat, with the single unhatched egg still undisturbed. I collected a few white feathers from among the reeds, while a pair of ravens flipped and circled over the row of drowned pines. And then I heard, close by, the call of a cygnet and looked up to see it bending and poking among the bullrushes. One had stayed. Over the following weeks the pen returned many times to try to guide its youngster away from the pool. Sometimes it stayed for a day, other times three or four but each time the pen left and the gaps between visits became longer. The juvenile refused to leave.

For a whole month storms have been raging, gale force winds ravaging the peaks, ripping weak branches from the thorn trees and scouring the dead bracken. The upland is  scattered with sulphur tufts and scarlet caps like tiny fires amongst the star moss and sedge. A flock of fieldfares cleared the last berries from the neglected hedges but now they have moved on, leaving the hill to a pair of red kites who will hunt here all winter. A few crows and ravens hang out in the tree skeletons, slinging insults. Occasionally I spot a kestrel hovering above the scrub where the curlews nested. The hill is almost deserted. The Monk’s Pool is a cold eye peering out of the barren landscape, the young swan its only inhabitant, now struggling with the conditions.

A week ago the temperature dropped and the ground froze hard. The pool became a giant cobweb of ice. The sun rises almost from the south now, beginning its shallow arc clearing the long line of whaleback mountains for the few hours before dark. In the red, dawn light I could see the long necked silhouette of the swan out in the middle of the pool. It struggled to get though the ice, trying to climb out, falling through, trying to peck its way forwards. Then it opened its wings and I saw how stunted they were, unable to lift it even a few inches from the surface. Its voice had finally changed. While it stuggled it made the low, plaintive, and rarely heard call of the mature swan.

After the short cold snap another series of more violent storms blew in. Howling wind and torrential rain lasted all week and I did not make it onto the hill until this morning. Under the shut sky the pool was edged with grey foam, the water still cresting, the reeds slapped flat. The swan was not there. Heading back to the road I saw two ravens flip-diving in the last of the wind eddies and went to stand under them. As I turned for home I noticed something pale amongst the sedge. It was a patch of skin the size of my palm, coated with white feathers.

As well as swan stories, there are many Welsh oral tales involving upland pools. They are the places where magical creatures are conjured from the water to spend a time living with mortals. But the beautiful beings are always in some way, injured by life. They return to their pools, dive down, and are never seen again.

James Roberts co-edits Zoomorphic.

by Tom Leskiw

“Where is my oasis? Too far from
here for me to crawl with these
dead legs, refusing to co-operate
Hands and fingers clawing uselessly
through the grains of sand…”

— Kiera Woodhull, Chaos of the Mind

The late-November air warmed quickly as Carianne Campbell, landscape restoration program manager at Sky Island Alliance, spoke to our group of volunteers.

“We’re here in the Whetstone Mountains to monitor McGrew Spring, which is located at Kartchner Caverns State Park. In Arizona and throughout the desert southwest, springs serve as vital rest and re-fueling areas for migratory wildlife such as birds, butterflies, and mammals.”

Carianne paused and pointed eastward toward the distant cottonwood-lined course of the San Pedro River. “Scientists have long acknowledged the critical role of rivers and streams in desert areas. As a result, watercourses and riparian areas have been intensely studied. However, springs have been somewhat overlooked. In addition, previous monitoring efforts didn’t use a standardized protocol that would allow us to discern changes at individual sites or assess and compare the relative importance of each site. With your help, we’re embarking on this exciting new project.”

After a short question-and-answer period, Carianne asked us to introduce ourselves. There was Nikki Miscione, a Kartchner Caverns employee, and Carol Jelinek, a Kartchner volunteer. Stuart Brody was originally from upstate New York—a fellow snowbird who visited nearby Patagonia… and ended up staying. Rosemary Schiano was a wildlife biologist and tracker who leaves Colorado each winter to explore these borderlands. As for me, I’m an avid birder and retired hydrologic-biologic technician who, together with my wife, spend the winter months about 40 miles from Kartchner.

We stuffed a measuring tape, other equipment, data forms, a small bucket, and short section of plastic pipe into our daypacks and set out down the trail. As we hiked, Carianne identified many of the trailside plants and expanded on the goals of the project, “Springs are keystone ecosystems in the Sky Island Region and are known to be biodiversity hotspots.”

I reflected on the concept of desert springs as keystone ecosystems. Although I was familiar with both the critical role of water in the desert and the concept of keystone species such as wolf, beaver, and Red-naped Sapsucker, the term keystone ecosystem was new to me. But it made sense, given what I knew about the definition of keystone species and their disproportionate influence on surrounding landscapes. Beavers and their dam-building activities, for example, slacken water velocity, raise the water table, and expand wetlands. Their beneficial activities that reduce water’s erosive power and provide a measure of flood control have all-too-often become clear only after they’ve been removed from a watershed. In addition, beaver ponds increase suitable areas for water-loving plants like willow and cottonwood to become established, thus helping to improve water quality, stabilize stream banks, and benefit a wide range of wildlife.

I gazed through the heat waves to the highest point in the Whetstones: 7,711-foot Apache Peak. Although they were little more than distant green splotches, ponderosa pines near the summit testified to this sky island’s ability to milk moisture from passing clouds, with a diverse mosaic of plant communities—desert to pine forest—being the result. Witnessing such diversity brought to mind Roger Tory Peterson’s words from his travelogue Wild America, published in 1955. Although he was referring to the nearby Chiricahua Mountains, the description rings true for the Whetstones as well:

There they were, in the crystal morning light, rising like a massive blue island from the sea of the desert. And an island it was, in truth, part of an archipelago composed of a dozen similar ranges. They are as much a true archipelago as the Azores or Hawaii, but no surf washes their talused bases; instead the desert, dry and shimmering, besieges their foothills and sweeps across the flats to the next range, twenty, thirty, or forty miles away. And like islands, their climate, plants, their animals are as different from those of their surroundings as though they were isolated by the sea.

Birders and naturalists have long known that southeastern Arizona’s sky islands’ reputation as a biological crossroads and incredible melting pot of diversity is also due to their ecotonal location at the intersection of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts, plus being where the southern Rocky Mountains meet Mexico’s Sierra Madre Mountains.

Our hike brought us to a gate, a corral, and a tall, cylindrical metal water tank—range improvements built by cattle ranchers. Stealthily, we approached the tank, startling six Mourning Doves into flight. The tall grass just upslope of the tank was lush by Arizona standards and the damp, squishy meadow suggested that McGrew Spring lay just upslope. After several more minutes of hiking, we reached a narrow rivulet of water. We paused at the upper end of the grassy area, where surface water surrendered to the thirsty desert, percolating into the soil. Large mesquite and netleaf hackberry trees provided shade as we walked beside the narrow channel of water.

We pulled measuring tapes, cameras, pencils, and data forms from our daypacks. Item by item, we collected data, such as the aquatic insects, butterflies, and birds at the site. Long ago, the spring had been dug out to create a small pond, which we measured to be 25 feet long by 14 feet wide. Permanent photo points had been established around the perimeter of the pond during July’s monitoring efforts, their purpose being to aid in creating a photo record of changes at the spring. Carol stood at these points and snapped photographs, while Rosemary noted the tracks of wildlife that were using the site. We measured the length of the shallow rivulet that drained the spring; it flowed for a distance of just under 50 feet before disappearing into the soil. I placed the section of 2-inch-diameter pipe into the flowing water and, digging with my hands, packed mud around its haunches. I continued to add mud to my small dam until it reached six inches high and extended to both banks of the tiny stream. When all the water was captured and flowing through the pipe, I set a bucket under it and the group performed a timed count to determine how many gallons per minute the spring was producing.

Carianne told us that plans to restore the area included the addition of native plants favored by pollinators such as hummingbirds, butterflies, and other insects. She added that McGrew Spring may be an important water source for several species of bat—cave myotis, Mexican long-tongued, Townsend’s big-eared, and lesser long-nosed—that roost in nearby abandoned mine shafts.

That evening, I leafed through a bulging file I keep on the importance of water in the desert. Since 2009, federal agencies, academics, and conservation groups have assessed the status of America’s birds in an annual “State of the Birds” report, which focuses on the habitats that species need to survive. The 2014 report found that “While some overall improvement has occurred to wetlands, arid-land habitats—which include the deserts, sagebrush, and chaparral of the American West—continue to be degraded. Birds in these fragile arid-land habitats show the steepest population declines in the nation with a 46 percent loss in the population of these birds since 1968 and a 6 percent drop just since 2009.”

One paper stated that “in Arizona and New Mexico, at least 80 percent of all animals use riparian areas at some stage of their lives, and more than half of these species are considered to be riparian obligates [require spring or streamside areas for breeding]. Studies in the southwestern United States show that riparian areas support a higher breeding diversity of birds than all other western habitats combined.”

Studying Neotropical migrant birds—and identifying management strategies to conserve them—is like peeling back the layers of an onion. Early research focused on Layer 1: the species’ breeding grounds. Habitat destruction or fragmentation or an increase in predators that consume adults, chicks, or eggs are among the factors that can affect breeding success. Layer 2: Identify and try to mitigate for threats that birds encounter when occupying their wintering habitat. Layer 3: Identify and try to mitigate for threats that birds encounter while on their migration route between summer and winter habitats. Scientists refer to this layer as stopover ecology: in this ever-changing world, are there suitable areas to rest and feed at appropriate intervals along the species’ migration corridor?

It had been a long day. My eyes were growing tired and words began to swim across the page. I struggled to stay awake as I read the following: “Additionally, over 60 percent of the species which are identified as Neotropical migratory birds use riparian areas in the West as stopover areas during migration.” My eyelids shut and the paper slipped from my hand…

I’m dreaming that I’m flying. But not like in previous dreams, where my frantic fluttering slowly lifts me toward the ceiling of a cavernous warehouse, away from the bad guys. This is a journey that spans several weeks.. I’m a Yellow Warbler, returning to northern Alaska after a winter in Peru. For several days, this has been my world: long nightly flights, followed by daylight respite: seeking shelter in groves of trees to feed, doze, and hide from the hawks and falcons that want to make a meal of me.

After the end of one more long night, dazzling pin-pricks of stars in an indigo sky begin to fade. The eastern sky slowly lightens, then the rays of the sun poke above the mountains. As the air warms, turbulence buffets me. Far to the west tower snow-capped mountains, but immediately below me, I see nothing but a parched brown plain, broken here and there by gullies with scattered shrubs. I descend to better scan the terrain and find a safe spot to spend the day. Nothing but rocks and brown dirt, rocks and more dirt.

Suddenly, I spot it: a patch of green, where I know I’ll find water and succulent bugs. I continue my descent, I make a brief, half-circle recon flight over the small cluster of trees before dropping into their protective embrace. There, I find caterpillars dining on the trees’ succulent foliage. One-by-one, I pluck them from the tree, their moisture replacing what I’ve lost during the long night. I lose track of passing time, intent on filling my belly with food. I hear a faint trickling sound and pick my way along furrowed trunk and thorny branches to get a better look. Water bubbles from the ground; a ribbon of green plants grows along the shallow gully that contains the water. But the green ribbon ends abruptly where the water disappears into the ground. Beyond this point lies nothing but rock and powder-dry dirt. Nothing stirs.

For many people, phrases like “biological crossroads” and “melting pot of diversity” are abstractions. Although not the highest, largest, or most well-known of southeastern Arizona’s sky islands, the Whetstones and the range of wildlife it nurtures brings these terms into clearer focus. A jaguar that’s been photographed a number of times since 2012 along the eastern flanks of the nearby Santa Rita Mountains was first photographed in the Whetstones during November 2011. And photographic evidence of an ocelot in the Whetstones was obtained in 2009. Groundwater that emerges as springs or a stream in this mountain range nurtures five species of amphibian: Sonoran tiger salamander; Sonoran mud turtle; and Chiricahua leopard, northern leopard, and lowland leopard frogs. And the mosaic of habitats doesn’t stop at the ground’s surface: Kartchner Caverns’ delicate formations such as “Kubla Khan,” the largest cave columns in Arizona, reveal the range’s limestone underpinnings. During the summer months, the cave’s Big Room serves as a nursery roost for over 1,000 female cave myotis bats.

Say the word “oasis,” and the mental image that most often comes to mind is a cluster of palm trees surrounded by a sea of rock or sand. This corner of Arizona is at too high an elevation to support palms, but its springs, creeks, and occasional river are nevertheless oases. As Wyoming writer Gretel Ehrlich points out: “As a topographic feature, an oasis is life; it is a gathering point, a sanctuary, and a feeding station. It is the desert’s umbilical.” The co-existence of limestone caverns, jaguars, and ocelots here—features and wildlife we normally associate with other regions—are dependent on the Whetstone’s life-giving waters.

Climate change and our own thirst for water threaten to unravel migratory processes that date back many thousands of years. As terrestrial and winged migrants alike encounter ever-warmer temperatures during their journeys, these ribbons of green, sustained by widely scattered desert water sources, are now more important than ever.

Tom Leskiw and his wife Sue and their dog Zevon split their time between Eureka, California and Palominas, Arizona. He retired in 2009 following a 31-year career as a hydrologic/biologic technician for Six Rivers National Forest. More than three dozen of his essays have appeared in literary journals. www.tomleskiw.com

By Laura Coleman

Sweat cascaded down my face, dripped hot and wet down my back and fused at the base of my spine. Mosquitoes buzzed around me, a black cloud that parted and pooled as I walked. My head was covered by a tight net, tucked into the double collars of my two long sleeved shirts, the sleeves buttoned and carefully inserted into thick gloves. But the mosquitoes – the green and the gold, the angry purples and the shy ones with the sapphire blue wings – dive-bombed my forehead, my ears, the tip of my nose, the backs of my shoulders, the flabby bits at my hips, the tops of my fingers, anywhere that my skin touched material. I itched constantly, not just from the mosquito bites but from the lice that were crawling in my hair and from the most recent attack of scabies that wouldn’t seem to budge. I know a good home remedy for scabies but I’m all out of the required supplies so I would just have to put up with the infection. My trousers were wet up to the crotch, where I’d waded through the black swamp on my way out into the jungle, and my rubber boots made a nasty sucking sound in the mud. It hadn’t rained in days, and the swamp was lower than it had been, but still it was misery. I was lucky though – most parts of her territory were dry. But that meant the trails were covered in leaves. She didn’t like leaves. And so here I was, at six on a Sunday morning with one hundred per cent humidity, raking leaves off the forest floor. The rake was old and rusty, and fifty per cent useless. I had new blisters too, blooming across my skin. I was desperate for the loo, but I would rather urinate though my wet trousers than expose my soft behind to the bugs. In one slap, I could kill over one hundred mosquitoes, easy. Feeling my strength beginning to flag, I transferred the awkward wad of coca leaves in my cheek to the other side, pushing it across with my tongue. The bitter juice from the leaves entered my blood stream, giving me energy. This was why I was still standing, rather than curled up in an exhausted, beaten ball of human flesh. Coca and, of course, her.

The puma (Puma concolor), also commonly known as cougar, mountain lion, panther, or catamount, is a large felid of the subfamily Felinae native to the Americas. They are the second heaviest cats in the region, after the jaguar, and their coats range from brown to tawny to deep grey. Solitary by nature, they are nocturnal and crepuscular. The puma is an ambush predator, and they prefer dense underbrush and rocky areas for stalking. They are also the largest felines in the world that can purr.

Ten years ago, I had a vague sense that a puma was a cat, probably a large one, but that was as far as my knowledge went. I had no sense of the jungle, beginning to brush its dark leaves against the very edges of my future, and no sense at all that a puma was going to be the thing that would change my life for good. I had finished an MA, and was working happily in the city, wearing smart suits and pointy shoes, relishing the buzz and smog of London. I was, at the same time, on the verge of beginning a PhD, which I planned to centre on the obscurity of eighteenth century art. Life was good. But, the thought niggled, I had never really travelled. And I wanted to do that before I settled into the dusky life of an academic.

So I went to South America. Not for too long, I wanted to be back in England for the summer festival season, for the picnics in Hyde Park and the late evening drinks in Covent Garden. I bought a three-month ticket to Bolivia. I knew nothing about Bolivia, only that it was the cheapest country on the continent.

I travelled. I did what normal travellers did – I visited the salt deserts and the canyons with the condors, I went on a carefully curated Amazon tour, I saw the place where Che Guevara was executed and I lost a few weeks in La Paz, the world’s highest capital city. I enjoyed it, but half way through, the rootlessness of backpacker life began to get me down. I kind of wanted to go home. Flirting with the idea of moving my flight forward, I was sitting in an internet café in a hot northern town, when a random flyer caught my eye. There was a cute photo of a monkey on the front. I picked it up, and read: Volunteer at Ambue Ari animal refuge. Stay for two weeks or a month and work with rescued exotic wildlife. I considered this. I didn’t really want to change my flight, and maybe staying in the same place for a few weeks would ease my craving for stability. And monkeys were fun, right? So I got on a bus; five hours later I was getting off again, on a straight tarmac road deep in the Amazon jungle.

The first creature I met was a pig. A black pig, almost the size of a small cow, with sharp yellow teeth, beady brown eyes, a long wiry-haired snout and a smell like month old sewage. She was watching me when I got off the bus, a bright red bra hanging incongruously from her mouth. Our eyes met, and then she snorted, and turned, and disappeared down a small trail into the trees. Not knowing what else to do, I followed her. The trail was thin and winding, and every few yards a new trampled piece of underwear lay forlornly in the mud.

The second creature I met at Ambue Ari was a person, but one that smelt almost as bad as the pig and was just as dirty. The path opened up into a ramshackle clearing, spread about with various wooden huts and benches. Washing lines, presumably the source of the pig’s pilfered goods, hung about the place. A man, adorned with a formidable beard, looking to be, like me, in his mid-twenties, approached. He had a lump in his cheek, which I would have thought was some kind of growth if he hadn’t opened his mouth to speak, and I hadn’t seen the inexplicable edge of a wad of leaves. I recoiled. His teeth were stained green, and green-black saliva bubbled on his lips.
“You here to volunteer?” he grunted.

I looked down at myself. My clean jeans, my bright white trainers, my impeccably packed rucksack, my soft skin and shining, newly washed hair. I wasn’t so sure. The pig, bra lost, suddenly reappeared covered in wet compost. She began to rub her snout up and down the man’s leg, emitting a smell from her behind like old urine. And then a huge monkey, red as fire, swung down from a tree and landed with a howl on the man’s shoulders. The monkey bared his teeth, and exposed his erect penis. And then it wasn’t just the man, the pig, the monkey and me – there was a whole crowd of people, all feral. They took my backpack, covered me with their sweat, showed me a bunk in one of the wooden huts, and signed me up, reluctantly, for two weeks.

The camp was run by Bolivians, but the majority of the volunteers were foreigners like me. They were a motley collection, and there were no more than ten at most when I first arrived. Some people had been there weeks, some months, some years. Pigs, monkeys, birds, deer and tapirs lived in and around the camp. They had all been rescued from the black market, some with the intention of release but most – due to governmental legislation, the animals’ inability to look after themselves, and lack of resources at the camp itself – were there for life. The red monkey, who I quickly learned had a penchant for flashing his penis at women, had lived in a hotel in La Paz – where he had smoked cigarettes, watched TV and drank alcohol – until he became too aggressive. His owners had then left him at Ambue Ari. He was terrified of the jungle, and he was happiest when reclining in the bunk beds of the female volunteers. But he was a sad animal, and would often sit forlornly on the aged camp motorcycle, staring at his own reflection in the solitary wing mirror. Sometimes, he would attack people. Men, specifically the tall ones with dark beards, and then afterwards if not prevented, he would beat himself, or find his way to the road to sit suicidally in the middle of the tarmac. It was this that made me first fall in love with Ambue Ari. This monkey – his name was Coco – was never put in a cage. He hated cages. If he attacked someone, that person had to leave. Ambue was Coco’s home, and it was our job to make him as happy as we were able. His comfort was primary, and ours – as human volunteers – was secondary.

At that time, Ambue cared for about fifteen big cats. Jaguars, pumas and ocelots. They lived deep in the jungle. They each had their own cages and their own walking trails, and it was taboo to go and visit a cat that was not your own appointed charge. These cats had no hope of release, and for them stability and peace was essential. Some of them were happy; some of them were volatile and scared. They were given as much enrichment as was possible – some walked and swum with volunteers outside of their cages, others were simply too aggressive or playful to be in close contact with humans.

If there were enough volunteers, each person was given one cat, and the full time care of that cat was their responsibility. The ocelots had one appointed volunteer, the pumas and jaguars two, sometimes three. If you wanted to work with a cat, you had to stay for a month minimum. When I learned this, I extended my stay. I was given an ocelot, called Lazy Cat. She was appropriately sleepy, calm, and affectionate. We spent a glorious month together. Every morning I trekked out into the jungle to her cage. And then on a rope looped around my waist, we walked together through the trees. Her in front, stalking sunbeams and monkeys; me behind, trying to keep quiet. When she got tired, she would lie down and I would sit next to her, and watch her sleep. At six in the evening, we would go back to her cage. I would feed her and then return to camp, where I would while away the candlelit nights with the other humans, playing cards and watching the stars.

My month passed quickly. I loved the freedom of the place. I loved the forest and the trees, the easy purpose of placing the care of an animal above yourself, and the lack of electricity, hot water, phone signal and internet. I slipped into the remoteness of it with an ease that surprised me, and I found that I enjoyed not showering. Wearing the same muddy clothes each day was a relief rather than a hardship. But my flight home was looming. I was sad about it, then just as I was beginning to pack, the woman who was in charge said to me:

“Quieres irse?” (Do you want to leave?)

I shrugged.

“Hay un puma, quien es muy triste y dificil. Pienso que te quedas y cuidas de este puma, si? Se llama Wayra.” (There is a puma, who is very sad and difficult. I think you stay, and look after this puma, yes? Her name is Wayra.)

I don’t know if I felt something then, something that felt like fate, but I know I didn’t put up much of a fight. I hitched a ride into town and extended my flight for another three months. Life at the refuge was cheap, and whilst my savings would not have lasted in London, in Bolivia I had more than enough. The next day, I began my training with Wayra.

She was terrifying. She was the size of a very large dog, and her coat glimmered silver under the shadow of the trees. The first time I saw her, Wayra launched herself at me with such a depth of anger that, if it hadn’t been for the fence between us, I thought she would have killed me. Her claws were razors, her teeth sharp and huge. Saliva dribbled down her chin. Her eyes were black, swollen and frantic. She hissed unceasingly, racing back and forth, back and forth, giant paws beating the compacted dirt, and then she launched again, the fence bowing dangerously. I backed away.

This was Wayra. Her mother had been killed by hunters; she’d been sold on the black market as a house pet. At ten months, she’d then been left at the refuge. I met her when she was three years old. She was thin, and only ate when she was happy – which, at that time, wasn’t very much. Her mood could change in a second. One moment she’d be relatively calm, and the next she’d be spitting and hissing and acting like the world was crashing down around her ears. She was terrified of everything, from the brush of a gust of wind to the crunch of a leaf under her feet. She’d jump, all four paws in the air, and then turn on you, incensed that you had the gall to think her afraid.

We would attach a rope to her collar through the safety of the door, and then attach this rope to a long ‘runner’ – a sturdy cord that ran for thirty metres between her cage and the start of her trail. This was a way for her to be outside her cage, but as independent as possible. She’d lie down and sleep, and ignore me. If I dared to breathe too loud, she’d raise her head, eyes flashing, and hiss.

When she wanted to walk, she’d pace to the beginning of her trail and stare at me distastefully. If I made her wait too long, she would let me know by growling, sometimes faking a lunge, teeth bared. When she walked, she had to have someone in front, a bodyguard, someone on whom she could focus herself. This was in part protection, and in part a way (I think) for her to forget that there was also someone behind her, someone who had a rope, someone she was attached to. This, she hated. She could walk for hours, running and stalking – and seem happy. But then, something would happen. The person behind would stand on a stick, or a leaf, and then she would spin and she would hiss and she would flinch back in fear and confusion, and then she would growl and hiss again and bolt, racing and hissing and growling and spitting all the way back to her cage.

Then we would all fall asleep, exhausted, and I would wake up to her licking my face.

I fell in love with Wayra quicker and more deeply than I have ever fallen in love with anyone. I stayed, that time, over four months. By the time I left, she seemed calmer. I left because I felt I should, because it wasn’t reasonable to spend so long in the jungle, was it? But I couldn’t go back to England – I’d already missed my flight anyway – so I travelled again. I travelled to Columbia and Ecuador, Chile and Brazil and Argentina. I travelled for a year, treading a giant loop around South America until eventually I found my way back to her.

I have now spent the better part of the last nine years with her. I stay for as long as I can – sometimes a few months, sometimes a year – and then I return to England where I am always, without fail, floored by culture shock. I think about her, all the time, and I miss her deeply. I now live more in England than I do in the jungle, but I go back as much as I can and so far she has always remembered me. She has her ups and downs. She is more happy than not, but she is still Wayra. The world – the human world – has done her a terrible injustice, but her capacity for trust and patience, love and compassion is immense.

Ambue has over thirty cats now, and needs more than forty volunteers at any one time to function properly. Logging trucks speed by every day, wild cats crowd our paths because their territories are shrinking, and rescued animals relentlessly turn up needing homes. Wayra is not alone in her frustration and fear, and neither am I. There are many others like me, volunteers (often with no prior experience of animal care) who’ve found the refuge, who’ve connected with a particular animal, and had their lives changed because of it. I never ended up doing a PhD. I started an arts/ecology charity called Onca. I wanted to tell stories about her, and then I saw that other people wanted also to tell stories about their own connections with the changing nature of the wild. So I opened a gallery, specifically for these kinds of stories. Essential, life-altering stories that offer a way to help us re-imagine our role on this planet. To re-imagine who we are, as humans and as animals, just as Wayra has done for me.

Ambue Ari is one of three animal refuges run by the Bolivian NGO, Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi. They are always in need of volunteers. For more information on how to help, visit www.intiwarayassi.org

Laura Coleman is the Founder and Director of Onca, a small charity inspiring creativity and positive action in the face of environmental change. She is based in the South East of England at the Onca Centre for Arts and Ecology, curating an ongoing programme of exhibitions, workshops and events. She also acts as a consultant for artists and arts organisations, sharing her understanding of the growing need for new interpretations of our changing planet. In addition, Laura is a writer, public speaker and explorer. Since her early twenties, she has been rescuing and rehabilitating exotic wildlife in the Bolivian Amazon. www.onca.org.uk

All images by Laura Coleman

by Josh Flatman

The torturous drip…drip of water from my roof into one of the plastic tubs on the floor has ceased for the time-being. Peering through my mosquito net and the gap in the curtains I can see the flashes from distant storms. I am not sure the drips will stay away for long. I am in central Namibia, the 5th least populated country on the planet, home to spectacular scenery and wildlife and what is thought to be the oldest desert in the world. I arrived at the end of the rainy season, the heat of the day often culminating in a frantic shower of lightning and a dumping of rain onto the shrubland. Flowers and grasses spring into action, seizing the opportunity before the long dry winter, producing colourful, thick, dewy carpets in contrast to the orange, cracked earth. It was not quite the weather I had expected for fieldwork in Southern Africa.

I was working at the Rare and Endangered Species Trust (REST), a small organisation that has a rehabilitation and education centre 47km south of Otjiwarongo, with the aim to care for, rehabilitate and release wildlife. REST also aims to carry out research and education on some species which are not often in the spotlight, but are thought to be of particular conservation concern, of which it has coined the phrase, Namibia’s forgotten five (more recently the forgotten five plus one). These are the Cape griffon vulture, dwarf python, African wild dog, Temminck’s ground pangolin or Cape pangolin, Damara dik-dik and the spotted rubber frog. These animals are representative of the entire land ecosystem of Namibia. REST is also home to a number of animals that are not deemed fit for release.

Maria Diekmann, REST’s founder, was originally inspired to help Namibia’s wildlife by the plight of the majestic Cape griffon vulture and the majority of the project’s initial conservation work focussed on this species. The largest bird of its kind in Africa, it is threatened by electrocution from power lines, habitat change and by poisonings both directly and indirectly. More so in the last three years than ever before, elephant and rhino poachers are lacing carcasses with poison to directly target vultures, whose aerial presence, above an animal they have slain, is seen as a clear giveaway to the poacher’s whereabouts, potentially alerting and informing officials in the area. Farmers and ranchers also sometimes use poisons in the carcasses of animals, to target predators, which they believe threaten their stock. The outcome of both is the same, the gregarious nature of vultures results in mass die offs, 50-500 can be poisoned from one carcass. The species is listed as vulnerable with the global population thought to stand at around 8000 birds, but despite Maria and REST’s best efforts, which have included releasing birds from South African populations into Namibia, radio tracking and tagging individuals, it is now classed as extinct as a breeding species in the country. Evidence from Maria’s radio tracking of individuals shows flights of up to 400km into neighbouring countries, with just one poisoned carcass enough to prove fatal, it demonstrates just how difficult a problem this is to tackle.

In the large aviary built into the side of the mountain on which REST lies in shadow, Nesher, one of the three resident, un-releasable, Capes and the only male, lands a few feet away, his two and a half metre wingspan sending dust and spiralling feathers towards me, as he slows down to steady himself on landing. Nesher was captive bred and despite efforts he is too tame to be released back into the wild. It is hoped he will be instrumental in captive breeding programmes. He looks quizzically at me, his long bald neck craning to see if I am carrying any food. A brighter white than the white-backed vultures they can be confused with and bulkier than their nearest rival in size, the lappet-faced vulture. I am aware I will never have the opportunity to be in such close quarters with these birds again, to admire the industrial bill, the long, thick reptilian toes or to be fixed in the yellow eyes of an animal that has evolved so perfectly to cope with the poisons of the natural world such as anthrax and botulism, but not to such rapid and intense human pressure. It is a tragedy that now no one can see this mighty bird, in the wild, in Namibia.

As well as the Cape griffon vultures it is safe to say that Maria’s other passion lies with pangolins. This has much to do with one particular pangolin named Katiti and his mother Roxy. To think of an animal more bizarre would be difficult; it is bipedal, holding its front legs, complete with long claws, close to its body, which is fully covered in scales. It has a tongue that can be longer than its body. The largest species can weigh up to 33kg and measure 140cm long and its closest genetic relation is the carnivora order containing hyenas and wolves. However within these comic complexities and obscurities hides darker facts about this animal; it is particularly vulnerable to electrocution by electric fence, all eight species are threatened with extinction and it is listed by the IUCN as the most illegally trafficked mammal in the world. We might wipe out this curious oddball before we know anything about it.

Roxy was seized from the black market and given to Maria to be rehabilitated and released. Unbeknown to REST staff, Roxy was pregnant and the subsequent birth of a male pup enabled the first footage to be recorded of a Cape pangolin birth. Everything was new at this stage and the first photo in the public domain of a Cape pangolin pup being carried on the back of its mother was also captured by REST. However, after a foraging trip Roxy did not return to her pup and Maria and her staff were forced to raise the animal themselves. That was two and half years ago and on my first meeting with Katiti, it certainly did not look like it had held him back. Almost more surprising than the very nature of a pangolin was the fact that Maria was carrying him around her neck and on her head. Every day Katiti was taken out to forage for up to 5 hours and in order to supply him with enough ants and termites that hadn’t previously been disturbed, it was important to take him to different areas of REST’s land. You could say that it’s unusual to find ants and termites that haven’t been disturbed, as most people tend to call somewhere like Illinois pest control at the first sight of them, especially if they’re in their homes. But as they were sending him to different areas, this shouldn’t be much of a problem. This required carrying him to and from foraging grounds and the most comfortable way for both pangolin and accomplice is either sat on your shoulder with his muscular tail wrapped around your neck or perched on top of your head. I learned it was a good idea to wear a hat if Katiti chose the latter method of transportation.
Pangolins do not generally fare well in captivity, not being able to cope with the stress and the change in environment. However, Katiti is flourishing. He is measured and weighed twice a day and enjoys sleeping for most for it. Upon waking he is taken out to forage. In this way Katiti forages completely naturally, using his strong front claws to dig into ant nests in the hard ground, fishing out its inhabitants with his long tongue. He can visit between 50-150 nests in one session. The number of times he eats, what he eats and a GPS track is recorded by the observer. Very little is known about pangolin behaviour due to their elusive nature, therefore being able to follow Katiti in this way enables not only important data to be collected but provides an insight into the lives of these poorly understood creatures.

Katiti trundles along, his armoured tail raised parallel to the ground as well as his front limbs, his elephant-like, stump back legs powering him, constantly alert to the vibrations or sounds of ants underground. He stops and the sharp ends of his long, adapted nails flick at the pea sized entrance hole to the ant nest, attempting to breach the rock hard earth. I flinch, imagining the feeling of losing a fingernail, as his powerful limbs are making no headway. But Katiti is undeterred, his claws much stronger than I imagine. He is in, flicking clods of earth around him, then spraying sand as the ground gets softer. His tongue goes to work and so do the ants, swarming all over him. A protective membrane covers his eyes and being heavily scaled helps protect from the bites, but I wonder about his soft underbelly. Sometimes he spends less than a minute at a nest, other times nearer ten, digging deep into the earth and the heart of the nest. Katiti pushes on through the bush, a small battering ram, over and through thick thorn bushes, dead trees and ditches, unaware of the difficulty for his human follower. He is equipped with a tracking device, screwed onto one of his hard scales, in case the vicious, skin-tearing, shirt-ripping African flora is too thick for me and he is lost. Fortunately, he is quite easy to hear ploughing through the undergrowth, even if lost to sight. Occasionally Katiti will flinch into his protective ball, in response to something unseen, unheard, unfelt by me, but clearly a perceived danger. A more primitive defence mechanism surely does not exist than to become an immobile, impenetrable ball. Sadly this has led to the pangolin’s demise, as this may be enough to fool big cats but it makes them an easy target for humans.

Although foraging in the cooler part of the day, sometimes it is too hot for Katiti and he will rest on his scaly back with his belly exposed and urinate over himself, wiggling, trying to spread the cooling liquid over him with his forelimbs. It is much the same action when he finds a muddy puddle, he will roll around on his back and shake vigorously, stirring the mud up and covering himself the best he can. It is likely that this benefits his scales and skin by providing protection against parasites and the strong African sun.

Katiti’s role at REST is not only as a powerful educational tool, to promote awareness among local people and visitors, but also in helping to rehabilitate other pangolins. Due to an increase in demand for pangolin products in both Africa and Asia, REST have received many that have been seized from the black market. Those in good health are released as quickly as possible into protected areas. More often, however, pangolins are received emaciated, stressed and dehydrated and the extra shock of being admitted to a rehabilitation centre is sometimes enough to kill them. Maria has had more success in rehabilitating these animals using Katiti. She believes that Katiti, as he is comfortable in the surroundings, helps to settle his compatriots so they can begin to behave more naturally and build up the strength to be releasable.

REST is a small organization run by Maria and her only permanent member of staff, Margareth, trying its best to tackle problems of biodiversity loss in Namibia. Perhaps it is too late for the Cape griffon vulture in the country and an appetite for the pangolins’ skin, scales and meat has thrown all eight species across the globe into steep decline. Pangolin skin is used in the manufacture of boots and other leather items, the meat is consumed as a delicacy as well as imparting perceived health benefits, and the scales are dried and used in traditional medicines to treat a variety of ills from asthma to cancers, even to promote lactation. As populations of the four Asian pangolin species are not able to meet current demand, due to over-hunting, there is evidence to suggest that the resultant high prices are driving the smuggling of African pangolins across continents to meet the shortfall. Perhaps this market is the biggest threat to Katiti and his species, currently classed as vulnerable. Will the four African species go the same way as their Asian cousins (two species listed as endangered, two as critically endangered)?

As for REST, the organisation where I have been able to experience such magical moments with animals I am not likely to ever see again, they are learning things about these creatures that no one else in the world knows. Their passionate, labour intensive, all-consuming, conservation and rehabilitation work provides hope for many African creatures, inspires many children and educates farmers and ranchers on how to treat wildlife. Now the very existence of REST, as if some twisted metaphor for the animals it is trying to save, hangs in the balance. Maria is seeing the organisation that she built from scratch in the African bush, threatened with eviction. Wildlife conservation is often a labour of love, a passionate endeavour that puts personal hardship second to the benefit of species that can’t thank you for doing so. It is a struggle and a fight against people and organisations that choose not to care for conservation and wildlife. REST will continue to fight but if organisations like them lose what will Namibia, Africa and the world lose?

REST are in urgent need of support to continue their work in Namibia. For more information, visit their website: http://www.restafrica.org

Josh Flatman is a graduate from Exeter University with a conservation biology and ecology degree and a masters by research in wildlife disease management. He has participated in turtle conservation in Northern Cyprus, cetacean research in Norway and most recently volunteered in Namibia at REST and at a baboon research project run by ZSL. www.joshflatman.com

All images by Josh Flatman