Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
COM/WSNWS
08.2018
toyota.com/camry
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N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C AUGUST 2018
On the Cover
C O N T E N T S Wile Wennman, seven, of
Nacka, Sweden, likes to fall
asleep with the light on, says
his father, Magnus—a pho-
tographer who’s traveled
the world to capture how
and where people sleep.
MAGNUS WENNMAN
P R O O F E M B A R K E X P L O R E
17
36
8
THE BIG IDEA THROUGH THE LENS
DATA SHEET
Coral Reef Loss
Earth-Friendly Transit Rising sea surface tem-
Endangered Birds Transportation systems peratures cause coral
When one-of-a-kind help cities stem pollu- bleaching and death
species are on the tion, increase livability. at landmarks like the
verge of extinction, BY RYA N MO R R I S A N D Great Barrier Reef.
what persuades people K E L S E Y N OWA KOW S K I BY L AU R E N E . JA M E S
to save them? Maybe
the right images. ALSO ALSO
B I R DS OF
THE
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P H OTO G R A P H S / J O E L SA RTO R E
T E X T / N OA H S T RYC K E R
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Go behind the scenes
at one of America’s
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the Columbus (Ohio)
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where an array of hab-
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new series Secrets of
the Zoo airs Sundays
at 9/8c starting July 29
on Nat Geo WILD.
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GEO
Observe Wildlife in Real NAT GEO WILD
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The popular real-
Within the 22.6 million acres of the Greater Yellow- time program returns,
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ARIANNA
HUFFINGTON
Short on Sleep
INTERVIEW BY SUSAN GOLDBERG
PETER YANG
THIS INTERVIEW WAS EDITED FOR LENGTH AND CLARITY.
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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 LO O K I N G AT T H E E A RT H F ROM E V E RY P O S S I B L E A N G L E
P H I L I P P I N E E A G L E ( P I T H E C O P H AG A J E F F E RY I ) AUGUST 2018 9
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P R O O F
10 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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E G Y P T I A N V U LT U R E
(NEOPHRON
PERCNOPTERUS)
This vulture’s range
includes southern
Europe, Africa, India,
and Nepal. The Inter-
national Union for
Conservation of Nature
(IUCN) has assessed
the bird as endan-
gered, one of the nine
categories it uses to
describe a species’
conservation status.
PHOTOGRAPHED AT INTERNATIONAL
CENTRE FOR BIRDS OF PREY, NEWENT,
ENGLAND
PREVIOUS PHOTOS
AUGUST 2018 11
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P R O O F
M I L I TA RY M A C AW ( A R A M I L I TA R I S ) The IUCN has assessed the military macaw as vulnerable. Its range
extends from Mexico to Argentina. This captive bird was photographed at a private collection.
12 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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AUGUST 2018 13
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P R O O F
THE BACKSTORY
T O S AV E R A R E S P E C I E S F R O M E X T I N C T I O N , W E N E E D T O B U I L D
E M OT I O N A L B O N D S W I T H T H E N AT U R A L W O R L D.
Logging
Invasive species
Pollution
Geological events
Other
(Includes human 0% 25% 50% of species
disturbances, mining, fires) affected
*INCLUDES BIRDS LISTED AS CRITICALLY ENDANGERED, ENDANGERED, OR VULNERABLE ON THE IUCN RED LIST; STATUS AS OF 2017
IN THIS SECTION
E M B A R K Mushrooming Growth
Chilling Out on Mars
Migration’s Artifacts
T H E D I S C O V E R I E S O F T O D AY T H AT W I L L D E F I N E T H E W O R L D O F T O M O R R O W
N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C VO L . 2 34 N O. 2
Are We as Awful
as We Act Online?
I T ’ S N O T B R U T I S H H U M A N N AT U R E T H AT P R O M P T S N A S T Y P O S T S A N D
T W E E T S , T H E A U T H O R S AY S . B U T H O W W E E V O LV E D D O E S P L AY A R O L E .
BY AGUSTÍN FUENTES
Y
your throat cut out and your
“ YO U N E E D T O H AV E
decomposing, bug-infested body fed to wild pigs.”
An anonymous Facebook user wrote that—and more
that’s unprintable—to Kyle Edmund after the British
pro tennis player lost in a 2017 tournament.
After University of Cambridge classics professor
Mary Beard spoke about the history of male suppres-
sion of female voices, she received Twitter threats,
including “I’m going to cut of your head and rape it.”
On Martin Luther King Day this year, an anony-
mous Twitter user lionized the man who killed King
some 50 years ago: “RIP James Earl Ray. A true fighter
for the white race.” The same month, U.S. President
Donald Trump tweeted that his “Nuclear Button … is
a much bigger & more powerful one” than Kim Jong
Un’s. This capped weeks of dueling statements in
which Trump called the North Korean leader “Rocket
Man” and “a madman” and Kim called Trump “a
gangster” and a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard.”
AUGUST 2018 17
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E M B A R K | THE BIG IDEA
18 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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AUGUST 2018 19
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E M B A R K | THE BIG IDEA
Antisocial media
online harassment.
Here’s what they did:
1. Confronted the person online
2. Unfriended/blocked the
When the Pew Research Center asked people how they person
handled their most recent exposure to online harass- 3. Reported the person
ment, 61 percent said they ignored it. The rest said responsible to website
they made some sort of response; within that group, 4. Confronted the person face-
to-face or via text/phone call
the top six responses, ranked by popularity at right, 5. Discussed problem online
ranged from confronting the harasser online to delet- 6. Changed username/
ing or changing the name on their own account online. deleted profile
In just days.
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CITIES B Y RYA N M O R R I S A N D K E L S E Y N O WA K O W S K I
80
SH
60
EN
RIO
ZH
DE
JA
EN
NE
IRO
40
T
UR
KF
AN
FR
20
Bicycle Low levels of
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emissions from
CAIRO transportation
ES
NGEL
LOS A
Legislative efforts to
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Seoul,
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E M B A R K | CAPTURED
Magic Mushroom
This triple-exposure
© 2018 National Geographic Partners, LLC. National Geographic EXPEDITIONS and the Yellow Border Design are trademarks of the National Geographic
Society, used under license. NGM0818A
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E M B A R K | BREAKTHROUGHS
A
Bloodsuckers Even Then
Here’s proof that ticks are truly
prehistoric pests: When scientists
D I S PAT C H E S found 99-million-year-old ticks
entombed in Burmese amber, one
FROM THE FRONT LINES (A) was engorged with blood.
OF SCIENCE Judging by a feather entangled
A N D I N N O VA T I O N with another of the arachnids (B),
ticks may have preyed on feath-
ered dinosaurs in the Cretaceous
B
period. — L O R I C U T H B E R T
SPACE
HOW TO CHILL
OUT ON THE
RED PLANET
I C E H O M E M AY S H I E L D M A R S
S E T T L E R S F R O M R A D I AT I O N
PHOTOS: ENRIQUE PEÑALVER MOLLÁ, INSTITUTO GEOLÓGICO Y MINERO DE ESPAÑA (AMBER); TIM FLACH, COMPOSITE
OF TWO IMAGES (SALAMANDER); ARTIST’S RENDERING BY NASA/CLOUDS AO (MARS ICE HOME)
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GENIUS
JASON DE LEÓN
BY RACHEL HARTIGAN SHEA P H OTO G R A P H BY DAN WINTERS
Archaeological skills
helped him unearth the
ancient. Now he uses
those skills to explore
modern migration.
Jason De León began his career as a
traditional archaeologist. He excavated
ancient sites in Mexico, uncovering
artifacts that were centuries—if not
millennia—old. But as he was finishing
his dissertation on stone tools, he found
himself increasingly drawn to the digs’
laborers, who told him harrowing tales
of crossing the border into the United
States, only to be deported.
Although he grew up near the bor-
der in Texas and California, “I real-
ized I didn’t know anything” about
immigration, De León says now. But
he thought archaeology could be used
to understand the contentious issue.
More than five million people have
attempted to cross the Sonoran Desert
since 2000. De León’s research reveals
how that migration has changed over
time. For instance, in 2009 he began
finding black plastic bottles. White
jugs were too visible to Border Patrol
agents; now migrants carried bottles
decorated with pictures of the patron
saints of migrants or maps of important
Jason De León directs the Undocumented Migration Project.
landmarks—products of a new industry
based on undocumented migration.
De León describes his fieldwork as
“eclectic.” Some days he walks the trails.
On others he might interview migrants
WHAT HE’S FOUND: at a shelter, safe house, or courthouse—
LOVE LETTERS, A CD or launch a drone to search for dead
PL AYER, TEQUIL A , bodies. Archaeology is about “trying to
understand human behavior in the past
A BIBLE CONTAINING
through the study of what people leave
TICKETS TO A SOCCER
behind,” he says. “Nobody ever said the
MATCH IN BOLIVIA past had to be a thousand years ago.”
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E X P L O R E | AT L A S
IN THIS SECTION
E X P L O R E Hidden Afghanistan
Toxic Sulfur Mine
Starving Polar Bear
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 34 N O. 2
CORAL CRISIS
H A L F O F T H E G R E AT B A R R I E R R E E F Reef bleaching severity
has been bleached to death since Proportion of individual reef
2016. Mass coral bleaching, a global in 1998, 2002, or 2016 event*
problem triggered by climate change, Extreme (more than 60%)
occurs when unnaturally hot ocean Moderate (30–60%)
water destroys a reef’s colorful algae, Low (10–29%)
leaving the coral to starve. The Great
Barrier Reef illustrates how extensive
N EW the damage can be: Thirty percent of
the coral perished in 2016, another 20
G U IN EA
percent in 2017. The efect is akin to a
Osprey
forest after a devastating fire. Much of Reef
the marine ecosystem along the reef’s
north coast has become barren and
skeletal with little hope of recovery.
F
E
E
Eastern
a l R
Fields
C o r
R
R I E
Gulf of B A R NT AREA
A T
G R E ORTHERN MANA
GEME
Papua FAR N
Portlock
Reefs Ashmore
Reef
Worse than expected
Bleaching in 2016 occurred
so rapidly that scientists F
had to retool their predic- E E
R
tions for how much heat I E R Lockhart
the reef could endure. A R R River
E A T B
G R Fair Cape
Shelbur
ne B Cape
ay Grenville
81
C a p e Y o r k
N P e n i n s u l a
Saibai
Island it Cape York A
N EW s St
ra
En A U S T R A L I
T orre de
G U IN EA
av
ou
Prince of
rS
Wales Island
tr.
SCALE VARIES IN THIS PERSPECTIVE. DISTANCE FROM SAIBAI ISLAND TO CAPE YORK IS 90 MILES. *MOST SEVERE SCORE (SOME REEFS SURVEYED IN MORE THAN ONE
BLEACHING). TERRAIN RENDERING: CHARLES PREPPERNAU. ART: MATTHEW TWOMBLY. SOURCES: ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CORAL REEF STUDIES; NOAA CORAL
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H E AT S T R E S S H OW H OT F O R H OW LO N G
Great Barrier Reef
Far Northern Management Area As climate change warms Earth’s oceans,
Degree 16 underwater heat waves last longer.
heating week Coral species can’t withstand extended
(DHW) 12 hot periods. They start to die off, which
combines
intensity and Heat stress in diminishes reef diversity. After heat
8
duration of 2016 killed stress becomes severe, as it did along the
heat stress 80% of coral northern Great Barrier Reef in 2016, few
into a single 4 in this section
number. of the reef. species remain, and final die-off is rapid.
Swain
Marion Reef Reefs
Lihou Reefs
F
E
IER RE
BARR
Tregrosse Reefs T
Coringa EA
GR
Bank
Whitsunday
Group Mackay
Flinders
Reefs
Holmes
Reefs
Palm Townsville
R K Is.
a P A
NEW
e DIRECTION GUINEA
E
I N
OF VIEW
S R
M A
1,15
0M
IL E
Cairns GREAT BARRIER REEF
1
S
MARINE PARK
AUSTRALIA
Brisbane
Cape Cooktown
Flattery
Sydney
Canberra
N O T I M E F O R R E C O V E RY
Cape Melville Severe regional bleaching used to hit a given reef about
every 27 years. Since the 1980s, the pace has accelerated
to every six. Even in the best conditions, badly damaged
reefs take at least 10 years to rebound. The Great Barrier
Reef, struck two years in a row, may never fully recover.
Enlarged Zooxanthellae
at right algae Decay
G u l f o f C a r p e n t a r i a
REEF WATCH; ROBIN BEAMAN, JAMES COOK UNIVERSITY; AUSTRALIAN HYDROGRAPHIC OFFICE; GEOSCIENCE AUSTRALIA; AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF MARINE SCIENCE; RAY
BERKELMANS AND OTHERS, CORAL REEFS 23, 2004; © OPENSTREETMAP CONTRIBUTORS, AVAILABLE UNDER OPEN DATABASE LICENSE: OPENSTREETMAP.ORG/COPYRIGHT
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E X P L O R E | O U T O F E D E N WA L K
AFGHANISTAN
Planned
route
AMERICA
SOUTH
AMERICA
B Y PAU L S A L O P E K
P H O T O G R A P H B Y M AT T H I E U P A L E Y
NGM MAPS
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´
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E X P L O R E | GETTING THERE
BY THE NUMBERS
7,100
E L E VAT I O N O F S U L F U R
MINE, IN FEET
1112°F T E M P E R AT U R E O F
SULFURIC GASES RELEASED
FROM THE CRACKS
1999
MOUNT IJEN’S LAST
KNOWN ERUPTION
ASIA
DESCENT
INDONESIA
NGM MAPS
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‘Nothing Prepared
Me for What I Saw’
BY CRISTINA MITTERMEIER
C
between an individual animal’s death and climate
change is rarely clear—even when an animal is as
emaciated as this polar bear.
Photographer Paul Nicklen and I are on a mission
to capture images that communicate the urgency of
climate change. Documenting its efects on wildlife
hasn’t been easy. With this image, we thought we
had found a way to help people imagine what the
future of climate change might look like. We were,
perhaps, naive. The picture went viral—and people
took it literally.
Paul spotted the polar bear a year ago on a scout-
ing trip to an isolated cove on Somerset Island in
the Canadian Arctic. He immediately asked me to
assemble our SeaLegacy SeaSwat team. SeaLegacy,
the organization we founded in 2014, uses photog-
raphy to spread the message of ocean conservation;
the SeaSwat team is a deployable unit of storytellers
who cover urgent issues. The day after his call our
team flew to an Inuit village on Resolute Bay. There
was no certainty that we would find the bear again
or that it would still be alive.
When we arrived at the cove on a donated vessel,
A G U T - W R E N C H I N G P H O T O. I scanned the shore with my binoculars. All I saw
A C O M P L I C AT E D T H R E AT. were a few dilapidated buildings, some empty fuel
A G L O B A L O U T C R Y. B U T drums, and a very desolate landscape in what seemed
N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C like an abandoned fishing camp. We couldn’t locate
the bear. Only when it lifted its head were we able to
S H O U L D N O T H AV E
spot it lying on the ground, like an abandoned rug,
D E F I N I T I V E LY B L A M E D
nearly lifeless. From the shape of its body, it seemed
C L I M AT E C H A N G E F O R T H I S to be a large male.
B E A R ’ S D E AT H . We needed to get closer; we boarded a Zodiac
boat and motored to land. Strong winds covered our
36 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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Editor’s note
National Geographic went too far in drawing a definitive connection between climate
change and a particular starving polar bear in the opening caption of our video about the
animal. We said, “This is what climate change looks like.” While science has established
that there is a strong connection between melting sea ice and polar bears dying off, there
is no way to know for certain why this bear was on the verge of death. To see an updated
version of the video, go to natgeo.com/starvingpolarbear.
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N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C AUGUST 2018
Science of Sleep . . . . . . . . . P. 40
Poisoning Africa . . . . . . . . . . P. 78
Basque Whalers . . . . . . . . . P. 102
Butterfly Catchers . . . . . . P. 112
Yemen Health Crisis . . P. 134
F EAT U R E S
112
‘IT’S HARD TO PIN DOWN THE
EXACT SIZE OF THE GLOBAL
BL ACK MARKET FOR BU T TER-
F L I E S T O D A Y, B U T E S T I M A T E S
RANGE UP TO HUNDREDS OF
M I L L I O N S O F D O L L A R S A Y E A R .’
Want to
Fall Asleep?
Read This
Story.
No, seriously.
Put down your phone.
We’ll show you what
a healthy night’s sleep looks like.
And how those blue lights keep
us from getting enough.
BY MICHAEL FINKEL
P H OTO G R A P H S BY MAGNUS WENNMAN
40
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Americans
sleep less than
seven hours
a night, about
two hours less
than a century
ago. In our
restless floodlit
society, we
often think
of sleep as an
adversary.
PREVIOUS PHOTO
Nearly every
night of our lives,
we undergo a
startling
metamorphosis.
Swathed in tubes and
Our brain profoundly alters its behavior and electrodes, 10-year-
purpose, dimming our consciousness. For a old Francis Ajua awaits
“lights out” for his
while, we become almost entirely paralyzed. We overnight sleep study
can’t even shiver. Our eyes, however, periodi- at Children’s National
cally dart about behind closed lids as if seeing, Health System in Wash-
ington, D.C. He was
and the tiny muscles in our middle ear, even in being tested for sleep
silence, move as though hearing. We are sexually apnea, in which breath-
stimulated, men and women both, repeatedly. ing repeatedly pauses.
We sometimes believe we can fly. We approach PREVIOUS PHOTO
46 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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in the brain, and the study of sleep shifted from breaks down, recent research has shown, we are
philosophy to science. It’s only in the past few at increased risk for illnesses such as diabetes,
decades, though, as imaging machines have heart disease, and dementia.
allowed ever deeper glimpses of the brain’s inner Yet an imbalance between lifestyle and sun
workings, that we’ve approached a convincing cycle has become epidemic. “It seems as if we
answer to Aristotle. are now living in a worldwide test of the nega-
Everything we’ve learned about sleep has tive consequences of sleep deprivation,” says
emphasized its importance to our mental and Robert Stickgold, director of the Center for
physical health. Our sleep-wake pattern is a Sleep and Cognition at Harvard Medical School.
central feature of human biology—an adapta- The average American today sleeps less than
tion to life on a spinning planet, with its endless seven hours a night, about two hours less
wheel of day and night. The 2017 Nobel Prize in than a century ago. This is chiefly due to the
medicine was awarded to three scientists who, proliferation of electric lights, followed by
in the 1980s and 1990s, identified the molecu- televisions, computers, and smartphones. In
lar clock inside our cells that aims to keep us in our restless, floodlit society, we often think of
sync with the sun. When this circadian rhythm sleep as an adversary, a state depriving us of
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The waking
brain is
optimized
for collecting
information,
the sleeping
brain for
consolidating.
At night we
switch from
recording
to editing.
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STAGES 1-2
A S W E FA L L I N T O S L E E P, O U R B R A I N S TAY S
ACTIVE AND FIRES INTO ITS EDITING PRO CESS —
DECIDING WHICH MEMORIES TO KEEP AND
WHICH ONES TO TOSS.
50 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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Our brains aren’t less active when we sleep, as The strength of one’s nightly spindles, some
was long thought, just diferently active. Spin- experts have suggested, might even be a predic-
dles, it’s theorized, stimulate the cortex in such tor of general intelligence. Sleep literally makes
a way as to preserve recently acquired informa- connections you might never have consciously
tion—and perhaps also to link it to established formed, an idea we’ve all intuitively realized.
knowledge in long-term memory. In sleep labs, No one says, “I’m going to eat on a problem.” We
when people have been introduced to certain always sleep on it.
new tasks, mental or physical, their spindle fre- The waking brain is optimized for collecting
quency increases that night. The more spindles external stimuli, the sleeping brain for consol-
they have, it seems, the better they perform the idating the information that’s been collected.
task the next day. At night, that is, we switch from recording to
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52
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Sleep reinforces
memory so
powerfully
that it might
be best if
exhausted
soldiers
returning from
harrowing
missions did
not go directly
to bed.
NEXT PHOTO
antennae while napping, and they’re also sen- Steven Lockley of Brigham and Women’s Hos-
sitive to cafeine. pital in Boston.
Sleep, defined as a behavior marked by dimin- Good sleep likely also reduces one’s risk of
ished responsiveness and reduced mobility that developing dementia. A study done in mice by
is easily disrupted (unlike hibernation or coma), Maiken Nedergaard at the University of Roches-
exists in creatures without brains at all. Jellyfish ter, in New York, suggests that while we’re awake,
sleep, the pulsing action of their bodies notice- our neurons are packed tightly together, but
ably slowing, and one-celled organisms such as when we’re asleep, some brain cells deflate by
plankton and yeast display clear cycles of activ- 60 percent, widening the spaces between them.
ity and rest. This implies that sleep is ancient These intercellular spaces are dumping grounds
and that its original and universal function is for the cells’ metabolic waste—notably a sub-
not about organizing memories or promoting stance called beta-amyloid, which disrupts com-
munication between neurons and is
closely linked to Alzheimer’s. Only
during sleep can spinal fluid slosh
‘You’re talking about a level of brain like detergent through these broader
deactivation that is really rather hallways of our brain, washing beta-
intense,’ says Michael Perlis, the amyloid away.
director of the Behavioral Sleep While all this housekeeping and
Medicine program at the University of repair occurs, our muscles are fully
Pennsylvania. ‘Stage 4 sleep is not far relaxed. Mental activity is minimal:
removed from coma or brain death. Stage 4 waves are similar to patterns
While restorative, it’s not something produced by coma patients. We do
you’d want to overdose on.’ not typically dream during stage 4;
we may not even be able to feel pain.
In Greek mythology the gods Hypnos
learning but more about the preservation of (sleep) and Thanatos (death) are twin brothers.
life itself. It’s evidently natural law that a crea- The Greeks may have been right.
ture, no matter the size, cannot go full throttle “You’re talking about a level of brain deactiva-
24 hours a day. tion that is really rather intense,” says Michael
“Being awake is demanding,” says Thomas Perlis, the director of the Behavioral Sleep Med-
Scammell, a neurology professor at Harvard icine program at the University of Pennsylvania.
Medical School. “You’ve got to go out there and “Stage 4 sleep is not far removed from coma or
outcompete every other organism to survive, brain death. While recuperative and restorative,
and the consequences are that you need a period it’s not something you’d want to overdose on.”
of rest to help cells recuperate.” At most, we can remain in stage 4 for only
For humans this happens chiefly during deep about 30 minutes before the brain kicks itself
sleep, stages 3 and 4, which difer in the percent- out. (In sleepwalkers at least, that shift can be
age of brain activity that’s composed of big, roll- accompanied by a bodily jerk.) We often sail
ing delta waves, as measured on an EEG. In stage straight through stages 3, 2, and 1 into awakeness.
3, delta waves are present less than half the time; Even healthy sleepers wake several times a
in stage 4, more than half. (Some scientists con- night, though most don’t notice. We drop back
sider the two to be a single deep-sleep stage.) It’s to sleep in a matter of seconds. But at this point,
in deep sleep that our cells produce most growth rather than repeating the stages again, the brain
hormone, which is needed throughout life to ser- resets itself for something entirely new—a trip
vice bones and muscles. into the truly bizarre.
There is further evidence that sleep is essen-
tial for maintaining a healthy immune system, ccording to the U.S. Centers for Dis-
body temperature, and blood pressure. With-
out enough of it, we can’t regulate our moods
A
ease Control and Prevention, more
than 80 million American adults are
well or recover swiftly from injuries. Sleep may chronically sleep deprived, meaning they sleep
be more essential to us than food; animals will less than the recommended minimum of seven
die of sleep deprivation before starvation, says hours a night. Fatigue contributes to more than
66 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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a million auto accidents each year, as well as to a THE AGE OF SLEEP AIDS
significant number of medical errors. Even small A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
study found that older Americans are more likely
adjustments in sleep can be problematic. The to use prescription sleep aids than their younger
Monday after a daylight saving time change in counterparts. Women were also slightly more
likely than men to report they used sleep aids.
the U.S., there’s a 24 percent increase in heart
attacks, compared with other Mondays, and a
jump in fatal car crashes too.
During our lifetimes, about a third of us will
sufer from at least one diagnosable sleep disor-
der. They range from chronic insomnia to sleep
5%
of women
3%
of men
apnea to restless leg syndrome to much rarer
BY AGE
and stranger conditions.
In exploding head syndrome, booming sounds 20-39 1.8%
for prolonged periods during the night, or both. 2016 2021 ‘16 ‘21 ‘16 ‘21
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Anyone who
regularly
sleeps less than
six hours has
a higher risk
of depression,
psychosis,
stroke, and
obesity.
Sleeplessness
undermines
your whole
body.
In Sweden hundreds
of immigrant children
whose families face
deportation have con-
tracted resignation
syndrome, a baffling
disorder in which the
child withdraws from
the world, won’t react
even to painful stimuli,
and must be nourished
with a feeding tube—
sometimes for years.
“She is not suffering
now, ” physician Elisa-
beth Hultcrantz says
of Leyla Ahmed, 10,
a Syrian refugee.
NEXT PHOTO
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REM
stop gloating—it’s a distinct sign, especially if
you’re less than 40 years old, that you’re acutely
sleep deprived.
The first segment of the brain that begins to
fizzle when we don’t get enough sleep is the pre- IN A WILD STATE OF PSYCHOSIS, WE’RE DREAMING,
frontal cortex, the cradle of decision-making and WE’RE FLYING, AND WE’RE FALLING—WHETHER WE
REMEMBER IT OR NOT. WE’RE ALSO REGULATING OUR
problem-solving. Underslept people are more
MOOD AND CONSOLIDATING OUR MEMORIES.
irritable, moody, and irrational. “Every cognitive
function to some extent seems to be afected by Rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep was discov-
sleep loss,” says Chiara Cirelli, a neuroscientist ered in 1953—more than 15 years after stages 1
at the Wisconsin Institute for Sleep and Con- through 4 had been mapped—by Eugene Aserin-
sciousness. Sleep-deprived suspects held by the sky and Nathaniel Kleitman at the University of
police, it’s been shown, will confess to anything Chicago. Before then, because of its unremark-
in exchange for rest. able pattern on early EEGs, this period was
Anyone who regularly sleeps less than six usually thought of as a variant form of stage 1,
hours a night has an elevated risk of depres- and not particularly significant. But once the
sion, psychosis, and stroke. Lack of sleep is distinctive eye darting was documented, and
also directly tied to obesity: Without enough the engorgement of sexual organs that always
sleep, the stomach and other organs overpro- goes with it, and it was understood that virtually
duce ghrelin, the hunger hormone, causing us all vivid dreaming takes place in this phase, the
to eat more than we need. Proving a cause-and- science of sleep was upended.
efect relationship in these cases is challenging, Generally, a healthy sleep begins with a spiral
because you can’t subject humans to the neces- down to stage 4, a momentary return to wakeful-
sary experiments. But it’s clear that sleepless- ness, and a five- to 20-minute REM session. With
ness undermines the whole body. each ensuing cycle, REM time roughly doubles.
Power naps don’t solve the problem; nor do Overall, REM sleep occupies about one-fifth of
pharmaceuticals. “Sleep is not monolithic,” says total rest time in adults. Yet stages 1 through 4
Jefrey Ellenbogen, a sleep scientist at Johns have been labeled as non-REM sleep, or NREM—
Hopkins University who directs the Sound Sleep 80 percent of sleep is defined by what it’s not.
Project, which counsels businesses on how their Sleep scientists speculate that specific sequences
employees can achieve better performance of NREM and REM sleep somehow optimize our
through healthier rest. “It’s not a marathon; it’s physical and mental recuperation. At the cellular
more like a decathlon. It’s a thousand diferent level, protein synthesis peaks during REM sleep,
things. It’s tempting to manipulate sleep with keeping the body working properly. REM sleep
drugs or devices, but we don’t yet understand also seems essential for regulating mood and
sleep enough to risk artificially manipulating consolidating memories.
the parts.” Every time we experience REM sleep, we
Ellenbogen and other experts argue against literally go mad. By definition, psychosis is a
shortcuts, especially the original one—the condition characterized by hallucinations and
notion that we can mostly do without sleep. delusions. Dreaming, some sleep scientists say,
It was a glorious idea: If we could just cut the is a psychotic state—we fully believe that we
unnecessary parts of sleep, it’d be like adding see what is not there, and we accept that time,
decades to our life. In the early days of sleep location, and people themselves can morph and
science, the 1930s and ’40s, the second half of disappear without warning.
the night was considered by some to be the dol- From ancient Greeks to Sigmund Freud to
drums of rest. Some thought we might not need back-alley fortune-tellers, dreams have always
it at all. been a source of enchantment and mystery—
That period turns out, instead, to be the interpreted as messages from the gods or our
wellspring of a completely separate but just as unconscious. Today many sleep experts aren’t
essential form of sleep, practically another type interested in the specific images and events in
of consciousness altogether. our dreams. They believe that dreams result
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from the chaotic firing of neurons and, even if sleep, whether snoring or not, we’re completely
imbued with emotional resonance, are devoid of incapable of physical response, slack-jawed,
significance. It’s only after we wake that the con- unable to regulate even our blood pressure. Yet
scious brain, seeking meaning, quickly stitches our brain is able to convince us that we’re surfing
together a whole cloth out of haphazard scraps. on clouds, slaying dragons.
Other sleep scientists strongly disagree. “The Belief in the unbelievable happens because
content of dreams,” says Stickgold of Harvard, in REM sleep, stewardship of the brain is
“is part of an evolved mechanism for looking at transferred away from the logic centers and
the larger significance of new memories and how impulse-control regions. Production of two
they could be useful in the future.” specific chemicals, serotonin and norepineph-
Even if you never recall a single image, you rine, is completely shut of. Both are essential
still dream. Everyone does. Lack of dream rec- neurotransmitters, permitting brain cells to
ollection is actually an indication of a healthy communicate, and without them, our ability to
sleeper. The action in dream sleep takes place learn and remember is severely impaired—we’re
too deep in the brain to register well on an EEG, in a chemically altered state of consciousness.
but with newer technology, we’ve inferred what’s But it’s not a coma-like state, as in stage 4. Our
going on, physically and chemically. Dreams brain during REM sleep is fully active, guzzling
also occur in NREM sleep, especially stage 2, as much energy as when we’re awake.
but these are generally thought to be more like
overtures. Only in REM sleep do we encounter EM sleep is ruled by the limbic
the full potent force of our nighttime madness.
Dreams, often falsely said to be just momen-
R
system—a deep-brain region, the
untamed jungle of the mind, where
tary flashes, are instead thought to span almost some of our most savage and base instincts arise.
all of REM sleep, typically about two hours per Freud was right, in efect, that dreams do tap our
night, though this decreases as we age—perhaps primitive emotions. The limbic system is home
because our less pliant brains are not learning as to our sex drive, aggression, and fear, though it
much while awake and have fewer new memo- also allows us to feel elation and joy and love.
ries to process as we sleep. Newborn
infants sleep up to 17 hours a day
and spend about half of that in an
active, REM-like condition. And for Every time we experience REM
about a month in the womb, starting sleep, we literally go mad. Psychosis
at week 26 of gestation, it seems that is a condition characterized by
fetuses remain without pause in a hallucinations and delusions.
state very similar to REM sleep. All Dreaming, some sleep scientists say,
this REM time, it has been theorized, is a psychotic state—we fully believe
is the equivalent of the brain testing that we see what is not there, and
its software, preparing to come fully we accept that time, location, and
on line. The process is called telen- people can morph and disappear.
cephalization. It’s nothing less than
the opening of the mind.
The body doesn’t thermoregulate in REM While it sometimes seems as if we have more
sleep; our internal temperature remains at its nightmares than pleasant dreams, this probably
lowest setting. We are truly out cold. Our heart isn’t true. Frightening dreams are simply more
rate increases compared with other sleep stages, likely to trigger our override system and wake us.
and our breathing is irregular. Our muscles, Down in the brain stem, a little bulge called
with a few exceptions—eyes, ears, heart, dia- the pons is supercharged during REM sleep.
phragm—are immobilized. Sadly, this doesn’t Electrical pulses from the pons often target the
keep some of us from snoring; this bane of the part of the brain that controls muscles in the
bed partner, impetus for hundreds of anti- eyes and ears. Our lids usually remain shut, but
snoring gadgets, is caused when turbulent air- our eyeballs bounce from side to side, possibly
flow vibrates the relaxed tissues of the throat or in response to the intensity of the dream. Our
nose. It’s common in stages 3 and 4 too. In REM inner ears too are active while we dream.
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O
able thing about REM sleep is that
it proves the brain can operate
driver, sometimes
driving all night. Such
work, he says, leaves
you “so tired that you
independently of sensory input. Like an artist
can’t sleep.” The World
ensconced in a secret studio, our mind appears Health Organization has
to experiment without inhibition, let loose on described night shift
its own personal mission. work as “probably car-
cinogenic to humans.”
When we’re awake, the brain is occupied
with busy work—all those limbs to control, the
constant driving and shopping and texting and
talking. The money-earning, the child-rearing.
But when we’re sleeping, and we commence
76 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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our first REM session, the most elaborate and real wonder isn’t why we sleep. It’s why, with
complex instrument known in the universe such an incredible alternative available, do we
is free to do what it wishes. It self-activates. It bother to stay awake?
dreams. This, one could say, is the playtime of And the answer might be that we need to
the brain. Some sleep theorists postulate that attend to the basics of life—the eating and mat-
REM sleep is when we are our most intelligent, ing and fighting—only to ensure that the body
insightful, creative, and free. It’s when we truly is fully ready for sleep. j
come alive. “REM sleep may be the thing that
makes us the most human, both for what it does Michael Finkel’s latest book, The Stranger in
for the brain and body, and for the sheer experi- the Woods, is about a hermit who, after 27 years
ence of it,” says Michael Perlis. alone, had achieved this insight: “Get enough
sleep.” Swedish photographer Magnus Wenn-
Maybe, then, we’ve been asking the wrong man’s exhibit on refugees, Where the Children
question about sleep, ever since Aristotle. The Sleep, has toured worldwide.
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A young male lion was one of three members of Kenya’s famous Marsh Pride to die in 2015 after eating a
cow carcass that Maasai herders had laced with carbosulfan, an insecticide. The lions had killed several cows.
78
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BY EDWIN DOBB
P H OTO G R A P H S BY C H A R L I E H A M I LTO N JA M E S
Poisoning
Africa D E A D L Y , C H E A P PESTICIDES...
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A traditional way to kill animals with poison is to tip arrows—like these made by Maasai at a market in
Olpusi Moru, on Kenya’s border with Tanzania—with a lethal substance from the bark of the Acocanthera tree.
80
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...A R E P O T E N T W E A P O N S I N AFRICA...
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Conservationists hold a sickened gray heron and birds that died after aerial spraying of the pesticide
fenthion in the Bunyala rice-growing area. Villagers collect and eat the birds, even though they’re poisoned.
82
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...A N D A R E R A V A G I N G I T S WILDLIFE.
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84 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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the conservation group Lion Guardians. They passed-out lioness into a cage, Ole Nashuu con-
climbed into a Land Cruiser, drove to a clear- gratulated the group on a successful mission. The
ing in the bush, and parked. Under a big, bright removal of the female, he said, would disrupt
moon, with lights of, they waited for the rogue the pride and stop the brothers from preying on
predators—young brothers—to appear. the community’s livestock—a curious claim, it
Maamai, who’s Maasai, placed a speaker on the seemed, because the young male lions, the pri-
roof of the vehicle and broadcast into the dark- mary mischief-makers, were still out there.
ness the recorded bleating of a dying bufalo calf, Later that night my guide, Simon Thomsett,
a sound lions can’t resist. After just 15 minutes a a leading expert on raptors in Kenya, and I
large animal stepped from the shadows on the were trying to sleep in his Land Cruiser when
right. Ole Nashuu switched on his headlights. It we heard growling and grunting—first at a dis-
was a lioness, one of two sisters that partnered tance, then closer. It was the two male lions,
with but weren’t related to the brothers. The lion- presumably searching for the female. The team
ess, about 10 yards in front of the vehicle, moved darted and captured one of the brothers, but the
cautiously toward a small tree Maamai had baited other escaped. The captured male and female
with goat innards. Ole Nashuu signaled to a veter- eventually were released in Tsavo West. Previous
inarian who was sitting in a second Land Cruiser, experience suggests they probably haven’t sur-
his rifle loaded with a tranquilizer dart. vived: Lions dumped without acclimation into
After directing his men to shimmy the another pride’s territory are treated as intruders
POISONING AFRICA 85
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poison is used
I N K E N YA A N D A C R O S S A F R I C A , highways, railroads, power plants, and power
to kill small creatures for food (the impact on lines to heavy industry, high-tech centers, and
human health is unclear), poach elephants and growing cities—is encroaching. Kenya’s popu-
rhinos for their tusks and horns, and acquire lation, already overwhelming local resources,
animal parts for traditional medicine. Another is expected to nearly double to more than 80
vexing use of poison results from encounters million by 2050, and open country is being con-
between people and wild animals—when a lion verted into farms, blocking animal movements.
or hyena kills livestock, for example, or an ele- As a result, lands adjacent to parks—the
phant destroys property—and it usually involves large, collectively owned tracts known as group
a pesticide, because pesticides are cheap, readily ranches, as well as other community lands—are
available, and deadly. becoming inhospitable to wildlife. For elephants
“Poisoning is a big problem,” Gakuya acknowl- and other large animals that need those areas for
edges. And judging from the Osewan episode, migration between parks, for seasonal dispersal
it’s a problem that continues to elude solution. to find food and water, and for giving birth, the
Retaliatory poisoning can happen anywhere any- onslaught is catastrophic.
time, but the evidence of it is often anecdotal and Kenya has arrived at a crossroads. “We’re
almost always incomplete. Even so, nearly every- no longer preserving our nation as a haven for
one monitoring Kenya’s wildlife—biologists, wildlife,” Thomsett says, referring to Kenya’s
KWS staff, and conservation groups—agrees accelerating economic growth. “We’re trying
that poisoning is likely to increase because to become the Dubai of Africa.” That may seem
human-wildlife conflicts are increasing. extreme, but it’s hard to argue with the facts.
Kenya’s protected areas are under siege, The lion is Kenya’s signature wild animal, but
including all the premier reserves and parks in fewer than 2,000 remain in the entire country,
the south: Masai Mara, Amboseli, Tsavo West, down from an estimated 20,000 five decades
and Tsavo East. Rapid development—from ago, and the species has vanished from about
86 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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Ornithologist Martin
Odino (at right) and
a helper burn African
mourning doves poi-
soned by pesticide in
the Bunyala rice fields.
Incinerating the doves
prevents more deaths
of birds and scavengers
that would feed on the
carcasses. Vulture pop-
ulations in Kenya have
crashed because of
wildlife poisonings.
BELOW
POISONING AFRICA 87
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SOUTH TURKANA
NATIONAL RESERVE
NASOLOT
TOXIC CASCADE NATIONAL Contested grassland
RESERVE Wildlife and
and humans
humans
Lethal
compete most
most heavily
heavilyfor
for
7 lions, 2004
resources in
in grasslands,
grasslands,
where livestock
flocks graze
graze
andand
wild animals
animals subsist.
subsist.
3 lions, 2006
Landscape Kitale
3 lions, 2006
Rumuruti
are increas-
A F R I C A’ S A N I M A L S 1 elephant, 2016
ingly losing ground to human LAKE BOGORIA
MT. ELGON NATIONAL RESERVE
pressures. Habitat loss, especially NATIONAL PARK Eldoret
to farming and grazing, is forcing
people and wildlife to compete
A
Webuye Eldama
UGAND
KENYA
Ravine
for finite space and resources.
Bungoma Nakuru
Farmers and pastoralists react with
ia
powerful weapons: potent poisons Kakamega
zo
LAKE NAKURU
N
such as carbofuran that can wreak NATIONAL PARK
havoc not just on targeted wildlife Busia
but also on the animals and humans
Ugunja Kericho
around them. Some 8,600 animals Kisumu
3,186 birds, 2009
are known to have been poisoned 1,233 birds, 2015
during the past two decades. Port
Bondo
Bunyala 1,028 birds, 2014 Bomet
For every documented case,
dozens go unreported. 16 vultures, 2017
Lake Kisii
Victoria 5 elephants, 2016
Rongo 8 elephants, 2014
RUMA
NATIONAL Sare MASAI MARA
Reported wildlife-poisoning incident PARK NATIONAL RESERVE
2000–2018 15 vultures, 3 lions,
Highway Migori 1 eagle, 1 jackal, 2015
Isebania 13 hyenas, 6 jackals, 2013
Other road or path
Railroad N 78 vultures, 2008
Olpusi Moru
Cropland 0 mi 40 SERENGETI
Rangeland NATIONAL PARK
0 km 40
P O I S O N E D C A RC A S S
To hunt animals for trade
A China-driven global demand
for animal parts—including
ivory and fur—fuels the trade.
P O I S O N E D WAT E R
To kill animals for meat
Meat of fish and birds is sold
without disclosing that the
animals were killed with poison.
MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK AND MANUEL CANALES, NGM STAFF. KELSEY NOWAKOWSKI. SOURCES: DARCY OGADA, PEREGRINE FUND; AFRICAN RAPTOR DATABANK, HABITAT INFO; WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY
& RESEARCH; AFRICAN WILDLIFE POISONING DATABASE, ENDANGERED WILDLIFE TRUST; DUTCH MINISTRY OF ECONOMIC AFFAIRS; WWF-NETHERLANDS; RAPTORS MOU, UNEP/CMS; LIVING WITH LIONS; NORTH
CAROLINA ZOO; WDPA; NASA EOSDIS LAND PROCESSES CROP EXTENT; WRI; ROAD DATA © OPENSTREETMAP CONTRIBUTORS, AVAILABLE UNDER OPEN DATABASE LICENSE: OPENSTREETMAP.ORG/COPYRIGHT
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SHABA Garissa
NAT. RESERVE
SAMBURU
NATIONAL BUFFALO SPRINGS
RESERVE NATIONAL RESERVE KORA
4 lions, 2005 5 lions, 2007 NATIONAL
50 vultures, 2009 MERU PARK
NATIONAL PARK
20 vultures, 2007
4 lions, Meru
2012 4 lions, 2015 A F R I C A
na
Ta
2 lions, 2 lions, 2003
2008
KENYA
Nanyuki AREA
MT. KENYA Wildlife-poisoning
4 lions,
Mt. Kenya NATIONAL PARK prevalence ENLARGED
17,057 ft
2004 5,199 m
3 vultures, 1 cheetah, 2018 Low High
K E N Y A Kitui
a
5 vultures, 2014 10 elephants, 2014
iv
NATIONAL PARK Wote hi T
NAIROBI 216 vultures, 5 eagles,
NATIONAL PARK 1 hyena, 1 jackal, 2004
T S AV O E A S T
1 elephant, 2017
Kibwezi N AT I O N A L PA R K
3 hyenas, 2 vultures, 2010 1 elephant, 2014
CHYULU HILLS
Kajiado NATIONAL PARK
8 lions, 2002
Tsavo 1 elephant, 2015
Ilbisil
Magadi 3 lions, 2015 7 lions, 2002
O S E WA N TSAVO WEST
2 lions, 1 hyena, 2017
vo
AMBOSELI 2 vultures, 1 hyena, 2008 Ts a
NATIONAL PARK NATIONAL Voi
KENYA 5 lions, 2010 Oloitokitok
TANZANIA PARK Maktau
KILIMANJARO N.P.
Lake Kilimanjaro
Natron 19,340 ft 1 elephant, 2017
5,895 m
Taveta
1 jackal, 1 lion,
vultures, 2016
Lions
Hyenas Eagles Leopards Vultures
Insects Aardwolves Bat-eared foxes
Elephants
Fish Ducks Buffalo Otters Cattle Hippos
Until recently Maasai drove tens of thousands of cattle into the Masai Mara National Reserve. Cattle incursions
fluctuate in response to subdivision of neighboring lands, population growth, local politics, and drought.
90
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These Maasai drive cattle and sheep from their village into Masai Mara reserve, reducing forage for wildlife
hunted by lions and hyenas. The predators kill livestock, and herders retaliate by poisoning carcasses.
92
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BELOW
Villagers in Empopogi,
east of Masai Mara,
treat an injured goat
with brightly colored
antiseptic spray. The
night before, hyenas
killed more than a
hundred goats and
sheep, ripping open
their bellies.
POISONING AFRICA 95
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A Maasai girl bounces on the carcass of a 52-year-old female elephant near Amboseli National Park, which is
hemmed by farms. Rangers suspect the elephant was poisoned for raiding grain stores and removed her tusks.
96
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BELOW
98 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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POISONING AFRICA 99
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In a country where guns are diicult to acquire which manages the Mara Triangle—the western
legally, the herders turn to the weapons at hand: and most ecologically robust section of Masai
poison or spears. “At night it’s mayhem,” Thom- Mara. “At the national level, conservation is not a
sett says, evoking a part of the wildlife experience high priority,” he says. Heath, also a former KWS
tourists don’t see. trustee, points out that the government gives
Recognizing that ending the mayhem, or at considerably more money to the tourism board
least containing it, will rely on the cooperation than to KWS, even though the tourism industry,
of local people, nongovernmental organizations the second largest sector of Kenya’s economy,
have tested a new approach—community-based would collapse without the great species and
conservation—to try to reduce retaliatory poi- places KWS is charged with protecting.
sonings, poaching, and other kinds of violence The country’s national parks are understafed,
toward Kenya’s wildlife. and many staf members are undertrained. Vet-
The most notable of the organizations use erinarians often are overworked because they’re
similar strategies. They include patrolling for required by law to treat every human-inflicted
homemade wire snares—a cheap and efective injury to wildlife, even minor snare wounds,
method for disabling zebras and similar animals which can delay them from responding to a poi-
for bush meat—compensating livestock own- soning incident with multiple animal deaths. “It’s
ers for lost cattle and goats (with government very frustrating,” says KWS’s Francis Gakuya.
and private money), and providing sturdier Everywhere basic resources are insuicient, from
bomas, the often flimsy stick-and-branch cor- too few vehicles to not enough fuel.
rals where animals are kept at night. Since 2010 Another overlooked piece of the national
the Anne Kent Taylor Fund has fortified nearly puzzle is the role of police and judges. Mara
800 bomas in the Mara region, and in almost Conservancy rangers caught two of the sus-
every case livestock predation has decreased, pects in the Marsh Pride poisoning. But their
which means the main motive for retaliatory Maasai neighbors raised bail, and the men were
and protective poisoning was eliminated. released. That was the end of it—no follow-up,
One of the groups’ most promising strategies no trial, no one held responsible. Prosecutions
has been to hire area residents as rangers, con- for poisoning wildlife in Kenya have increased
flict mediators, and conservationists. “Wildlife recently, but most ofenders go unpunished.
management is people management,” says Rich- “The most important thing to do is to start
ard Bonham, co-founder of Big Life and its Africa arresting people,” says ornithologist Odino,
director of operations, referring to the problem of echoing the lament of everyone who believes
human-wildlife conflict around Amboseli. the gravity of animal-poisoning crimes is still
not appreciated.
to hold the Kenya Wildlife
I T WO U L D B E E A SY And so the poisonings continue. Carbofuran
Service primarily responsible for the failure remains popular, but anything handy and lethal
to stop wildlife poisoning, and some people will do. Some 40 vultures died in a single inci-
do. The agency’s ambitious vision—“to save dent in Masai Mara this year, almost certainly
the last great species and places on Earth for the collateral damage of retaliation against lions.
humanity”—seems to exceed its capacity. Traditional concoctions are still used, especially
Everywhere I traveled, I heard accounts of among elephant poachers in Tsavo East, where
incompetence: samples from poisoned animals at least half the elephants killed are felled by poi-
not taken, samples lost, samples misidentified, soned arrows—possibly as many as 15 last year.
samples not being tested, and results never It’s easy to smuggle strychnine from Tanzania on
coming back from the lab. There also were com- a motorbike, and any employee of a flower farm
plaints about improper treatment of injured but can divert a new insecticide to the local black
recoverable animals that led to needless deaths, market. Even cement has been used to poison
poorly executed crime-scene investigations, wildlife, a perverse irony in a country booming
and a lack of consistent, comprehensive data with construction. Near Nairobi I saw a billboard
on which to base policies and procedures. advertising Simba Cement, which is made in
But KWS is at the mercy of larger forces, and Kenya. The sign depicted the face of a male lion
chief among them is inadequate funding, says over which the following words were superim-
Brian Heath, head of the Mara Conservancy, posed: “King of the Concrete Jungle.” If nothing
100 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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else, the species will survive as a symbol. Around Amboseli, Big Life recently started
another experiment on neighboring group
O N E DAY T H E A N T I - P OAC H I N G PAT RO L of the Anne ranches: purchasing conservation easements,
Kent Taylor Fund escorted me on a behind-the- which are agreements not to put up fences,
scenes safari into Nyakweri Forest, atop the Siria construct new buildings, or otherwise disrupt
Escarpment, outside Masai Mara. Patrol leader wildlife habitat.
Elias Kamande, a young Kenyan conservationist, What will happen if the easements and con-
showed me a wooded area that until recently had servancies fail?
been an elephant nursery. “The park is dead,” Big Life’s Bonham says.
“Two hundred females giving birth at one During certain times of the year, almost all of
time,” Kamande said. Today the refuge is Amboseli’s roughly 200 lions, like the two rogue
being decimated by charcoal producers. Where brothers near Osewan, live outside the protected
months before had stood large, leafy hardwood area, in the greater Amboseli ecosystem. As long
trees was now a clear-cut area the size of four as big animals such as lions and elephants have
football fields—one of hundreds such tree- safe access to the overall ecosystem, which at
less scars scattered throughout the remaining two million acres is more than 10 times as large
patches of escarpment forest. The lucrative but as the park, they’ll likely remain resilient. Both
illicit charcoal industry is a by-product of land populations have crashed before, in the case of
subdivision. Maasai here and outside other lions mostly because of retaliatory spearings
protected areas have been dividing up group by Maasai. But they’d never have rebounded
ranches, with every male age 18 or older receiv- to today’s numbers (about 1,600 elephants) if
ing a share—essentially privatizing the land they’d been confined to the “island” known as
T
After the wreck of a Basque galleon—thought to be the San Juan—was A DISTANT CHASE (
discovered of the coast of Canada, National Geographic wrote about its It was voyages to North
exploration (July 1985 issue, at left). Now, we revisit the 16th-century ship’s America to fish for cod
history to illustrate what we’ve learned about the risks and rewards faced by that first led the Basques
to the whaling grounds
the Basques in the new lands they called Terranova. Their quarry: baleen more than 2,000 miles St.
whales and the oil from their blubber, worth millions in today’s dollars. from home.
B Y F E R N A N D O G . B A P T I S TA
Icela
Bris
Galleon
San Juan
79 ft
Cannon
(bombarda)
Sma
(med
barric
Casks loaded with beans, dried peas, Heavy weapons Personal items Shore-station supplies
bacon, and ship’s biscuits (flour-and-water Ships carried artillery such Combs, breeches, woolen Whalers brought roofing
crackers) sustained the crew. Hearty meals as swivel guns and cannons stockings, leather shoes tiles, nails, knives, saws,
were washed down with wine and hard to guard whaling waters and boots, and other and other materials
cider and supplemented with berries, fish, and project sovereignty basic gear were packed for the onshore oil-
and whale meat, when available. over European rivals. in small barrels or chests. processing stations.
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SHIP WEIGHT
2 Sailing 3 Hunting and processing oil 4 Sailing
209 tons
JUN. DEC.
CARGO
Spitsbergen
OUTFITTING THE SAN JUAN 239 tons
T E R R A N O VA Greenland Canadian researcher
60°
W
AFRICA
Small barrels:
sardines, olive
oil, bacon
Ship’s biscuits:
240 barrels
WATER
LEVEL
Extra-large
((bota)
bota))
bota
247 gallons
Cider: 220 barrels
Wine
Stones secured barrels.
Large Medium
(pipa) (barrica)
120 gal 55 gal
Scouts patrolled in small boats called chalupas, signaling to Quietly rowing, the Standing in the bow, If the whale broke free
crew would close in on the harpooner struck of a first harpoon, a
other crews when they spotted whales in the Strait of Belle Isle. the whale from behind— the whale’s body when buoy on a second one
Skippers of the chalupas, each typically carrying six oarsmen its blind spot. it surfaced to breathe. helped track the animal.
and a harpooner, directed their crews to row in haste—but
stealthily—toward the surfacing or sleeping giants.
Harpooner
S addle Island
Saddle
Sails
Masts
Whale line,
720 ft
Ax to cut Buoy
the whale line
Shown at right
THE CHALUPA BOWHEADS AND RIGHT WHALES
Oak whaleboats, called chalupas, were The top two planks of A thick layer of blubber made these slow-
so fast and maneuverable that native a chalupa overlapped swimming baleen whales a prime target.
peoples of the region adopted the (clinker style), while the Bowheads—the whalers’ prize catch for
technology. With adjustable masts, rest were set edge to their higher oil yield—often swam near Bowhead whale 56 ft Whale’s head North Atlantic right whale 49 ft
chalupas could also be sailed. 26 ft edge (carvel style). pack ice alone or in family groups. Balaena mysticetus 100 tons from above Eubalaena glacialis 60 tons
Tryworks
Sunken wharf
P
Penney y
I d
Island Shipwreck
0 ft 1,000
0m 250
T
Tryworks
s Red Bay
C
Cemetery
y The
Harbour
San Juan?
(1565)
1 ftt
108
3 m
33 SSaddle
Sadd l e
IIsland
Isl a ndd Cemetery TTwin
winn
IIsles
sless
Basque crews killed about
13,000 whales in these coastal
waters during the 16th century.
Direction of
Strait of Belle Isle view in scene
U
Upper jaw
w
S n
Skin M
Muscle
e THE TRADE
Mounted on wooden
Blubber
B
Baleen
n shafts, iron-headed
12 in
harpoons and lances
were coated with wax to
protect against corrosive
seawater.
Lower
Lower jaw
w L
Lancess F
Flensing
t
tools,
Working in shifts day and
t strip
to
night, two teams of men b
blubber r
could capture and pro-
cess a whale into 60 bar-
rels of oil within 2.5 days.
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READY TO RETURN
CARGO The Basques were the master whalers of their day, but n
290 tons PACKING THE WHALE OIL their ships weathered the voyages. Seamen’s court testimon
Barrels were interlocked to insurance claims tell of a costly end to the San Juan: drive
prevent shifting and max- the rocks by violent winds before departure in 1565. But the
imize space. On a typical
return voyage, chalupas survived, many barrels were recovered, and the Basques d
Cider
may have been left behind nated the hunting grounds of the north into the next cent
and some men given extra
wages to winter in Red Bay
to allow more room for oil.
Fifteen to 20
whales yielded
enough oil to fill
the cargo hold.
WATER
LEVEL
Beakhead
Galley
Flensing
operations
Bundles of baleen—
in higher demand
at the end of the
16th century—were
stacked and bound. Crew’s
quarters
1,000
barrels of
whale oil
N
not all 1978: RECOVERING THE SAN JUAN
More than
ny and 2,000 miles 45 feet Found under kelp and silt, the ship’s flat-
Reconstruction of remains
n into Red Bay Pasajes
tened hull had been preserved for centu-
e crew Seafloor ries by icy waters. The first plank brought
Actual remains
up was oak, not native to the region but
domi- known to be used by the Basques. Red
tury. Original position of the shipwreck Back view Bay is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Captain’s
cabin
Capstan
Compass
box
Bilge
pump
Tiller
Crew’s
quarters
Sailors slept
on straw-
filled sacks.
The
Butterfly
Catchers
IN THE MURKY WORLD OF CAPTURING
A N D T R A D I N G T H E D E L I C AT E I N S E C T,
THE COLORFUL PRIZE IS MESMERIZING.
B Y M AT T H E W T E AG U E
P H O T O G R A P H S B Y E V G E N I A A R B U G A E VA
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A goliath birdwing
hatches in the kitchen
of a tourist house in
West Papua, Indonesia.
Hatchlings are killed
young, to preserve
their wings. The trade
in rare butterflies—
both legal and illegal—
spans the planet, from
catchers to middlemen
to collectors.
113
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It can be a
treacherous thing,
hunting this
particular
butterfly. Baco Bugis follows
his own migration
pattern from Decem-
The peacock swallowtail, Papilio blumei, lives ber to March, moving
only here, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, hundreds of miles to
follow butterflies deep
and only at a certain altitude. Its mountain into remote Indone-
home is a steep rock covered with a thin layer sian forests. He hunts
of wet earth, where every handhold and step the elusive birdwings—
sometimes finding just
sends away a small mudslide. And somewhere one or two a week—for
along the way, between the valley and the peak, which dealers can pay
an economy becomes clear: This is why some up to a hundred dollars
and foreign collectors
butterflies are valuable. This is why there’s a much more.
black market for the rare ones.
The hunter, a man named Jasmin Zainuddin, PREVIOUS PHOTO
butterflies from local mountaintops to collectors his mud-testing staff, Jasmin breathes hard
around the world. Today his morning started through an open smile. “Close now,” he says.
in Makassar, a city at the island’s southwestern Eventually the mountainside begins to shape
tip. A van carried him and several helpers on a itself into terraced rice paddies, and Jasmin’s
winding road up from the lowland heat, through destination appears above. It’s a hut he built
jungle, and finally into a mountain village himself, raised high on stilts. One by one, he
where the road became too steep and slippery. and his helpers climb a log to enter it.
There Jasmin moved his supplies and crew onto As the sun sets, Jasmin stretches out on the
the backs of a half dozen motorbikes, mostly floor of the hut. He’s middle-aged now, and haul-
driven by small boys. The road crumbled and ing supplies gets harder every trip. Tomorrow,
narrowed into a path, which became a series he says, the hunt will begin in earnest. For now,
of swinging bridges that could bear one motor- two women, one middle-aged and one younger,
bike at a time, and which ended altogether at prepare dinner.
the next village. From there everyone disem- Every word Jasmin speaks, every item he
barked, took up sacks of rice and jugs of water, touches, every memory he recollects centers
and started to climb. on butterflies. He has studied, followed, and
It’s an arduous journey. But now, leaning on caught them since an encounter with a foreigner
B U T T E R F LY C AT C H E R S 117
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A young mother on
Indonesia’s Sulawesi
island sorts her catch.
Closest to the original
sources, the butterfly
trade is a means of sub-
sistence. Families often
tend a farm during one
season and catch but-
terflies in another. Each
specimen may earn
them a penny or two.
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when he was a small boy. Now he pays an army local people did. For example, when Jasmin was
of small boys himself, all equipped with gos- young, a French collector showed him a glass
samer nets. Together they make up the lowest bell in which he trapped butterflies with a bit
step in a butterfly market that ends in private of ether. “A killing jar,” Jasmin says.
parlors and corporate boardrooms in faraway A government project forced his family to
lands, where some collectors pay thousands of move soon after that, he says, but that pecu-
dollars for specimens they display under glass. liar jar stayed in his imagination: the motion
In the near darkness the women laugh at of the butterflies, and how easily they slipped
Jasmin’s prone figure as they cook. The older into stillness.
is Mujiauna, his wife of almost 30 years. They The next turn in his life came a few years
smile at each other a lot. later, in the 1980s. A small group of Japanese
Jasmin sits up. “You must have a wife?” he says. visitors arrived on Sulawesi with questions
It’s the first time he has veered from the sub- about butterflies. One of them, a man Jasmin
ject of butterflies, and the question is so unex- called Mr. Nishiyama, spoke some Indonesian,
pected I struggle with it. and noticed the boy. He thought Jasmin was
“No,” I say. “Or not anymore.” smart, paid attention, and seemed to have a
“Something happened to her?” genuine ainity for the butterflies.
“Yes.” Over the next two decades Mr. Nishiyama
He sits in silence a moment and lies down returned to the island many times, always hir-
again. ing Jasmin to help him on expeditions into the
mountains. As they hiked, the Japanese man
of the
T H E H U T S I T S O N T H E W E ST E R N FAC E revealed an entire world of butterflies: their pat-
mountain, so that the next day arrives as a slab terns of flying, mating, resting; what drew them
of light sliding between the mountainside and in, what repelled them. Only years later did Jas-
low rain clouds. min learn his teacher was Yasusuke Nishiyama,
Jasmin rarely climbs all the way to the top one of Asia’s great lepidopterists. He wrote books
anymore, he says, but today he’ll accompany about the butterflies they found together.
his favorite catcher, a young man named Aris, Now Jasmin points beyond a high waterfall.
part of the way. They each carry a net. “There,” he says. That’s where the blumei live.
A stream runs past the paddies, and they Aris continues climbing. He springs among
follow it to a small river, and then follow that wet roots and rocks like a leopard. Jasmin
farther up the mountain. Along the way Jas- remains below. As he recedes into the forest, he
min talks freely—butterflies are deaf to human doesn’t immediately turn away; he lets his eyes
voices—but his eyes read the forest with a spe- linger on the mist above the waterfall. Absently
cific literacy. In a scene of ferns and vines and he lets his butterfly net sway in gentle arcs, with
dripping water he can pick out any tiny winged the net drifting like a cobweb on the air.
thing resting on the underside of a leaf. “No,” he
says each time. “Too common.” is the first of a
T H E WAT E R F A L L , I T T U R N S O U T,
Jasmin’s father caught butterflies before him, series. Aris climbs them and eventually breaks
starting in the early 1970s. They lived in a vil- past the cloud cover, emerging into clear sky
lage called Bantimurung, which Alfred Russel framed by high jungle canopy. He stops and
Wallace, the great British naturalist, had visited reaches into a triangular wooden box that swings
a century earlier. He described Bantimurung at his hip. From it he withdraws a triangular
as “a beautiful sight, being dotted with groups piece of wax paper, and from that he tenderly
of gay butterflies—orange, yellow, white, blue, removes a specimen of the butterfly he hopes
and green—which on being disturbed rose into to find. Papilio blumei.
the air by hundreds, forming clouds of varie- Its wings look like black velvet, each with a
gated colours.” stripe of peacock blue-green. It’s a startling
The father’s technique was rudimentary. object, like a jewel, and it’s immediately clear
He caught whatever creatures floated near the why collectors on distant continents would
family home and ofered them to foreigners who desire it.
visited the island. Soon the foreigners who came Aris cuts a tiny sliver of wood from a tree, no
seemed to know more about the butterflies than bigger than a matchstick, and sharpens it to a
120 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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point. He uses it to pin his butterfly specimen So I stop the story there. There’s no need to
to a large leaf about waist high, then retreats to explain about the cancer that had already taken
watch from a rock outcropping. hold in Nicole during that trip and would take
“Female,” he says, nodding. “The male will her away, in pieces, over the next two years.
come, looking for a mate.” Sometimes now my girls remove the butterfly
He settles into a hollow spot in the rock to wait. earrings from their case and admire them in the
He has a mate of his own, he says, and a new mirror. They’re inexpensive jewelry, but the girls
baby. They live at Jasmin’s hut year-round, sur- always handle them like treasures.
viving on rice and income from the butterflies. He “I miss my wife,” Aris says.
and the other catchers bring them to Jasmin, who Me too, I say.
pays a few cents for each butterfly. Jasmin sells We sit a long time. Hours. Catching butter-
them either at the market in Bantimurung or to a flies is a lonesome endeavor. Then Aris’s finger
man in Jakarta—an Indonesian butterfly boss— shoots toward the sky: “Look.”
who then sells them to dealers around the world. High among the treetops—higher than I would
By the time a blumei’s final seller mounts the but- have searched for a butterfly—there’s a flicker of
terfly in a display case, it might go for close to a blue, like a scrap of confetti. Slowly it descends in
hundred dollars. Other species—internationally a drifting, indirect route toward the decoy.
protected species—sell for astronomical prices.
The idea of trading in butterflies sounds
quaint, almost Victorian, but the internet
has enabled the modern market. In 2017 Brit-
ish authorities, for the first time, convicted a Butterflies exist on
man for capturing and killing a large blue, one
of the United Kingdom’s rarest butterflies.
the edge of nonexistence,
Investigators linked Phillip Cullen to an online floating along this side
of a mortal veil.
auction account.
In 2007 a multiyear investigation by the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service in Los Angeles led to
the conviction of Hisayoshi Kojima, a Japanese Such is their delicacy:
man who described himself as “the world’s most
wanted butterfly smuggler.” He had ofered to
unattainable in life,
sell an undercover agent an illegal collection of
butterflies worth more than a quarter million
unsatisfying in death.
dollars. It’s hard to pin down the exact size of
the global black market for butterflies today,
but estimates range up to hundreds of millions As it comes closer, I realize just how diferent
of dollars a year. it is from the decoy. It is a glittering thing, not
“Do you see butterflies at home?” Aris says. one peacock tone but many. Its color has a fourth
Sometimes, I say. dimension; moment to moment as it moves,
My hometown of Fairhope, Alabama, is at the the color changes depending on the angle of its
center of the migration path for monarch but- wings in the sun.
terflies. One of the last outings my wife and I Scientists have tried for years to replicate
made with our two girls was to a museum where this quality of the blumei’s. In 2010 a team of
we watched a documentary called Flight of the U.K. university researchers from Cambridge
Butterflies, about the orange-and-black mon- and Exeter tried to describe its essence in the
archs’ great annual movement from Canada to journal Nature Nanotechnology: “Although the
central Mexico and back again. We all fell in love physics of structural colours is well understood,
with them, and as we left the museum, my it remains a challenge to create artificial repli-
daughters begged us for butterfly-themed books cas of natural photonic structures. Here we use
and toys. My wife, Nicole, bought a delicate pair a combination of layer deposition techniques,
of monarch earrings. including colloidal self-assembly, sputtering and
Aris likes the idea of a butterfly movie. It atomic layer deposition, to fabricate photonic
makes him laugh. structures that mimic the colour mixing efect
B U T T E R F LY C AT C H E R S 121
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HOMERUS SWALLOWTAIL
Papilio homerus
Named after the Greek
poet Homer. Featured on
Jamaican postage stamps.
Male
NORTH
AMERICA
JAMAICA
SOUTH
AMERICA
Female
Winged Desire
Of the planet’s roughly 20,000 species of butter-
Actual size
of largest
O. alexandrae
on record
All other
butterflies
flies, swallowtails are especially intriguing to shown at half
collectors. The more than 560 swallowtails include actual size.
the world’s largest butterflies—birdwings—and
Host plant some of the most expensive and threatened (five
Hernandia
are shown here). They face a triple menace of
catalpifolia
habitat loss, climate change, and poaching. Thanks
to conservation programs and anti-poaching laws,
swallowtails are surviving despite a black market
where prices start in the pennies and run into
the thousands for protected species.
LUZON PEACOCK
SWALLOWTAIL
Papilio chikae
Discovered in 1965; traders
often mislabel this species to
elude law enforcement.
Male Female
ASIA
PHILIPPINES
Euodia glauca
AUSTRALIA
Male
ASIA
INDONESIA
AUSTRALIA
gaudichaudii
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ASIA
PAPUA
NEW
GUINEA
AUSTRALIA
CLEAR
SCALE
DARK
SCALE
Female
Male
Flying rarities
A coveted half-male, half-
female gynandromorph
can occur if a fertilized egg
unevenly divides into the
two cells that form each side
of a butterfly’s body.
APOLLO
Parnassius apollo Male
Varied wing patterns led Male Female
collectors to wildly inflate
the number of subspecies. Female
EUROPE
ASIA
Sedum album G YN AN D RO M O RP H
AFRICA
MONICA SERRANO, LAUREN E. JAMES, AND RYAN T. WILLIAMS, NGM STAFF. LORI PUMA. SOURCES: ED NEWCOMER, U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE; FABIEN CONDAMINE,
CNRS; THOMAS TURNER, CARIBBEAN WILDLIFE PUBLICATIONS; BRENT KARNER, BIOQUIP; MARK COLLINS, SWALLOWTAIL AND BIRDWING BUTTERFLY TRUST; MARTIN FEATHER,
FAIRCHILD TROPICAL BOTANIC GARDEN; RUDI VEROVNIK, UNIVERSITY OF LJUBLJANA
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found on the wings of the Indonesian butterfly diicult to escape the moment the blumei ceased
Papilio blumei.” to move. It remained beautiful afterward, but
All of that—the sputtering atomic beauty— in an instant all its fourth-dimensionality had
is on display as the butterfly descends. It is, in drained away. It had become a mere gemstone
short, alive. or a splash of paint.
As it moves toward its potential mate, Aris’s More than for the butterfly, I feel sorrow for
net shoots out and swallows it whole, like a whoever will eventually hang it on a wall or tilt
diaphanous predator. it on a desk. That person will never know just
It’s painful to see. I had forgotten, for a how exquisite it had been in life.
moment, about the net.
Aris’s face is alight with joy. And of course at the hut,
O V E R T H E N E X T C O U P L E O F D AY S
it is—with great patience and skill he has just catchers bring Jasmin specimens for inspection.
captured a prize that will help provide food for They come from all directions, sometimes in the
his wife and new baby. He reaches gently into morning, sometimes emerging from darkness.
the net and takes it in his hands. With its wings They bring butterflies, mostly, but a hand-
pinned back between his thumb and forefinger, ful of moths and other insects. One evening as
he uses the other hand to pinch its body for a the sun sets, a few catchers sit talking on Jas-
moment, and it dies. min’s high porch. Then suddenly one—an older
He gathers up the decoy, puts it and the new man—stands up, grabs his net, and leaps to the
specimen into their little triangular wax paper ground below. The others cheer as he sprints
envelopes, and slips them into his box. As he uphill, waving his net toward a dark, ghostly
walks now, he whistles. shape in the air.
As we descend the waterfalls, though, it’s He returns, and the men take turns examining
126 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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B U T T E R F LY C AT C H E R S 127
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A sculpture of a Papilio
blumei—symbol of local
pride—tops the gate-
way to Bantimurung
Ecotourism Park. The
surrounding national
park, established in
2004, helps address
some threats to butter-
flies—habitat loss and
pesticide use—but also
faces challenges from
butterfly poachers.
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moves to a window, where he points into the before what appears to be a small garden dec-
crowd: “Look... look... look,” he says. He’s orated with large rocks. The context is so jar-
pointing out men in police uniforms, who ring—we can hear tourists squealing at the water
seem unperturbed. park—that only gradually does the meaning of
“Let me show you something,” he says. the stones take shape.
We walk into the park itself, where we see a They’re grave markers.
fading hotel and natural water slide and tour
guides leading groups toward underground cav- he plays on the floor
B A C K AT J A S M I N ’ S H O M E ,
erns. Butterflies decorate every surface, down with his small granddaughter. He wants his son
to the pavement itself, but there are no actual to follow him into the butterfly business, he says,
butterflies to be seen in the air. “The government but the young man shows no interest.
does not care,” Jasmin says. As they play, I look over maps of the area. Ban-
He points to a building. “That is where my timurung Bulusaraung National Park, I realize,
home was when I was small.” Banti murung is larger than I had thought. Much larger.
Ecotourism Park, he says, was the government What was the name again, of the village near-
project that ousted his family when he was a boy. est his hut?
He walks deeper into the park, past his for- “Laiya,” he says.
mer home, past a glassed-in terrarium that once And there on the map is tiny Laiya—at the foot
held butterflies but now sits empty. Around a of the mountain. Deep inside the park.
corner and down a narrow passage, away from So all the butterflies he and his catchers bring
the crowds, he begins to walk more slowly and from that mountain are caught illegally.
speak more softly. He shrugs. “As long as there is the forest, there
“This was my family,” he says. He stands will be butterflies,” he says.
132 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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B U T T E R F LY C AT C H E R S 133
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D I S PATC H E S | YEMEN
BY NINA STROCHLIC P H O T O G R A P H S B Y M AT T E O B A S T I A N E L L I
135
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EUROPE
CHOLERA CRISIS ASIA
0 mi 50
-
H
Sayun
RT
E
O
0 km 50
D
Hajjah Amran
N
VI
Marib ER
DI
RM TH
Sanaa FO
S O
U Y E M E N
Al Hudaydah Arabian
Red Dhamar Al Mukalla Sea
Sea
Ibb Area under control or influence
As of May 2018
Ad Dali
Taizz Houthi rebels (supported by Iran)
e n
A d Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
f o f
Aden G u l and tribal allies
T R A P P E D I N A H E A LT H C R I S I S 137
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138 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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140 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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T R A P P E D I N A H E A LT H C R I S I S 141
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YOUR SHOT
KHAI NGUYEN
PHOTOS FROM OUR COMMUNITY
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