Magdalena Medio: Percepciones de una selva casi extinta

En mi inconsciente, la palabra Magdalena Medio siempre se entremezcló con temores infundidos por ajenas noticias de violencia que parecían condenar las posibilidades de algún dia experimentar la magia de este lugar. A pesar de que las selvas han desaparecido para dar paso a sabanas humanizadas y que las ciénagas parecen despreciadas por el desarrollo, es evidente que la vida evolucionada y arraigada a este espacio se sigue manifestando por doquier. Por circunstancias de la vida, tuve la fortuna de vivir por unos días este lugar condenado por las riquezas que corren por sus venas. Escuché a hombres contar historias macabras, aunque también historias de un futuro incierto; No obstante, al tiempo que escuchaba sus relatos mis sentidos palpaban los olores, los colores, los sonidos de una selva húmeda casi extinta, pero aun viva que me dio la oportunidad de percibir en vida parte de lo que ya solo está escrito.

Sweet Water

Some say future wars will be because of lack of water. However natural reservoirs like this in the high Andes of central Colombia are being destroyed daily. This picture was taken in a paramo ecosystem near Bogota, while I was searching for the elusive andean bear. Sadly, the mountain tapir, the other big mammal living in the paramo disappeared from this place several years ago. Deer and other endangered species are under risk too.

Water over a milky way

Paramos are high Andean mountain ecosystems located in Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. Cities like Bogotá, capital of Colombia, depend mainly on water from these ecosystems to supply with water to more than 8 million people. I took this picture while studying mountain tapirs in Puracé, National Park, south western Colombia, some years ago. I liked the beautiful colors of the vegetation and, of course, the transparency of the water while flowing over a milky bed of sulfur from a nearby volcano. I wanted to share it as my first post for Watery Wednesday.

I met Suricates

I loved to meet in person a group of suricates or slender-tailed meerkats (Suricatta suricatta) at the Cali Zoo a few days ago. I liked to see their fast movements and how they stare and then run fast with exact movements. This carnivore species is native from Africa (Angola, Namibia, Botswana and South Africa) where it lives in dry areas. They live in colonies in borrows excavated by themselves or shared with other species. Suricates seems to enjoy the sun! An that’s what I saw at Cali Zoo.

Tapir Garden

When walking in mountain tapir habitat you feel like walking in a perfect garden full of colors textures and smells. Look at this picture taken at Purace National Park. At right you can see some “frailejón” (Espeletia sp.) plants, a group of species specially adapted to the cold Andean paramos of Venezuela, Colombia and some areas in Ecuador. Their leaves have a hairy texture that help the plant to protect itself from UV radiation and from the harsh cold. The plant retains the dead leaves in its trunk, an adaptation related with how the plant deals with the cold temperatures too. Frailejons growth very slowly, about just 1 cm per year. Some other species that we can see in this picture are the bromeliads which produce beautiful flowers like the red one we can see. For this reason some bromeliads have economic importance as ornamental plants. Finally at the right we can see some tree ferns that can growth several meters and are specially adapted to cold temperatures too.

World tapir day’s figures

Yesterday I found a link to Chris Jackson’s blog (Tapir Caper http://tapircaper.blogspot.com) and found a nice picture of several wood tapirs that Chris is producing to celebrate World’s Tapir Day on April 27th. That image brought to my mind a similar one that I took some time ago to a group of ceramic young mountain tapirs (Above) that I made for the Tapir Preservation Fund’s online gift shop. This tapirs are out of production, but I think there could be still some pieces at TPF’s gift shop http://www.tapirback.com/tapirgal/gifts/friends/tapirs.htm. Any way, no matter what people choose from the gift shop, the idea is to celebrate World Tapir Day contributing to tapir conservation in some way.

Signs of elusive animals

When working with elusive animals like tapirs or bears, I was frequently asked about how many tapirs or bears I had seen in the field. My answer was “I had never seen them, I just work with their signs”. So people maybe thought it wasn’t a serious work. “How can he study those animals if he never sees them?” In reality a collection of signs (tracks, feeding sins, droppings, hairs, etc.) when well analyzed give us more information than simple direct sightings. At the end a sighting become just an anecdotic event, something to tell to your friends when drinking a few beers. But, well, sightings can be really important if you want to get support for your project; people want to invest in tangible things, isn’t it?