In this week’s installment of Human Nature, our storytellers find humility in the natural world.
Part 1: After working in the Everglades, ecologist Stephen Smith expects his new gig in Cape Cod to be a piece of cake until one winter day in the sand dunes.
Stephen Smith is a Plant Ecologist at the Cape Cod National Seashore, with expertise in plant physiology and plant community ecology. Stephen received a B.S. degree from Florida State University and a M.S and Ph.D. from the University of Miami. After spending 5 years working on the restoration of the Florida Everglades, he assumed his current position with the National Park Service in 2002. Stephen's current activities are focused on understanding the dynamics of spatial and temporal variability within plant communities in all the different ecosystems within the Seashore.
Part 2: Henrique Bravo plans to travel the world in search of 30 endangered species, but after he departs on his journey, he begins to wonder if he has bit off more than he can chew.
Henrique Bravo is a PhD student from Portugal based in the Netherlands, studying the symbiotic relationship between tiny Caribbean (gall) crabs and corals. In his spare time he likes to be in the water, on a squash/tennis court, reading a good book that might change his life, looking for endangered species, or traveling a bit. He is currently collating the adventures from his Pan-American trip into a book.
Story Transcripts
Story 1: Stephen Smith
It was 1997 when I graduated with my PhD from the University of Miami in Environmental Science and I landed my first real job shortly thereafter. This was with a state agency in Florida that was doing a lot of ecological restoration in the Everglades so it was kind of a dream job.
Stephen Smith taking a selfie on the water.
So I did field work in very remote locations in the Everglades. It was, like I said, really a dream job for me. I got to fly around in a helicopter on most days to do our sampling and survey work and it was there that I really cut my teeth in doing difficult, strenuous and really physically taxing work. I was the guy that strapped himself into a harness and hung out the open doorway of the helicopter to film a marsh wildfire. I regularly endured poison, you know, the threat of poisonous snakes and alligators and we often were covered with fire ants and had to deal with raging heat and humidity, colossal thunderstorms and the like.
On another adventurous day, actually, I got stuck in the muck so deep in the marsh that I had to be extracted by the helicopter by hanging onto a strut while it lifted off. Unfortunately, my chest waiter stayed behind in the muck forever but it was an interesting experience. I'd even been electrified by a lightning strike very close to our airboat.
So a lot of hair-raising but thrilling experiences there. I emerged at the end of this five‑year stint at this agency feeling like a winner on the show Survivor or something at times. But as much as I loved this job, I was personally longing to move north closer to where I grew up, which was in Canada actually.
I had family now in Vermont and when an opportunity to move north and work for the national park service arose I moved with my native Floridian wife, three-year-old daughter and one‑year-old son to Cape Cod, that tiny sandbar stuck out in the Atlantic Ocean that's become a huge tourist Mecca for lots of people around the country, in the world actually.
Anyway, I arrived in April of 2002 and started setting up my program of ecological research across this new landscape. And field work there on Cape Cod through spring, that first spring, summer and fall was comparable to going to a spa with what I endured in the Everglades. I wasn't in danger of collapsing from heat exhaustion every moment, there was no wildlife that would kill you. Anywhere you went you're only a few miles at most from civilization. The most dangerous thing I ever encountered in the first nine months there were tourists and most of those situations happened in summer traffic, not in the field.
So in a way it was maybe a little boring compared to my everglades gig but it was nice and it was kind of a welcome change after almost five years of sort of suffering willingly, suffering but suffering nonetheless in the field in South Florida.
Then winter came and I found myself sitting in front of my computer a lot looking at thousands of rows of data and trying to figure out how to make sense of it all. I guess at some point, one day in January I got tired of feeling like a piece of furniture under a fluorescent lamp and decided to do a quick little field trip out into the dunes to look at an interdunal wetland that I've been curious about.
It was a little brisk that day around 35-40 degrees, but that was nothing to this Canadian‑bred boy despite having become acclimatized to warm weather for the last 18 years. But I just didn't think much of it. I put on a light jacket and figured that since I'd be generating heat as I walked anyways, I'd be all right.
Besides, I'd only be out there for an hour tops and where I had to park to access this site was only about five minutes from my office.
So across the tip of Cape Cod is this vast 4000 acre expanse of sand dunes and it's really stunning. In between the dunes are these little oases where the groundwater intersects with the land surface elevation to create these wetlands full of unique and interesting flora and fauna and tons of amazing orchids. It's a really amazing place.
The sand dunes of Cape Cod from above.
As soon as I got out of the truck, I surveyed the landscape and thought to myself this is going to be a fun little walk in the dunes. The first thing I heard as I got out of the car was the wind over the sand. And the wind in the sand dunes there makes odd sounds as it swirls in all these particular patterns through and as it winds its way through the interesting topography of dunes and valleys.
A photo from Stephen Smith of the sand dunes.
But as I got to the top of the first large dune that I had to go over, I was hit with a little gust that was a little bit chilly, but I didn't think anything of it and I descended the other side into like this broad, lichen-covered, flat expanse between the dune ridges and walked to where it narrowed to form a valley between the two ridges.
But about a half mile in, the wind direction changed a little bit and it was noticeably colder as it began blowing in off the frigid North Atlantic and now I felt a little bit underdressed at that point. But, you know, no worries. I could deal with it. I'm Canadian after all.
I continued my meandering through the landscape trying to reach that little dot on my GPS unit, which might have been another mile away I'd guessed, and by this point I was actually already a mile in.
So about 10 minutes later, I had to reevaluate things. I was getting quite cold now and I actually questioned whether I could suck it up and continue and get back to the truck without being super uncomfortable. So I was having this conversation in my head, “Should I go back?” But that would be a waste of time and effort and sort of embarrassing, actually. My intended destination wasn't too far away.
And I was thinking maybe I could run there to warm up but then I thought, oh, running in the sand dunes is like running in molasses or in a dream where something's chasing you and every step is super slow and difficult. But I began to shiver a little bit and I looked around and saw how far I had to walk back to my vehicle. Should I go for it? It would be kind of a miserable walk but what else could I do to avoid this discomfort I was feeling?
The first thing I thought was I just need to figure out a way to warm up so I can think properly. So I scurried over to a standard, short and gnarly pitch pines. There's not much vegetation cover out there so it's pretty open habitat but there's a little stand of pines tucked in behind the dune and I thought it wasn't much but it would provide some protection from the wind until I warmed up enough to deal with it and think properly.
So I went in there and I lay down on the ground, but somehow the wind was still finding its way through the trees. So now, I started to make a shallow trough in the sand and tried to get myself as low as possible. I was thinking I should make myself like one of those hog nosed snakes that lives out in the dunes there burrowing to the sand for protection.
And I was thinking I very much like a little adventure but this was becoming a little weird and, frankly, a little bit disconcerting. I was hoping that it was just a brief bit of uncomfortability. Or sorry, I was hoping that it was a brief bit of uncomfortable weather before it shifted around and changed again, which it's apt to do out there.
But I was getting colder by the moment in reality and I just started to dig myself further down into the sand. It felt like I was making a den for myself at this point like some wild animal out there and I felt sort of silly. But I tucked my hands into my pants to keep my fingers warm and they were really cold at this point. And I'm thinking, “Man, I hope I don't get frostbite. I really should have brought a backpack with gloves and a hat and some more layers.” But, you know, back at the lab it seemed mild and I was going to be out there for just a little while.
So now I'm on my belly. My hands are down my pants. My chin is on the ground looking forward, trying to figure out how long it was going to be before I could get warm enough to dash back to the truck.
And I'm thinking, “Okay, get low to the ground. That way the wind can't get me and I'm going to put my hands in my I'm just going to keep my hands in my pants and try to warm them up and, oh, my God, I must look like an idiot. I hope no one finds me like this. That would be so embarrassing.”
I was thinking at that moment that it would almost be better to be bitten by a snake in the Everglades than to have somebody find me in the dunes of Cape Cod lying on my stomach with my hands down my pants frozen in the sand. At least then I would have had a decent story, but this just felt dumb, in a way.
So then I'm just lying there and trying to think. And out of nowhere, at that moment appears a large black animal coming toward me. I didn't recognize what it was first. Then it hit me and all I could think was, “Oh, my God. Is that a skunk? Oh, no. Please, no, no, no, no. I do not want to end up like that kid.”
My wife had just told me about a child that she'd heard about who got sprayed directly in the mouth when it encountered a skunk under their back deck, so I didn't want that to happen. That's for sure.
It was undoubtedly a normal-sized skunk, of course, but at ground level it looked about as big as a horse. And when it got to about six feet from me, it just stopped dead in its tracks and fixed its gaze upon me. So now we've locked eyes and I try to figure out what it might be thinking. I'm just absolutely paranoid that it's going to rear up and spray me and I'm afraid to move a muscle. All I could think about was that story.
So we just sat there staring at each other for what felt like eternity, what was probably only, I don't know, 20 seconds or something. And then at some point it just simply turned and disappeared from sight, just like that. Gone. Crisis averted and I just breathed out a sigh of relief.
And I was humbled in that moment because this tiny animal sort of had me hostage for a moment and I felt very vulnerable. It left and slowly and miraculously I began to warm up in that little shallow foxhole in the trees. In fact, I managed to gain back enough body heat to attempt my escape back to the truck. So I got up and I determined that I was going back no matter what at this point. I was beyond caring about losing any of my fingertips or toes at that point from the cold.
So I did, through a lot of determination and motivation to save face, make the journey back to the warmth of the car. I got in and warmed up. I won't say that I had a big epiphany that day, but that event did stick with me and it really sort of, after feeling like Superman, super field worker in the Everglades and conquering a very dynamic landscape like that, it just reminded me that Mother Nature is still the boss. I caught a little break that day and was spared a very smelly and embarrassing moment.
And I think in the back of my mind somewhere, this event altered my sense of place in the world and maybe installed a little humility where it was needed in terms of how I fit into nature and the environment. I also have a new appreciation and great respect for skunks.
Story 2: Henrique Bravo
It all started with a book, a book called Last Chance to See where Douglas Adams and Mark are within crisscrossed the world looking for some of the most endangered and elusive species on the planet. They were looking for bats and rhinos, dolphins, flightless parrots, you name it. Not only that, they were also trying to talk to the conservationists that were trying to make a difference for these species, trying to bring them back from the brink of extinction. And as I'm reading through this book, I just kept thinking to myself, how much I would absolutely love to do something like this. About a month before I good, a friend of mine asked me if I would want to join her on a trip that would take us from Ushuaia, the tip of Argentina, to Alaska. That wasn't easy yes, I just needed the money. So I moved to London and I started working at a pub for about three to four months and I was sleeping on a friend's couch to save as much money as I could. And in my spare time, I would look up endangered species online. And I started compiling this ridiculous list that went up to 300 endangered species. And then I started cross checking this with the scientific literature and the rough itinerary I had in mind. And I was able to bring it down to a more manageable number of about 30. So with this list of species in hand, that rough itinerary, and just enough money to cover my expenses for the next six months, I boarded the plane to Ushuaia.
I'm sitting on this plane and it's about we're about halfway over the Atlantic. And the cabin lights have been dimmed because it's the middle of the night and I'm watching a movie. And then things start getting a little bit darker. And then a little bit darker, and then there's some flash, that starts appearing. So I get up and I go to the back of the plane and I ask as to what it is to give me some sugary drink. She waves me off and tells me to go back to my seat because we're going through some turbulence. So I lie down on the floor. And then suddenly I have four stewardesses surrounding me and now they're giving me all sorts of sugary drinks they can find and splashing water on my face, as in this moment that I realized that I probably signed up for something that was bigger than I thought and I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was.
Fast forward six weeks and I'm in Brazil. And this little preparedness is showing because I haven't been able to see a single species. And in my mind, I thought that researchers would drop what they were doing for a couple of days and they would take me to the foothills of volcanoes to show me some frogs or over mountains to try and look for birds if we don't even exist anymore. But it turns out that some of these researchers are just as elusive as the species that they're studying. So things didn’t get off to an easy start. I had spent the last couple of weeks trying to look for a small rodents called Chinchilla, but to no success.
Henrique Bravo wondering what endangered species might be lurking in the forest or on the foothill of a volcano in Nicaragua.
So I'm up late one night have been a desperate attempt to go online on the website of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature IUCN, which is my go to resource for all things endangered. And I looked for every single critically endangered species that occurs in that area of Brazil. And to my surprise, as the species that sounds awfully familiar, it's called Araucaria angustifolia, also known as Paraná Pine tree. And it sounds familiar because I have grown up with another species of Araucaria. So I knew that at least recognizing the species and also the sheer size of the tree would bring much better odds in trying to spot a small rodent. So I tweaked the plan a bit. The next morning I go up to my friend that had been hosting us for the last couple of days, and I asked her if she happened to know of any of these trees around. And to my surprise and shock, she tells me that there should be one just outside the front door.
So I rushed to the front door. I open it, I look up and there was: this massive tree just towering over me. And not only that, but I actually went back to the room where I was sleeping in and I could see it from that room window. So that only proved the point that there were definitely critically endangered species around, I had just been looking for the wrong ones, but it also brought a renewed sense of hope when I was very close to losing it and proved that there were that there was species that could find them. And I thought that if I kept at it and if I kept that perseverance, I would be able to see some of the species that I had set out to. Over the following months, I was able to see monkeys in Peru and Frogs in Ecuador, in Costa Rica, Corals in Panama, but there was this one species that kept eluding me. The Hawksbill Sea Turtle. And this has started to become personal because I was a tropical marine biologist, so I figured that spot, a tropical marine species, would be the easy part of the trip. But the Hawksbill Sea Turtle was proving me wrong, and this was the fourth attempt in just as many countries, and then every single one of those places that I had tried before, I was told that hospitals were using frequent sightings, which wasn't helping things.
But this time I was going to try something different. I was going to go to what was nicknamed the Mecca of Hawksbill Sea turtles. And it was nicknamed that because that's where about 40 percent of the known nesting population from the eastern Pacific is known to nest. This is a crazy amount of sea turtles. Not only that, but I was also going to spend three days and three nights looking for this turtle, which was the longest period of time I had dedicated to seeing any species on the trip. So if it wasn't going to be in this place and over that amount of time, chances were I wasn’t going to be able to see the social at all. So this was, in my mind, the last chance that I had of seeing it. So this local NGO agreed to take me on and over the next three days, we get told about the different projects they have in place to protect these turtles. But it's at night that things get interesting. We get to patrol the beaches to look for turtles and turtle tracks. And over the first couple of nights, we do see some turtle tracks, but that's about it. So as we start to patrol on the third night, I have this looming feeling that I'm not going to be able to see one. And the reason I kept being told that I hadn’t been able to see one was because it was an El Nino year, so that meant it was particularly dry and the rains hadn't started yet and it hasn't rained in the previous between the previous night and this night, so I didn't think I had very good chances.
Henrique Bravo holding THE juvenile hawksbill sea turtle about to be returned to the estuary after the measurements.
So we do the patrol for a couple of hours and we see some more turtle tracks, but that's it. So I am disappointed and I'm sad. And David comes up to me, who's the person who had been in charge of that little expedition, and he tells me that we should try again the next morning, but we're going to try something else. We're going to go on boats to try and catch these turtles, to measure them and tag them. And I said, “that sounds great. Let's do it!” So the next morning, I wake up exhilarated and excited because I think, OK, this is it. This is going to be the moment where I'm finally going to be able to see them. We set out on two boats and were meandering through mangrove channels, looking at the surface of the water, trying to spot some turtle heads popping out. Within a couple of minutes, we see one. They cast our nets, they catch our turtle, they bring it over to our boats and they start measuring and weighing and tagging it. And I’m just in awe, I can't even process everything that's happening. I'm just incredibly happy that this little juvenile sea turtle is sitting next to me. Not only that, but then it's actually handed to me so I can do some of the measurements as well.
I just feel so happy that I've finally been able to see one, which is probably in part because it had taken so long and so many attempts at seeing one. But I also had this feeling of completeness because I have finally been able to see one and I feel like now I can move on to other species, but again, it's reinforced that feeling that if I kept at it, I would be able to see any species that I set out to. So this just kept on bringing more hope for the rest of the species that I have on my list.
Henrique Bravo’s final moment of contemplation and reflection in Whittier, Alaska before hopping on the plane back home.
I'm sitting on a plane back home from Alaska, having finished the trip and thinking about the Hawksbill sea turtle and the Araucaria and all the other species. But I'm still a little bit disappointed because I haven't been able to see any species in the United States. The United States was one of the biggest countries and it was also one of the last ones, so I wanted to finish with a bang. But I also remember that I had read an article a couple of months before of a species of endangered butterfly that happened to live on the runway of Los Angeles Airport. It just so happens that I was on my way to Los Angeles Airport.
And I had a four hour layover, so I stepped out of the plane to check on my iPod Touch, which at that point was my only internet device to try and see if the four hours that I had would be enough time to loop around the airport and still made it on time to my next flight. And apparently it was I would still have almost 10 hours to spare. So I spend the next hour just trying to leave the airports and getting rid of my luggage and the hour after that, just walking along a motorway, which wasn't incredibly exciting. But by the end of the second hour, things are getting interesting because I start noticing massive billboards and information panels that tell me that I'm now on butterfly territory, which consists of dunes with coast buckwheat with growing. So I starts, maybe a little too excitingly, shaking bushes and looking under rocks and crevices, trying to see any butterfly movements, but nothing, it's at this point that some thoughts are going through my mind. I'm wondering, are butterflies active at night? Do they sleep because it's 2:00 a.m. and deep down, I knew that the ones that are predominantly active at night are called moths, but I felt that I had to give it a chance anyway. But why was I risking so much when I couldn't afford to miss this flight? I literally couldn't afford it. I had spent the previous months having learned to let go of many things, a place that I wasn't going to go back to of material possessions that had got taken away from me. Of people and of species that I hadn't been able to see. And this was one more moment, the final moments where I had to learn to let go one more time. Otherwise, I'll miss that flight and I had to learn to let go of this perfect trip finale that I hoped would bring me one final speeches in the United States. So I'm sitting on that next plane and looking out of the window, watching the sunrise and thinking now would be a great time to go and look for butterflies if only that layover had been a little bit longer, a little bit later. And I start flicking through my notebook because I'm disappointed and I still haven't really been able to accept that I had to let go of that butterfly. I'm going over my notebook to try and remind me of all the species that I have been able to see, but I also start seeing the ones that I haven't seen. And in that moment, I promised myself that I would be telling the story of the condor and the chinchilla and the butterfly and all the other species that I hadn't been able to see, because that's been a more important story to tell.