Or like stout Cortez
when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the
Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other
with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak
in Darién.
- from “On First Looking
into Chapman's Homer” by John Keats
 |
| At the entrance of the Darién National Park |
From May
12-24th postdoctoral fellow Dr. Fernando Alda, graduate student A.J.
Turner and I journeyed south to Panama to collect fishes. Specifically, we were targeting the
fishes from the Darién Gap – a region I have hoped to visit since I was a graduate
student over 10 years ago doing my PhD on the biogeography of Central American
fishes.
The Darién
is one of the most forested areas in Central America, with the majority of
forested area in the Darién National Park in the so-called “Darién Gap” – named so because it is
the gap in the Pan-American Highway between the North and South American
continents. The Darién Gap encompasses the borders between Colombia and Panama and
is frequented by drug smugglers and illegal migrants – for that reason it is
heavily protected by the armed military and it is difficult to get permits or
even help to collect in the area. Fortunately Fernando is patient, hardworking and
resourceful. With some difficulty he organized an entire trip for us working
with the local Emberá people who are endemic to the region and who have been on
this land for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Fernando also handled all
the permits with STRI (the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute) and the
Panamanian government. He did an amazing job arranging this trip. My lab has
previously attempted to get into the Darién Gap and failed.
Before we
got into the Darién, we set up at STRI headquarters located in Panama City where
we got our official Smithsonian badges and credentials. Our STRI-IDs (or “STRIdees”
as we took to calling them) worked wonders around Panama. We were able to get big
discounts on museums and entrance into the Panama Canal because of those IDs. We had
some time to kill before we got out into the field as we waited for all our
permits, so we did some educational sight-seeing. The Miraflores Locks of the Panama
Canal, and the newly opened Biomuseo were highlights. I read a book about the making
of the canal, “I Took Panama: The Story of Philippe
Bunau-Varilla” while we were in Panama and I recommend others to learn
about the insane political events surrounding the creation of this engineering
marvel – which also led to the creation of the country itself. A new set of
expanded locks, which will make the canal almost twice its current size, was
also visible in the distance.
In those
first few days we also visited the local fish market in Panama City – the Mercado
de Marisco. We were able to get nearly 40 species of marine fishes from this market;
these included several species of snook, parrotfishes and croakers. Unfortunately,
we saw hundreds of shark bodies with their heads and fins cut off. They were all
juveniles and according to A.J. he thought they were all taken from some
nursery grounds – it was a sad sight. By sheer coincidence we met up with researchers
from Conservation International working on the fisheries of this region while
at a restaurant; they said they are working on this shark issue: I hope they
get to it quickly.
We ran into lots of non-Panamanians
in Panama City, which is unlike any other Central American city; it has a
skyline that makes it look more like Dubai, and with a port and mangroves near
it, it reminded me of it too. Many people spoke English, and we noted the
strong American and European presence almost everywhere.
Although the city was interesting we
wanted to get in the water. As we drove the five hours East to the Darién (there
isn’t much of a North and South in Panama) we noted how different the rest of
Panama is from Panama City. There are many rural communities strung together
and lots of farmland. However, over 25% of Panama is protected forest. There
are also many areas belonging to autonomous indigenous communities living
independent of most Panamanian authority.
 |
| Fernando talking to the Embera about our fish. |
We entered the town of Yaviza in
the Darién
province on the 17th of May and spent the day heading up and
sampling along the Río Chico in our long wooden boat (called a “piragua”). At
our first field site we unrolled our brand new cast nets and I hurriedly made my
first toss – I wanted to catch the first fish – and I got a nice little cichlid.
Cichlids are my favorite group of fishes and the focus of much of my research.
There have been some trips to Central American where we don’t get cichlids for
a few days, and here was one – right off the bat. After that I took to doing my
regular job, taking notes, GPS coordinates etc. We collected plenty at this
first site on the Chico and it was a good omen for the rest of the trip. We
learned pretty quickly, that as usual, despite being professional
ichthyologists, the locals are always the best fishermen. Throughout the trip
we really enjoyed working with and interacting with the local people. I always
love reading about historical explorers interacting with locals and how they
treated each other, there were the kind ones like James Cook (kind to most native
people, killed by natives on Hawaii), and awful ones like Hernán Cortés (killed
lots of native people, died peacefully back in Spain of old age). Side note –
“Cortez” as mentioned by John Keats in the poem above, should actually be “Balboa.”
Vasco Núñez de Balboa was the one to establish the Darién,
and the first European to see the Pacific from the Americas.
We spent the next few days penetrating
the Darién
National Park. This required us (and sometimes a small horse) to carry our gear
and food through the forest trails. This was fun, but exhausting given the heat
and mosquitoes. We hiked to most of our sites when we couldn’t boat. The canopy
was thick making the forest shaded all manner of green from top to bottom
except for the forest floor, which was matted down with damp brown leaves. It
was very beautiful. We walked with our guides like leaf-cutter ants in
formation, one behind the other, carrying our packs like so many bits of
foliage. Living in Baton Rouge you tend to forget about topology. The ups and
downs of the hike are something we aren’t accustomed to in this flat town of
ours; the humidity and following someone carrying a machete might be a bit more
familiar.
This was A.J. Turner’s first field
trip, and I had to remind myself of that sometimes. It couldn’t have been easy
for him to start his career as a tropical biologists hiking through the Darién
Gap, but he did well, and I have no concerns that he will do many of these
trips well into the future.
There were some scary moments in
the field. At one site near a banana plantation I kept hearing the sounds of
tree branches falling. We were sampling in very muddy water so I was barefoot
in the mud when one of our guides whistled to me to stop, I saw two men come
out of the jungle holding machetes. One walked towards me without looking up
and then, thankfully, walked past to cut down some plantains. When they talked
to our guides – in the Emberá language, not Spanish – they seemed to be
giving a warning. Our guides shuffled us out pretty quickly, which was fine
with us. The Emberá are friendly but there is still a lingering wariness of outsiders.
We stayed part of our time in the
village of Pijibasal and we sampled with the locals in the Río Perresénico and even had an amazingly fun soccer
match with dozens of local kids. They also loved seeing our fish specimens. One of our guides even taught us how to fish for some of the
armored catfishes with our hands. By feeling around the rocks you could grab
them as they were chewing off the algae. I was unable to do this successfully
but the rest of the team all caught fish bare handed.
One of my favorite spots was on the Río Pirre. For some reason the rocks were all tinted a deep green, and others were
so brittle they broke apart under your feet despite looking otherwise like
ordinary stones. At this site Fernando caught one of the most beautiful fish
I’ve ever seen, a big bull earth-eater cichlid, Geophagus crassilabris. This fish had giant fleshy red lips and had
lost some of his scales – probably old war wounds from fights with other males
for territory. He was a beauty.
I was still thinking about the green
rocks when we headed to the Cascades near another one of our campsites – Rancho Frío, home of the giant Harpy Eagle. The river was cool, which was a much-wanted
relief given how hot and humid it was. We went up to the base of the falls and
although the fish weren’t as interesting as down river it was still an
adventure. The guides and Fernando, the most dexterous of us, climbed along a
steep (and very wet) rock cliff and got on a shelf above the lowest set of
falls. They sampled in the pools above – but I wondered how they would get
down. I found out when they slid down through the falls! It looked like fun and
it was probably one of those things I would have done before I had kids.
On one night our guide Hayro Cunampio
went out with my snorkel, diving flashlight and a spear. We watched while he
shot spikey armored catfishes (Ancistrus) and big characins that we hadn’t seen earlier in the day. When
we turned off our headlamps and watched him floating in the stream with his
bright torch against the darkness it looked like he was floating in space. When
he came up he mentioned seeing a striped “macana” – which is the local name for
electricfishes. We hadn’t seen any of these yet so I asked Fernando which one
he means – “Gymnotus” he said. “We
better go get it” I replied. My colleague at University of Louisiana Lafayette
mentioned that he hoped we get a Gymnotus
– something I thought was a weird request because I didn’t think these were in
Panama. It turns out that Fernando was the one that discovered they were there
with the first record of its discovery in 2012 [http://www.biotaxa.org/cl/article/view/9.3.655/0]. Fernando
rushed out and A.J. and I followed to help. Using a cheap portable
amplifier with cut wires we were able to translate these electric fish signals
into sound. We stuck the cables under root mats and listened for their calls –
Fernando understood their language – and could recognize their species by
listening to the pattern – by the volume he could even determine their size. I
was with him when he heard what he thought was a big Gymnotus deep in the roots, we missed a couple times with the
dipnet, and then on one attempt we saw the characteristic striped patterns of Gymnotus. I’ve never seen anyone so happy to get a
fish. Fernando leapt and danced across the stream as if Real Madrid had just
one the Superbowl – or whatever Fernando’s favorite soccer club wins
championships in. I was glad to see such passion for natural history. The fish
was gorgeous too, a long dark-green headed relative of the electric eel; it was
a fantastic fish and only the second record of the genus in Panama.
After a few more collecting days, we
were back in Panama City – we were a disgusting mosquito bitten, unshaved,
smelly lot – but happy. The edge of Central America was everything I had hoped
for and more. Plus, I got to see my two newest lab members in the field and I
couldn’t be happier to have Fernando and A.J. out there with me and back here
at LSU.