On a December day about 15 miles east of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, a hunter fired a shot heard around the world—he legally killed a female wolf wearing a GPS research collar. It’s not known whether the hunter was hunting wolves or looking for other game and opportunistically shot her. It’s not known if he chose to shoot the wolf wearing the radio collar. Not much is known because the hunter has chosen not to reveal himself publicly (though he was given the opportunity to for this article). He is, in all likelihood, concerned about the reaction from wolf advocates, because the wolf he shot was the most famous wolf—perhaps the most famous single wild animal—on earth.

She was also one of the most beloved by the community of wolf-watchers that has emerged with the re-introduction of wolves to Yellowstone in 1995. When word of her death hit Facebook, Twitter, and wolf-watching blogs, people all over the world were devastated. The news was picked up by the (which ran three stories about the killing), ABC News, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Guardian in Britain, and London’s Daily Mail.

The wolf’s collar identified her as 832F, but she was better known to tens of thousands of people internationally as the “06 Female,” the unusually big, barrel-chested alpha female of the Lamar Canyon Pack. She was not the first Yellowstone wolf killed during Wyoming’s inaugural open season on wolves (Montana and Idaho have already had two years of wolf-hunting). A few weeks earlier, her packmate, a beta male she sometimes bred with, was shot and killed in Wyoming as well.

But the killing of the ’06 Female set off a firestorm of controversy about the collision between wildlife management, science, and hunting that occurs at the boundaries of . Part of the issue was the collar she wore and what it represented. biologists had fitted the ’06 Female with a $4,000 GPS that recorded her exact location sometimes as often as every 30 minutes, providing fine-scale data points about her movements and invaluable information to the Wolf Project’s 17-year study. Her packmate that was shot, a male called 754M, had also worn a collar, though his was a simpler VHF radio telemetry model used by researchers to locate wolves and packs. In fact, four of the 11 wolves that wore collars on Yellowstone’s Northern Range were shot—legally—by hunters during the Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming wolf hunting seasons. And of the total 10 Yellowstone wolves killed outside the park, five wore research collars.

The high percentage of collared wolves harvested touched off a wave of speculation by conservationists and wolf advocates that hunters were, at a minimum, targeting wolves wearing collars. In fact, commenters on at least one pro-hunting website, , admitted that they would go after collared wolves.

Laurie Lyman, one of the park’s most dedicated wolf-watchers—she retired as a schoolteacher in California to move to Silver Gate and volunteer with the Wolf Project—thinks there’s a sinister element to the deaths of some specific wolves.

“They’ve been waiting 17 years in Wyoming to kill wolves. They wanted to get those wolves because it hurts the people who watch them. They did it to stick it to us,” Lyman says. “I’ve been standing on the side of the road watching wolves and had people pull up and say to me, ‘Lady, you better take a picture of those wolves because they’re the last you’re ever going to see.’”

Lyman and Kirsty Peake—who, with her husband, purchased a home in the Gallatin Valley to spend months watching Yellowstone wolves far from their native England, where she lectures on wolf behavior—fear that making the ’06 Female famous may also have killed her.

“I think it was absolutely targeted,” Peake says. “I think they targeted the collared wolves and I think they targeted the ’06 Female. Sometimes I feel badly because I think her fame maybe contributed to her death. But her story brought way more people into the story of wolves and why they need to be protected. Because we told her story, her life was not in vain.”

Lyman and Peake represent another part of the controversy, outside of hunting, research, and management—the cadre of wolf-watchers that has become as much a part of Yellowstone as the wolves themselves. Hundreds of thousands of people see wolves in Yellowstone, but these are not the casual passersby. Many wolf watchers schedule their lives so they can spend weeks and sometimes months every year observing the park’s wolves and learning the backstories of the packs and their members.

Some, like Lyman, have turned their lives over to watching wolves, and teaching visitors to Yellowstone about them. They are fierce advocates for wolf preservation. Many of the radio telemetry collars Yellowstone wolves wear are purchased with directed donations, badges of pride among wolf watchers who earn, in effect, their own wolf to follow. Some wolf watchers are given radios by Park Service Biological Technician Rick McIntyre so they can spread out, cover more ground, and coordinate with McIntyre when wolves are spotted.

Some of the fiercest wolf advocates believe that, beyond basic targeting, unscrupulous hunters with easily-acquired telemetry sets illegally used radio frequencies to pick up and track wolf collars’ signals. Wolf-collar frequencies are classified, but biologists say it’s possible to find them with some experimentation. In 2010, a post (long since taken down) on the website Ìęoffered this piece of advice:

My suggestions – Drive the roads from Lower Stanley to the Thompson Creek Road as late at night as you are willing to be up … If you have the capability to scan collars – search from 218.000 – 219.000 Mhz step at .005 Mhz. Sit on each step 3 seconds. Receive on USB. If you get one with a collar. Record the frequency before you turn it in or dispose of it. It is on the inside facing the wolfs [sic] fur. If you want to turn the collar off, place a strong magnet on the outside face. A frequency counter or any receiver held close will confirm it is off.

The combined loss of eight collared wolves proved a significant setback to the Yellowstone Wolf Project’s ongoing research. “Collared individuals are key to our studies,” says Doug Smith, who has been part of the Yellowstone Wolf Project since re-introduction and has been its leader since 1996. “They’re how we connect ourselves to the wolves. Losing them hinders our ability to do science.”

Losing the data from the GPS collars, Smith says, is a big hit. “Those are very high value because they give us fine-grain knowledge of the wolves’ predatory patterns and their movement and behavior.”

When theÌęÌęre-introduced gray wolves to Yellowstone in 1995 and 1996, park officials thought visitors would rarely see them. Hearing them howl, it was believed, would be the closest most visitors would come to experiencing a wild wolf.

They could not have been more wrong. Shortly after the re-introduction, in the elk-stuffed Lamar Valley, the Druid Peak pack set up shop, denning within a few hundred yards of the road and carrying on their daily lives—the raising and training of pups, breeding rituals, play behavior, hunting forays—within plain sight of the road. It’s estimated that over 300,000 people saw the Druid pack and its alpha males and females.

Their arch-rivals, the Slough Creek pack, denned just a few miles away, within reach of telescopic spotting scopes. The interaction between the two packs—pitched battles were witnessed and caught on film—and the Shakespearean maneuverings—daughters killing mothers, Lotharios stealing mates, a siege of a denned female by a powerful but unknown pack—captured the attention and imagination of people around the world.

What emerged were stories. Individual wolves, some wearing the Wolf Project’s radio collars, began to be recognized. Wolf-watching became a burgeoning niche industry, and spawned wolf supporters so enthusiastic they quit jobs in other states to move to Montana and Wyoming.

A 2005 study by a University of Montana professor stated wolf-watching brought $30 million annually to the towns around Yellowstone. The rise of blogs and social media allowed individual wolves to be followed daily, worldwide, long after park visitors returned home, building an even bigger constituency.

The ’06 Female emerged at a time when good wolf stories were badly needed. șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű the park, hunters and outfitters were decrying the wolves’ destruction of big game animals—notably elk. They weren’t wrong. Elk numbers in Yellowstone’s Northern Herd, the animals living along the park’s northern tier, where most of the wolves live, plummeted from somewhere near 20,000 pre-re-introduction to about 5,000 this year.

It’s somewhat difficult to compare numbers, says Smith, because in the 1980s, at the height of elk populations, biologists developed a “sightability index.” Elk are counted from the air on overflights. Knowing that they were not seeing every individual on the ground due to elk bedding in heavy tree cover or poor visibility conditions during some counts, biologists developed a model to estimate how many elk they weren’t seeing. They found that on average they were seeing 70 percent of the elk actually on the ground.

“But,” says Smith, “sightability ranged from 50 percent to 90 percent. In other words, you might be missing only 10 percent of the elk, or you might be missing 50 percent of them.”

Sightability is no longer part of the winter elk counts, which now entails only recording elk actually seen.

Before wolves, outfitters counted on elk migrating away from Yellowstone’s harsh winters to fill their clients’ tags. A “late season hunt”—technically a damage hunt allowed by (FWP) because they felt there were far too many elk in the Northern Herd—outside of Gardiner brought hunters and dollars in early winter, when tourists were sparse.

Only a few years after the wolves began feeding on elk, the great outpouring dried to a trickle. Towns around the park like Gardiner, West Yellowstone, and Cody “dried on the vine” says Rob Arnaud, who owns the , an outfitting business.

Arnaud challenges the 2005 economic study—with credible research and revenue figures—by suggesting that the hunting economy pre-wolf poured far more money into the areas around the park than wolf-watching has.

“I like wolves,” Arnaud says. “I want them to be here. I just want them in balance. I’m not anti-wolf. I advocated for them in 1995. Now I’m advocating that we’ve got to get rid of some and tie management to predator-prey ratios and carrying capacities.”

Montana hunters were furious when FWP ended the late-season hunt and felt lied to, claiming they had been told before the re-introduction that wolves would not have such a severe impact on elk numbers.

Robert Fanning, who founded , a pro-hunting, adamantly anti-wolf organization, told me that Doug Smith made false or misleading comments “every time his lips are moving.” “Smith will share eternity with Dr. Joseph Mengele … barking with the hounds of Hell,” Fanning wrote in an email.

Still, wildlife managers consider damage hunts expendable, a management tool to reduce a herd population to meet the range carrying capacity. Once herd population objectives are reached, there’s no need for a damage hunt.

“There still is a general season hunt around Gardiner,” Smith says. “Before re-introduction the best models predicted a decline in elk populations of 30 to 40 percent. That turned out to be wrong. It was an estimate, and the model was wrong. All models are wrong. Some are instructive. But that was before my time. I came with the wolves. There’s no doubt hunting has been impacted. Elk numbers are down. There’s less hunter opportunity. Part of that is wolves. Part of it is other predators. Yellowstone policy is to restore natural conditions. We’ve done that. Yellowstone today is as predator-rich as it has been for 100 years—wolves, cougars, grizzly bear, black bears, coyotes, and humans. When you have a suite of predators that are as complete as they have been in 100 years, you should expect impact on elk.”

While this is no doubt true, it’s a bitter pill for hunters used to showing up in Gardiner, waiting for some elk to step across the park boundary, and bringing home a truckload of meat for the winter.

As the ’06 Female rose to alpha status, inside the park the wolf stories were grim, too. In 2008, attacks by other wolves and sarcoptic mange—a parasite stockmen in the early 20th century used in a fervent attempt to eradicate wolves—decimated both the charismatic Druid and Slough Creek wolves. The remnant individuals scattered and, after 13 years, the world’s most famous packs ceased to exist. Tourists who drove to the Lamar Valley, the most reliable place to see a wild wolf in America, glimpsed only the rare wanderers-through.

Onto this empty stage stepped the ‘06 Female, and the two goofy mates she had chosen. Rare in the wolf world, the ’06 Female had settled on two brothers, sort of co-alpha males. In the winter of 2010 she bred with both males, and, because canids can, likely bore the offspring of both in a mixed litter. She chose the former Slough Creek pack’s den site, affording thankful wolf watchers the opportunity to observe as she raised her first pups.

What observers saw worried them at first. With the female stuck in the den feeding pups, the two fathers seemed more interested in play-wrestling, chewing on sticks, and chasing ravens than hunting the meat needed to feed their family. People worried the pups would not survive, an event which would likely disintegrate the nascent pack.

But the brothers gathered just enough meat so that the ’06 Female could eventually emerge from her den, leave the males to stand guard, and hunt to feed herself, her pups, and her mates. She became a lethal vector, a ruthlessly efficient hunter. According to park biologists, on average it takes four wolves to bring down an elk. The ’06 Female learned to do it by herself—running alongside until she sensed the elk was tiring, then sprinting in front, whirling, and seizing the animal by the throat, an incredibly dangerous undertaking wherein flailing hooves can crack femurs or scapulas and effectively down a wolf.

But the ’06 Female survived and ran her pack with cool efficiency. She eventually coerced her mates—755M emerged as the alpha male and 754 a very privileged bet—to help out more with the hunting, too. Though she led by example rather than aggression, as the pups grew to adults and a second litter filled in behind them, it was apparent they all did exactly what she wanted them to do. She led with a clear intelligence, successfully defending her territory from other packs in part by knowing when to fight and when to slink away if outnumbered.

“Her rise to the top came at a time when wolves weren’t doing well in Yellowstone,” says Nathan Varley, who has been involved with wolves since the re-introduction and now runs the eco-tourism company . “But she was able to feed her pack when other wolves around her were dying. She was able to survive where other wolves didn’t. And people were able to follow her story.”

She also fed businesses like Varley’s—and the , , Outdoor șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűs, and Bearman’s guided tours, to name but a few of the eco-tourism guided trips that focus heavily on wolf watching. Although not the biggest of the bunch, Varley says he grossed about $500,000 last year and saw his business grow 10 to 20 percent annually even through the recession. But his business depends on collared wolves like the ’06 Female. “Collared wolves are so important because we can find them and we can tell their stories,” Varley says.

That, many hunters and outfitters say, is exactly the problem. “I understand that one of the ploys of the wolf advocates is to personify wolves,” says President Gary Marbut. “[Wolf advocates] do that by giving them names and making them look like cute and fuzzy creatures. They generate acceptance of wolves by people who don’t have to live with wolves. I see that as the chief motive for making them famous. People used to come to Yellowstone to see all the other wildlife, too, but a great deal of it is gone now because of wolves. What else does Yellowstone have to advertise except come see the wolves? And the geysers, of course.”

Within hours of the news of the ’06 Female’s death, Internet message boards lit up with vitriol and public accusations flew, illustrating the feverish emotions people in the Northern Rockies—and particularly around Yellowstone—feel about wolves. Everybody knew a storm would break. As soon as he was informed that the ‘06 Female had been killed, ÌęDirector Scott Talbott personally delivered the news to the director of , who called Smith—he was in Reno, delivering a presentation—to relay the news.

Wolf enthusiasts and biologists immediately clamored for some sort of “buffer zone” around Yellowstone, only to further enrage hunters and hard-core conservatives who accused them of trying to effectively extend the park’s boundaries.

“One issue is hunting districts are so large,” Smith says. “They don’t allow for fine-tuned management. What we’re trying to do is get reduced quotas right next to the park. ’06 was unique because she was shot 15 miles outside the park. And 754M was shot 16 miles outside the park. In the history of wolves using the Lamar Valley, all packs have left the park, but none of them have gone that far. We’re trying to reduce the probability of wolves being killed that live in Yellowstone. We’re never going to protect a wolf that goes 15 miles outside the park. We have no expectation of that. The future of wolves depends on public hunting. Public tolerance is enhanced by hunting. We’re looking for the middle of the road on this.”

Smith says the park is formally on record requesting subquotas in Montana, and met face to face with Wyoming officials to ask for reduced harvest in strategic locations, but spokespeople for both Montana FWP and Wyoming Game and Fish deny knowing anything about those requests.

Still, within days after the death of the ’06 Female, Montana’s FWP Commission, the agency’s rulemaking body, suspended hunting and the upcoming trapping season in some wolf management units adjacent to the park, effectively creating a buffer zone in that state.

Dan Vermillion was the sole commissioner to vote against the suspension. “I really didn’t think there should be a closure,” Vermillion told me. “The attention was much more focused on the harvest of collared wolves and much less focused on whether we’re overharvesting. I spoke with the regional wolf biologist and my feeling was that the wolf population along the Yellowstone border is just fine.”

But Vermillion was also anticipating politics in the Northern Rockies. “I was concerned that we’d be setting a precedent. You have to be careful in Montana, where you have legislators eager to strip biologists of authority and eager to manage wildlife from their political perspective.”

In mid-January, a judge ruled the Commission did not provide enough time for public comment and struck down the closures. The Commission decided not to take up the matter again. Hunting season in Montana closes at the end of February, but even then wolves trotting beyond park boundaries may be stepping into the steel teeth of leg-hold traps.

And Vermillion was prescient in his concerns about the legislature. A bill sailed through the Montana state House of Representatives on a 100-0 vote that forbids the creation of buffer zones for wolf hunting, mandating that the FWP Commission must set a quota for each Wolf Management Unit, and cannot close that unit until the quota is met.

“Until we get rid of the hatred toward wolves, it’s going to be a constant battle,” Vermillion says. “I look forward to the day people look at wolves not as the enemy, but see them as part of the landscape. How we get there, I don’t know. But I doubt elevating wolves almost to the point of pets is going to help. When a wild wolf leaves the park and comes into Montana, just like an elk or a deer, it’s a wild animal, and we have to manage it like one.”

Smith agrees with most of that, but makes one counterpoint. “Wolves that come out of that park are naïve to humans. They’re going to be more vulnerable to hunting. In the Lamar Valley, people watch them from a distance of a few hundred yards every day,” he says. “That distance is going to get them killed outside the park. I think that should be acknowledged in regulations. Nobody is arguing for no hunting, we’re arguing for reduced hunting.”

Wyoming and Idaho’s wildlife management agencies never considered any kind of buffer—in fact, both states are considering more aggressive quotas for next year. Mike Keckler, communications bureau chief at , says: “I am not aware of any discussion about creating a buffer around the park in Idaho. We do have harvest limits in some places, including the Island Park wolf zone, which is directly adjacent to Yellowstone.” But that quota is 30—a bit more than a third of the approximately 80 wolves still surviving in Yellowstone, the lowest number since 1999.

“As wildlife professionals we focus on wildlife populations as a whole and not individual animals,” says Wyoming Game and Fish Public Information Officer Eric Keszler. “I understand some people had emotional or special attachment to this one wolf, but creating management policies around individual animals doesn’t make sense from a wildlife management or ecosystem perspective.”

Like Montana, Idaho and Wyoming will keep their trapping seasons open for most of the winter.

On a 17-degree day two days before New Year’s, I stood in the Lamar Valley with a few other wolf watchers. The remnants of the Lamar Canyon pack were on a bison carcass—likely winterkill—just out of sight over a small rise. Only three wolves remained—alpha male 755M and two of his daughters. As we waited for a glimpse, an eerie howl rose from behind the hill, a quavering moan of sorts. It was nothing like the full-throated harmonics a complete pack can pour into the sky. Eight other subordinate Lamar Canyon wolves were somewhere else—nobody knew where. They had split off and disappeared for weeks.

Rhonda Gamble, a 59-year-old college professor from Desoto, Missouri, listened and started talking about the ’06 Female. “She was like a hero in the wolf world. They called her the ‘Rock Star,’” Gamble, who has come to the park 10 times since the re-introduction to see wolves, said. When she read about ‘06’s death on a wolf blog, she said, “it was a sinking feeling. It felt horrible, like, ‘I can’t believe this happened,’ though I knew it could once hunting seasons opened. People form this connection to something that will never be theirs but that’s part of your life.”

The wolves howled more, still low and moaning, and Gamble talked about all the people she’s met wolf watching. “You meet these people from all over the world,” she said. “Years on end, you’re all in this little place. It feels like a community.”

Then the wolves started moving. We could see them just over the low rise. They trotted west, 755M rangy and black, his daughters following. They headed toward where a park ranger had halted traffic, backing up several cars. 755M sprinted across the road then across the open snow toward the Lamar River. A daughter followed. But the third wolf lingered, pacing up and down the road, moving closer and closer to the ranger and the cars.

The ranger reached into his vehicle and pulled out a shotgun. He pointed it at the wolf and pulled the trigger. A cracker shell—designed to make noise and scare animals that became acclimated to people—exploded the morning silence. The wolf took off like a shot.

END NOTE: As of the end of January, the Lamar Canyon pack has reunited, all 11 remaining members running together. But they’ve left Yellowstone. Smith says they haven’t been back to the park for weeks and he thinks they may stay outside and become a Wyoming pack, leaving them wide open to foothold traps and lead-core bullets.

Also in early February, the Montana Legislature passed a bill giving the state's FWP commission permission to extend the wolf hunting season beyond its scheduled closing on February 28. The bill included a provision outlawing buffer zones. As press time, the FWP commission had not decided whether they would extend the season or not.

The post The Death of 832F, Yellowstone’s Most Famous Wolf appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Winter is on the way. While that may be good news for skiers, it means the beginning of months of confinement for beach bums. Fortunately, for the colder-blooded among us, warmer weather is just a plane ride away. So as the cold sets in, get ready to head south with the birds to these winter island escapes. There's something here for every snorkling enthusiast, casual fisherman, and super surfer.

Winter Island Escapes: Tobago Cays, The Grenadines

POPULATION: 0
SIZE: 25 square miles (five islands)
TAGS: Uninhabited, hawksbill turtles, Mr. Fabulous

There may be no better place than the Tobago Cays for pinballing among a cluster of Caribbean islands on a sailboat. Grab some friends and for a five-day cruise ($12,000 all-inclusive for six people). You’ll anchor in deserted coves, like tiny Petit Tabac’s, and wake up to the voices of locals from nearby islands surrounding your vessel, selling just-caught fish and freshly baked bread from brightly colored runabouts. Ask for Tuffer, who has the tastiest lobsters, or Mr. Fabulous, who will prepare a seafood beach barbecue for you. Be sure to have the boat stocked with windsurfing or kitesurfing gear—unimpeded trade winds rip outside the mooring zone around Baradal Island. And don’t miss the dozens of green and hawksbill turtles gliding through the shallows near the sand-spit beach jutting off Baradal; they’ll let you swim within feet of them. Prefer to stay on land? ($85), a modest guest house three miles away on Mayreau Island, arranges day trips to the cays and supplies dive and snorkel gear.

ACCESS: Fly to Grenada and charter a boat to the Cays, or arrange for transportation with Dennis’ Hideaway.

Winter Island Escapes: Cabbage Key, Florida

POPULATION: 25
SIZE: 100 acres
TAGS: Primitive barrier island, no roads, big tarpon

Turns out you don’t have to fly halfway around the world to disappear. In the early 1930s, the family of mystery novelist Mary Roberts Rinehart built a sprawling home on a 28-foot shell mound amassed by the Calusa Indians on an island off Florida’s west coast. Not much has changed on Cabbage Key since. In 1976, the Rinehart home was turned into the , the only lodging on the island (from $119). The front porch looks out onto Pine Island Sound; there are no roads, cars, or even room keys here. But there’s plenty of action offshore, starting with America’s best big-tarpon waters. Local captain will put you onto 200-pound fish ($700 per day). Or borrow one of the inn’s 12-foot tandem sea kayaks and paddle 20 minutes over to Cayo Costa, a pristine six-mile barrier island. Afterward, indulge in Cabbage Key’s peel-and-eat Gulf shrimp and a Cabbage Creeper (a piña colada-like concoction with coffee liqueur), and toast one of the few places left in Florida where doing nothing is totally acceptable.

ACCESS: Fly to Fort Myers, taxi 20 miles north to Pine Island, and catch a ($32) to Cabbage Key.

Winter Island Escapes: Isla Bastimentos, Panama

POPULATION: 200
SIZE: 20 square miles
TAGS: Mangrove tunnel, open-air bungalows, empty surf breaks

Unlike the nearby party town of Bocas, hardly anybody knows about Isla Bastimentos. A water taxi will drop you in Old Bank, where most of the island’s residents live. Head straight to , an eco-lodge on the western tip with seven seaside open-air bungalows (doubles from $310 all-inclusive). Spend your days hiking nearby jungle footpaths to the long swaths of beach at Wizard and Red Frog’s, or grab one of the resort’s kayaks and paddle 30 minutes through a mangrove tunnel to the village at Salt Creek. For ridiculously good snorkeling—74 of the Caribbean’s 79 coral types occur in the Bocas archipelago—have the resort book a boat to the fish-riddled Zapatilla Cayes. Experienced surfers: head to Silverbacks, a reef break with one of the heaviest waves in the Caribbean. For mellower rides and excellent instruction, ask the resort where to find local Javier Lijo (half-day, $170).

ACCESS: Fly to Panama City, taxi over to Albrook airport, and fly Air Panama to Bocas Town on Isla ColĂłn. Then catch a water taxi ($3 to $5) at the Bocas Marina for the 15-minute ride over to Bastimentos.

Winter Island Escapes: La Graciosa, Canary Islands

POPULATION: 600
SIZE: Ten square miles
TAGS: Wild beaches, volcanic peaks

There are few cars or roads this far out in the Atlantic. Locals still haul most goods by wheelbarrow. And not only are there no Club Med-scale resorts, but there are no hotels whatsoever. In other words, it’s our kind of place. (from $43) or stay at a (from $43) in the island’s hub of Caleta del Sebo, a simple cluster of whitewashed stucco buildings. On land: hike the island’s four volcanic peaks for God’s-eye views of the surrounding seascape and the feral Playa las Conchas and Playa Francesca. To get on the water: ferry over to Lanzarote and head to charter-boat company ; its guides will take you to the best spots to catch-and-release the area’s abundant marlin (from $600 for a half-day). The staff at has all the knowledge and equipment you need to encounter bluefin tuna, hammerhead sharks, and dolphins at El Canal, the junction of the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea (one-tank dive, $48). Ferry back to La Graciosa and join locals at Meson de la Tierra or El Marinero for grilled shellfish and a glass of local white wine made from grapes grown in the volcanic ±èŸ±łŠĂłČÔ soil.

ACCESS: Take a two-hour direct flight from Madrid (Iberia Airlines) or a four-hour one from London ( or ) to the neighboring island of Lanzarote. Go to the Orzola main pier, and hop a 35-minute ferry ($18) to La Graciosa.

Winter Island Escapes: Anegada, British Virgin Islands

POPULATION: 200
SIZE: Nine miles long
TAGS: Empty Caribbean, adventure packed

Once you embark on the ferry from Tortola, say goodbye to party bars and yachtie swagger and hello to empty beaches, abundant snorkeling and diving, and some of the best bonefishing in the Caribbean. Anegada is scalloped by 16 miles of perfect white sand and one of the Caribbean’s largest, most intact coral reefs: the 18-mile Horseshoe Reef. (one-tank dive, $85), which operates out of the laid-back (from $175), rents gear and offers certification courses. To snorkel, ask the hotel staff to point you toward one of many isolated coves and explore the reef’s maze of winding channels among octopuses, reef fish, barracudas, and jacks. Horseshoe Reef also creates acres of sand flats where bonefish swarm—schools can be 100 strong—all year long. Bring your nine-weight rod and hire one of two crack local guides: ($550 per day) or ($600 per day). If you strike out, a Painkiller at the Cow Wreck Beach Bar should dull the humiliation.

ACCESS: Fly to Tortola and take the to Anegada ($50).

Winter Island Escapes: Siladen, Indonesia

POPULATION: 300
SIZE: 80 acres
TAGS: Empty Indo, resident dugong, night snorkeling

Indonesia’s more than 17,000 islands range from overpopulated (Java) to overvisited (Bali) to overhyped (Sumba). But tiny Siladen is a largely ignored corner of the archipelago and a gateway to one of the world’s great underwater wonders—the 305-square-mile . The island has three guest houses, a small village, a school, and the (from $217), which is the perfect base camp from which to explore. From its serene beachfront villas, it’s an easy swim out to snorkel the marine park’s clear water—with 100 yards of visibility—and its intact reefs. Seventy percent of the fish species in the Indo-Pacific are found in Bunaken, in addition to five species of sea turtles and a resident herd of dugongs. Tuna, wahoos, and sharks charge up from the 3,000-foot depths. The resort has the best dive shop in the area; be sure to take its spooky guided night snorkel to see nocturnal marine species like bamboo sharks and pygmy sea horses.

ACCESS: Fly 3.5 hours from Singapore on SilkAir to Manado and arrange for a water taxi through your Siladen accommodations.

Winter Island Escapes: Rangiroa Atoll, French Polynesia

POPULATION: 3,300
SIZE: A ring of coral never more than a mile wide and often only several yards across
TAGS: Ten-pound bonefish, unreal diving, fresh Pacific mahi-mahi

Make the trip to Rangiroa to be submerged—very few of the island’s activities occur on land. Its 50-mile-long-by-20-mile-wide lagoon has accumulated a massive shelf of finely ground coral sand in the remote southeastern tip, creating miles of pink-tinged sand flats. Here six-to-10-pound bonefish cruise solo or in small groups, easily visible against the sandy bottom, and many of them have never been cast to. To find them, acquaint yourself with the expert local guides hired by (day trips, $460). Almost anywhere you plunge into Rangi’s water, you’ll find world-class snorkeling and diving conditions. Go with , whose staff has been exploring these depths for years (one-tank dive, $88). You’ll be surrounded by blacktip reef sharks, sometimes hundreds in a day, and they’re completely uninterested in you. Or snorkel the narrow Tupita Pass between the lagoon and the Pacific Ocean during an incoming tide, drifting along in a seven-knot current with a mind-blowing array of marine life. Stay at the swanky, refurbished resort (from $625) or the simple water-front guesthouse (from $125) near the sleepy village of Avatoru. Dinner is fresh mahi-mahi with vanilla sauce at Le Magic Kaikai.

ACCESS: Take a 90-minute Air Tahiti flight from Papeete.

Winter Island Escapes: Ikaria, Greece

POPULATION: 8,000
SIZE: 99 square miles
TAGS: Aegean Sea, local red wine, dedicated napping

One in three natives on Ikaria reaches the age of 90, and for good reason. There may be no healthier or more relaxing olive-and-wine-fueled place in the Mediterranean. Base out of the quiet coastal village of Armenistis, staying at the seaside (from $111), a short stroll from Livadia, one of Greece’s most stunning sandy beaches. Spend your days sampling that life-extending vibe: eating stuffed grape leaves and fresh-caught red mullet, sea bream, and octopus at local tavernas, drinking a daily dose of stout local dark red wine and antioxidant-rich teas made from wild greens, swimming in the Aegean, hiking the island’s steep paths, and resting—a lot. On Ikaria, the locals sleep late and nap every afternoon. The nearby Round of Rahes footpaths are perfect for day hikes, winding through pine and oak forests to ancient mountain villages, where you’ll find some of those nonagenarians playing dominoes in the town square.

ACCESS: Catch a 35-minute Olympic Air flight from Athens.

Winter Island Escapes: Tasmania, Australia

POPULATION: 500,000
SIZE: 26,410 square miles (about the size of West Virginia)
TAGS: Untamed beaches, rugged wilderness, rock climbing

Tasmania is often overlooked by Americans, since there’s so much to do on mainland Australia. But the place is basically a mini New Zealand, complete with crack climbing, empty Tasman Sea beaches, large wilderness tracts, and a crazy amount of wildlife. The way to do Tassie right is on a two-week road trip. Arrive in the harbor city of Hobart on a Friday and rent a car at the airport (from $45 a day). The next morning, pick up a couple days’ worth of fresh meat, cheese, and wine at Saturday’s Salamanca Place outdoor market, then drive two hours northeast to ($360), a series of modern wood cabins where you’ll cook your own meals. Climb the nearby sea cliffs in or hike the dragon-back rock formations of the Freycinet peninsula before hitting the crisp water at the Coles Bay beach. (Be sure to ask locals about any recent shark sightings first.) From Freycinet, drive 90 minutes north to a 16-mile swath of beach at the Bay of Fires, check into the cozy (from $180), and spend a day or two trekking the coastal forest to see Bennett’s wallabies, wombats, and Tasmanian pademelons. Then lounge on the bay’s stunning secluded beach. In nearby St. Helens, don’t miss the fresh Tassie oysters at the Blue Shed. Next up, drive four and a half hours west to the lodge at (from $400), where Tasmanian devils scurry through a mountain wilderness of King Bill pines.

ACCESS: Take a two-hour flight from Sydney or a 75-minute flight from Melbourne (, , ) to Hobart.

Winter Island Escapes: Caye Caulker, Belize

POPULATION: 1,300
SIZE: Five square miles
TAGS: Manta rays, reggae bars, permit fishing

“Go Slow” is Caye Caulker’s official motto for a reason. A long, narrow scythe of land in the Caribbean, it has just three streets—Back, Middle, and Front—all of them unpaved. Fishermen and local shop owners join visitors to wade and swim at the Split, a channel where decades ago storms bisected the island. Several boats make the trip to Shark Ray Alley—where you can snorkel with rays and nurse sharks—but none with more adventurous spirit than ($50). The ecotourism pioneer Lionel “Chocolate” Heredia, now in his eighties, still poles clients around the Swallow Caye marine reserve to observe manatees without spooking them. All year round, there’s unparalleled fly-fishing for bonefish, tarpon, and permit; go with the guides at ($330 per day). Front Street has punta and reggae bars and lodgings—like (from $50), where you should request a beachfront room, and the Iguana Reef Inn (from $140). One block over, the Little Kitchen cooks up traditional Belizean salbutes (small, spicy tostadas) and garnache (fried tortillas with refried beans, cabbage, and the ubiquitous Marie Sharp’s hot sauces). Afterward, follow the locals to the Lazy Lizard for a cold Belikin beer.

ACCESS: Ten minutes from Belize City by prop plane ( or ).

Winter Island Escapes: Easy Outs

Only have a few days but need an island fix? Here's where to go.

ISLA MUJERES, MEXICO
No fewer than 30 U.S. cities (Seattle, Chicago, and, in 2013, Minneapolis, St. Louis, and Dallas) offer nonstop flights to CancĂșn. Isla Mujeres, a dialed-down Caribbean island and one of Jacques Cousteau’s old haunts, is just a 20-minute ferry ride away. Stay at the (from $139), which sits smack on Playa Norte’s pristine beach, and snorkel the nearby Manchones Reef.

RINCON, PUERTO RICO
Warm winter surf is easy to get to in Puerto Rico. Fly nonstop from New York City (), Newark (), or Atlanta or Ft. Lauderdale () to Aguadilla, a 30-minute drive from RincĂłn. The charming (from $125) is reasonable and on the beach. Surfing instruction is ubiquitous here, with ($90 for a two-hour lesson) and ($175 per day) topping the list.

TOBAGO
Nearly on the shore of Venezuela, Tobago is reachable nonstop with a four-hour Caribbean Airlines flight from New York. Stay at the relaxed (from $165), bask at the secluded beach at Englishman’s Bay, dive Buccoo Reef, or hire to show you some of the island’s 470 bird species.

KAUAI, HAWAII
With direct flights from San Francisco and Los Angeles ( and ), Phoenix (), and, starting this month, Portland, Oregon (), Kauai is closer than you might think. Stay at the boutique hotel ($369) at Poipu, on the island’s sunnier south shore. But explore the stormier north shore’s surf breaks—like Hideaways and Tunnels Beach in Hanalei—and the wild Na Pali Coast, on a guided sea-kayaking trip with ($200 per day).

BONAIRE
Three hours nonstop from Miami on InSel Air or five-plus from Newark on Continental Airlines lands you in Bonaire, a divers’ island in the Dutch Antilles, just off the coast of Venezuela. Dive at Angel City or windsurf at Taylor Maid. The owners of the six-room (from $1,886 per week for two, including dive package and vehicle) can make it all happen for you.

The post The 15 Best Winter Island Escapes appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

WHEN THEY DROVE through the entrance to on July 5, 2011, Brian and Marylyn Matayoshi, of Torrance, California, were handed a newspaper—just like the other 3.4 million people who entered the park last year. The paper included, among other things, advice about what to do in the event of an encounter with a grizzly bear.

The following day, when the couple decided to hike a portion of the popular 16-mile Wapiti Lake Trail in the park’s Hayden Valley, they would have walked right by two wooden signboards. One, in large, bold letters, read WARNING: BEAR FREQUENTING AREA. The other read DANGER: YOU ARE ENTERING BEAR COUNTRY and displayed information about . The recommendations included “If a bear charges, stand still, do not run” and “Bear pepper spray is a good last defense.” The Matayoshis were making their fifth visit to Yellowstone; they’d never seen a grizzly in the park.Ìę

Despite the recommendation, neitherÌęBrian, 58, a retired pharmacist, nor Marylyn, also 58, carried pepper spray when theyÌęstarted hiking the Wapiti Lake Trail around 10 a.m. on that bright 70-degree morning. About a mile into their walk, a hiker coming toward them pointed out what looked to Marylyn like brown boulders about a quarter-mile in the distance. These were, it turned out, a grizzly sow and its two cubs. The Matayoshis stopped to watch the bears for a few minutes. Marylyn even took some photos: three brown dots on a vast green landscape.Ìę

The couple continued up the trail,Ìęhiking onto higher benches through scattered lodgepole forest. But another half-mile in, Yellowstone’s brawny mosquito population descended with virulence, and the couple decided to turn back. Unbeknownst to them, while they were hiking, the grizzlies they had seen earlier had moved closer to the trail and were heading right toward them.Ìę

When Brian spotted the bears again, only about 100 yards and a thin band of trees separated them. The Matayoshis did an about-face and started back up the trail, away from the grizzlies, glancing back over their shoulders. Marylyn saw “the bear’s head pop up” and alerted Brian.Ìę

The sow “started coming toward us,” Marylyn later told National Park Service investigators, “and Brian said, ‘Run!’ We were running down the trail.”

Other hikers in the vicinity heard the couple screaming as they fled. The Matayoshis sprinted, with the sow in pursuit. Marylyn said the cubs followed their mother, growling. The Matayoshis made it 170 yards before the grizzly knocked Brian down from behind and delivered a powerful blow to his forehead. While Brian lay prone, the grizzly clawed his body and bit his right leg several times.Ìę

Marylyn ducked behind a small downed tree about five yards away and hid. She peeked up once and saw the bear standing over Brian’s inert body, staring at her. The bear walked over, and Marylyn dropped to her stomach, covering the back of her neck with her hands. The sow sank its teeth into her daypack and lifted her off the ground, then dropped her. Then the bear was gone, along with its cubs. Marylyn scrambled to her husband’s aid, trying to tie her jacket in a tourniquet around his leg to stop the bleeding. Brian took a deep last breath, and Marylyn realized , succumbing to either the blunt-force trauma of the attack or blood loss from a severed femoral artery.Ìę

In the days that followed, YellowstoneÌęofficials and bear managers decided that the sow had reacted defensively, protecting its cubs. They decided to leave it in the wild.Ìę

THE ATTACK ON Brian Matayoshi is part of a recent spate of human deaths in and around Yellowstone that has park officials and wildlife managers in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho worried. For 24 years, from 1986 until 2010, despite rapidly escalating tourist numbers, there were no mortal encounters with grizzlies in the park.

Two of the Yellowstone-area victims were partially eaten, a fact that has led to sometimes irresponsible speculation in the media about hungry bears killing people for food. That speculation has been fueled by a recent federal-court ruling involving uncertainty about key grizzly food sources due to global warming, specifically reductions in whitebark pine seeds and cutthroat trout. Indeed, a breathless Men’s Journal in April 2011 implied that starved grizzlies mightÌęalready be venturing out of the park to eat people.

But all parties interviewed for this story stated their belief that the partial consumption by grizzlies of two people in two years was not connected to a decline in food sources, and that a mere two incidents do not provide compelling evidence of a hungry bear population altering its behavior to hunt humans. Understanding this requires taking a close look at a number of issues, starting with the incidents themselves.Ìę

In July 2010, Ronald Singer, a 21-year-old from Alamosa, Colorado, was camping with his girlfriend in the campground, on U.S. Forest Service land, a few miles from the northeastern corner of Yellowstone, when his tent suddenly shifted several feet and an animal bit his calf through the fabric. Singer punched at the snout digging into his leg, and the attack ended. Singer, his girlfriend, and her family rushed to nearby Cooke City to alert authorities. Meanwhile, in another tent at Soda Butte, 58-year-old Deb Freele, from London, Ontario, had also snapped awake and felt teeth “grinding into my arm.”Ìę

“I realized, at that split second, I wasÌębeing attacked by a bear, but I couldn’t see it,” Freele told the Associated Press the next day from her hospital bed. She screamed. “And then it bit me harder, and more. It got very aggressive and started to shake me.”

Freele switched tactics, playing dead, and the bear left her, though not before breaking her arm. Park County sheriff’s deputies and a game warden from the arrived shortly after and began clearing the campground. While doing so, they discovered the body of Kevin Kammer, 48, a father of four from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Kammer had been camping alone about 600 yards from where the other attacks occurred. His body had been dragged 25 feet from his tent and partially eaten.Ìę

The bear that killed Kammer came back the next day, looking for more food. It brought along three cubs. Using part of Kammer’s tent as bait, state officials set a culvert trap that easily . It was held in the trapÌęuntil the cubs could be captured. Then it wasÌęeuthanized. The cubs were placed in a zoo.

The sow was thin but within the range of normal for a female bear with three cubs at that time of year. Sophisticated tests indicated that it existed almost exclusively on a vegetarian diet. The bear had probably lived in the area most of its life and had never been in trouble with humans before. Nobody could explain why it had chosen to stalk the campground for human prey.Ìę

The second incident involving bears consuming human flesh occurred inside the park last year, several weeks after the Matayoshi attack. On August 26, five miles up the Mary Mountain trail in the HaydenÌęValley—in fact, just eight miles from where Brian Matayoshi died—hikers stumbled onto the remains of John Wallace, a 59-year-old Michigan man. Investigators found his daypack nearby, waist belt unclipped and zipper open. His lunch was uneaten. Bite marks on Wallace’s forearm and hand indicated that he had tried to defend himself. At least one bear had fed on his corpse.Ìę

Wallace had visited Yellowstone before and was an experienced backcountry hiker. When offered standard bear-safety literature by Yellowstone personnel as he checked into the campground on August 24, Wallace reportedly replied that he didn’t need it. He was, he said, “a grizzly bear expert.”Ìę

Three days before Wallace died, another hiker spotted nine grizzlies near a bisonÌęcarcass about a mile and a half from where Wallace’s remains were found. Park officials investigating his death counted 16 grizzly day beds near the attack site. Hair and scat found nearby contained DNA from four bears. Here’s where the investigation revealed a surprise: one of the DNA profiles matched the sow that killed Brian Matayoshi. One of that bear’s two cubs also left DNA at the Wallace scene.Ìę

“We don’t know what role she played, whether she was the attacking bear or the feeding bear,” says Kerry Gunther, bear-management program leader for Yellowstone park. “It’s possible that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and her DNA was there. To err on the side of safety, weÌędecided to remove her.”

Trapping efforts began immediately. On September 28, a healthy 250-pound, six- or seven-year-old sow was caught. DNA evidence in hand, park officials . The cubs were captured and sent to a zoo. Subsequently, DNA from another bear was found near where Wallace was killed, but the animal had gone into hibernationÌębefore the test results could be confirmed. At press time, park officials were still decidingÌęwhether to eliminate that bear, which had been radio-collared, when it emerges from its den.Ìę

Both fatalities inside the park wereÌętreated as anomalies, according to Gunther, and statistically they are. So was an earlierÌęfatal attack, a controversial encounter that happened in the Kitty Creek drainage, just outside the park’s eastern boundary, in June 2010, when a 70-year-old botanist and experienced backcountry hiker named Erwin Evert came upon a grizzly that researchers had just tranquilized, radio-collared, andÌęreleased. The research team had put up warning signs about the bear but removed them as they left the drainage. Evert was found dead from a bite to his head.

Evert’s family has against the federal government, claiming that the warnings weren’t adequate. (There’s some question about whether Evert purposely hiked into the area, having seen the signs earlier.) Meanwhile, after unsuccessful trapping attempts, officials tracked the grizzly that killed Evert and .

WHY THE SUDDEN SPIKE in fatal bear encounters? Part of the problem, believes grizzly bear recovery coordinator Chris Servheen, who has spearheaded the government’s efforts to bolster bear populations for over a quarter-century, is messaging. One of Servheen’s great vexations is an inability to make the millions of Yellowstone visitors pay attention to a few basic rules of travel in grizzly country: don’t hike alone, make lots of noise, carry bear spray, and, if a grizzly still keeps coming, drop into a prone position. Wallace, Evert, and the Matayoshis had all, on more than one occasion, seen grizzly literature or signage. Yet none carried bear spray, and Evert and Wallace were hiking alone—acts that ignoreÌęofficial warnings and recommendations.

“My candid opinion is that we have not been very successful at communicating to the public,” Servheen says. “We produce a lot of information, but we don’t get that information to people.”

That, he says, aggravates the larger issue—a growing grizzly population in a location increasingly visited by humans. “We have more bears in more places, so the encounter frequency is going up, the probability of running into a bear is going up,” Servheen says. “We have grizzly bears occupyingÌęplaces they haven’t occupied in 100 years.”

In almost every way, grizzly recovery in the Yellowstone region has been a shining success. Grizzly numbers have grown from estimates ranging as low as 136 bears in 1975, when they were assigned threatenedÌęstatus on the Endangered Species List, to 602 in 2010. (Throughout the lower 48, grizzly numbers have bounced back from about 550 in 1973 to 1,700 today.) This has met all population goals set by the drawn out by Servheen.Ìę

“The third-highest count of females with cubs on record was in 2010, so reproduction continues to increase,” says Servheen, who, though often dressed in Carhartts and flannel shirts, projects the measured calm of an effective high school principal. “They’re a fully recovered population.”

Yet, in November 2011, the NinthÌęCircuit Court that Yellowstone’s grizzlies should not be delisted. The decision settled a lawsuit brought in 2007 by the —with amicus support for the court from the —after the Bush administration tried to delist the Yellowstone population. At the heart of that lawsuit was an issue that is also part of the mystery of why grizzly attacks on humans are increasing: Are Yellowstone’s bears running out of food sources?Ìę

At issue is the whitebark pine, a species that produces cones full of seeds. Red squirrels collect and hoard the seeds in caches, which grizzlies rob and gobble. In good seed-production years—sometimes as often asÌęevery other year—some of Yellowstone’s grizzlies might derive as much as 90 percent of their autumn protein intake from seed middens. But whitebark pine trees are dying en masse, victims of mountain pine beetle infestations and white pine blister rust exacerbated, many scientists believe, by global warming. Grizzly managers and conservation groups don’t agree about theÌęimplications of that decline, and the disagreement hasÌębecome divisive.Ìę

Federal and state game-management agencies—specifically the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks; ; and the —want grizzlies delisted because they fear that, as has happened with wolves, extending endangered-species protections for grizzlies even after numerical goals have been reached will provoke ill will amongÌęlocal ranchers and hunting groups. Ranchers call managers to remove bears that kill orÌęthreaten livestock. Hunters have surprise encounters with grizzlies in the field, feel vulnerable, and shoot them—or they mistake grizzlies for black bears, a game species.

“The rush to delist is so strong, there’s been a lack of truly trying to deal with thisÌęissue in a scientific manner,” says Jesse Logan, a former Forest Service researcher. Logan says that 95 percent of whitebark pine trees in the Yellowstone area have been impacted to some degree by beetles and that 55 percent have “suffered severe mortality.” “It’s devastating,” he says. “Unprecedented in what we consider the historical record.

“Right now, what we really need is an external review from an unbiased source,”ÌęLogan continues. He suggests convening a panel of the .Ìę

Servheen and his colleagues with the believe that, while whitebark pines will most likely continue to die off, the changes will happen slowly enough for grizzlies to adapt. Whitebark pines have been declining for decades, Servheen points out, and still the grizzly population has grown steadily. Servheen also cites the Yellowstone Lake basin, where the illegal introduction of predacious lake trout has resulted in precipitous declines in cutthroat populations, virtually eliminating them as a food source; some grizzlies there have shifted their focus to prey more on elk calves, swapping protein sources.

“Grizzlies food-switch,” Servheen says. “They have the ability to eat things when they’re available and then go to something else when they’re not. If you wanted to design an animal that would be optimally resilient to global warming, it would be omnivorous, an animal that lives in a wide variety of elevations and aspects, and one that is very adept at food switching. The animal you designed would look a lot like a grizzly bear.”Ìę

A significant number of conservationists, most vocally Natural Resources Defense Council senior wildlife advocate Louisa Willcox, think Servheen’s explanation is too simplistic. Logan agrees, noting the increased risk grizzly bears face when switching to other food sources. “What specifically are the alternative foods? What is their seasonal and spatial abundance? How do they compare in nutrient value, both in quantity and quality, with whitebark pine nuts? And what is the risk to the bear?” A red squirrel defending its pine-seed cache, Logan points out, is not much risk to a sow grizzly with hungry cubs to feed. A boar grizzly defending an animal carcass is a different story.Ìę

Whichever side of the debate they come down on, most experts agree that increasing bear populations and increasing human visitation to Yellowstone will almostÌęcertainly result in more run-ins between people and grizzlies. Still, as gruesome as four human deaths in two years may be, the fact remains thatÌęhuman-bear encounters are far deadlier to bears than to people. Between 2003 and ’06, an average of about 16 Yellowstone-area bears were killed by people annually. Over the past four years that average has leaped to 38, the result of federal or state wildlife agencies removing bears or of increased encounters with hunters.Ìę

A number of grizzlies that live near park boundaries are more likely to be found in adjacent national forests and private lands during the months overlapping big-game hunting seasons in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho—largely because each autumn hunters leave an estimated 370 tons of gut piles and field-dressed carcasses lying on the landscape. Servheen thinks that generating buy-in from outfitters and area ranchers is crucial to the bear population’s continued health. Moving the goal line—as Servheen thinks the Ninth Circuit ruling does—will disenfranchise the people whose cooperation is most vital, locals who could easily revert to a shoot-shovel-and-shut-up mentality.Ìę

“Recovery is not dependent on environmental groups. And it’s not dependent on federal judges,” Servheen says. “It’s dependent on what people who live and work in bear country think about grizzlies. The greatest gains are to be made with people who might not like bears, the hunters out there looking through their scopes. Those are the people who are going to make or break conservation for grizzly bears.”

EIGHT MONTHS AGO, on a coldÌęNovember day, Jim Halfpenny tromped through eight inches of snow near the Lamar River in Yellowstone’s northeastern corner, following a set of pigeon-toed grizzly tracks. The tracks were at least a day old and the chances of bumping into the bear that made them slim.Ìę

Halfpenny, a world-renowned tracker and naturalist, came to Yellowstone in 1971, fresh from the Vietnam War, and established the first winter concession in the park, running a cross-country-skiing operation out of Old Faithful. He saw his first grizzly the next spring, in the Hayden Valley, and remembers trembling while trying to photograph it. “There’s a magic about grizzlies I can’tÌęexplain,” Halfpenny says. “Bears are wild, and what I like is wild.”

Halfpenny began studying bears, walking around the backcountry and recording contact with them. Then he started leading field courses to observe them, trying to broaden understanding of the animals. “I got to spend a lot of time with grizzlies,” he says. “I got to spend a lot of time with my students up close and personal with bears. Many years ago, we’d sit in the Hayden Valley or the Lamar all day within 50 yards of an old sow, watching her dig, and when she moved over we’d move in to see what she had been digging. People would have a tizzy if we did that now.”Ìę

While there are no simple answers, it’s worth noting that bear encounters need not end in tragedy. Halfpenny, who has been charged by grizzlies numerous times but never injured, thinks thatÌęunderstanding a bearÌęattack is largely a function of understanding bears. “If a bear starts watching you, keeping its eyes on you, turning to face you, those are nervousness signs,” Halfpenny says. “If the bear changes its behavior, moves away from you, that’s a sign of nervousness. If a bear looks straight at you and drops its head, that’s an aggressive bear.Ìę

“You never run, and you never turn your back on a bear. Keep an eye on the bear, but don’t challenge it. Look at its shoulder. Try to back your way out. Talk to the bear and see how it responds. If your voice is escalating the situation, shut up. People want a single answer about how to deal with grizzlies, but each bear is an individual, and you never know which side of the bed he woke up on.”

Not everybody, Halfpenny understands, can know bears as well as he does—which is partly why he’s trying to teach people about grizzlies. He thinks we can all be more prepared in bear country—not by studyingÌęintricate details of bear behavior but by understanding ourselves. “Somebody who’s going to hike in grizzly country has to decide ahead of time how they’re going to act. If you’reÌęgoing to carry pepper spray, you should know how to use it,” Halfpenny says. A study of 20 years’ worth of human-bear encounters in Alaska found that pepper spray was effective in stopping 92 percent of grizzly charges.Ìę

“You have to know in advance—really know this—that if a bear comes, you’reÌęgoing to drop into that bear-defense position,” Halfpenny says.Ìę

Trudging through the snow, Halfpenny followed the blue-shadowed grizzly tracks to where the land dropped steeply toward the Lamar River, in a seam bristled with dark timber. This summer, Halfpenny and his students will likely be watching this bear and dozens like it as they wander Yellowstone’s wild landscape. Grizzly managers and park officials will be watching, too, keeping a close eye on what happens between the resurgent bear population and the ever growing throngs of park visitors. Servheen and his colleagues will endeavor to communicate more effectively. Their success, they know, will almost certainly depend on people getting the message—from park officials and from the grizzlies themselves.

The post Are Hungry Bears in Yellowstone Attacking Humans for Food? appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Ronni heard it first: the softly insistent, slightly descendant keloo-keloo of the quetzal, strobing from the cloud forest around us. We were hiking the five-mile Sendero de los Quetzales (“Path of the Quetzals”), a trail that winds through the 35,390 lush acres of Panama's VolcĂĄn BarĂș National Park in UNESCO's La Amistad Biosphere Reserve—one of the best places in the world to see the rare and visually spectacular bird.

Panama, conservation

Don't destroy the forests!

Panama, conservation

Environmental battleground: The Sendero de los Quetzales

Panama, conservation

Looking for quetzals on the Sendero

Panama, quetzal, conservation

A resplendent quetzal at rest

As we stalked through the foliage the quetzal revealed itself: a male whose crimson breast radiated from a tuxedo of aquamarine, his brilliant viridian tail feathers draped two feet behind. Tilting his gold-crested head, the bird listened for a female response to his mating call—a call that, sadly, may prove to be his last if Panama's presidential administration has its way. Within months of our visit this very footpath would become an environmental battleground, with activists and campesinos marching against government-deployed bulldozers; each side determined to decide the fate of VolcĂĄn BarĂș and its quetzal population.

In December 2002, Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso announced plans to pave the Path of the Quetzals, which winds through VolcĂĄn BarĂș between the agricultural center of Cerro Punta and the mountain hamlet of Boquete. The new road would bring commerce and traffic to these isolated enclaves in Panama's Chiriqui Highlands, where an estimated 300 to 400 quetzal breeding pairs hold out against their chief enemy, forest fragmentation.

The quetzal has been called “the most spectacular bird in the New World” by renowned ornithologist Roger Peterson, yet today it's listed as Appendix I in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), meaning that the species is threatened with extinction. But the quetzal is not just a bird in danger; it's an esteemed animal with a past rooted in Mayan and Aztec culture.

Quetzalcoatl, a central figure in Mayan mythology, is depicted as a hybrid of a quetzal and a serpent. In ancient times, only royalty could wear quetzal feathers; possession of the shimmering plumage (valued as much as gold) by commoners was a crime punishable by death. More recently, indigenous peoples in Central America, believing the quetzal unable to survive in captivity, have interpreted it as a symbol of freedom.
Ìę

By paving the Sendero de los Quetzales, the Moscoso administration aims to connect Boquete with the rich farming region around Cerro Punta, where over half of Panama's vegetables are grown. Administration Press and Information Adviser Mario Rognoni says building a road will make the area more accessible to tourists via the Inter-American Highway (turning a one-hour drive around VolcĂĄn BarĂș into a ten-minute straight shot through the park), and would shorten the distance between highland village communities to the north.

So what's the administration's rationale for selecting a route that slices through the biosphere reserve? The Sendero de los Quetzales traverses a less rugged landscape than alternative routes, making it the least expensive construction option. “All residents want a road built,” says Rognoni, “The controversy arises in the route selected, not the road itself. Even those who favor the alternate route are interested in the road.”

But opponents of the project say that a paved byway through the park would allow predators easy access to quetzal nests, destroy seed trees the quetzals depend upon for food, and facilitate poaching, illegal logging, and other habitat-destroying activities. Over the past months, a broad coalition of activists and concerned citizens has launched a campaign to stop the road, marking the rare appearance of an environmental issue on center stage in Panamanian affairs. Lider Sucre, executive director of ANCON, Panama's foremost environmental advocacy group, said, “Rarely have we seen such a level of activity from such a broad spectrum of entities. [In Panama] it's very rare that an environmental issue causes so much activism in a rural area. This has really been a watershed crusade.”

Despite public opposition, Moscoso has rejected counter-proposals to site the road outside the critical quetzal habitat. In December 2002, facing organized demonstrations, Moscoso declared the road of “notorious urgency”—a designation intended for disaster relief in cases of hurricanes, floods or other natural catastrophes—and awarded the $4.6 million construction contract to a firm of her choosing, avoiding review and public comment processes, and subsequently triggering a lawsuit from ANCON. In an effort to ensure that the project would be pushed through, the Moscoso administration then introduced an amendment changing the regulations that govern VolcĂĄn BarĂș National Park—the first-ever alteration to the park's charter—and by executive fiat legalized all previously proscribed activities associated with the road's construction.
Ìę

Moscoso's zeal spurred allegations by the mayor of Panama City that she was primarily interested in boosting property values on land she owned along the route. She denied the charges and threatened to sue him for criminal defamation, but a subsequent investigation by the daily newspaper El Panama America revealed that Moscoso served as president of a holding company that owned 2,291 acres near the site of the proposed road. A nephew of Moscoso's late husband, the former president, hastily produced an unrecorded deed indicating that her company had sold three-quarters of the land in 1985—to another company comprised of her family members, some of whom are high-ranking officials in her administration.

Speaking to La Prensa, the nephew (also an administration official) indicated that the land had been “forgotten” by the family. Published reports suggest that Moscoso may retain ownership of a quarter interest in the property, but her administration denies that she has ever owned land in the area, except for a coffee plantation in Boquete.

The administration also claims that the anti-road activists are the ones with ulterior motives. When asked whether Moscoso thinks the road is unpopular, spokesperson Rognoni replied, “No. The opposition has been initiated by those who favored the alternate route, whose land and properties would have benefited from the road in their proposed route, and they in turn have motivated political adversaries from outside the area to protest the road.”

At the root of the presidential soap opera is the fact that Panamanian politics are known for corruption—so much so that the term juega vivo (meaning “play smart,” but nuanced with a sense of unethical, self-interested behavior) was coined to describe the phenomenon. Since taking power in 1999, Moscoso's administration has suffered from scandals and resignations. And according to the San Antonio Express-News, the president herself has been accused of stealing from the public treasury: Over the past few years a fleet of presidential cars has gone unaccounted for, a taxpayer-funded beach house ended up in her brother's name, and $40,000 mysteriously turned up in the freezer of one of her assistants.
Ìę

The president fares poorly in public opinion polls and, considering that a Panamanian president can't serve two terms in a row, many of her countrymen have expressed relief that she'll be obliged to step down from her post during the May 2 elections.

The good news for environmentalists is that all of the major presidential candidates in the upcoming election oppose the “Ecological Road” (including the candidate that Moscoso supports), and that if Moscoso is unable to push the project through before she leaves office, it's unlikely ever to be completed. But heavy construction equipment now sits at both ends of the proposed corridor, even as demonstrations increase in size and are met with growing force from police.

On December 11, ANCON filed its third lawsuit in connection with the road, this one claiming Moscoso's alterations to VolcĂĄn BarĂș's charter were illegal and violated international treaties establishing the park. But bribery scandals involving legislators who allegedly accepted millions of dollars to confirm Supreme Court justices—and Moscoso's close personal relationship with the presiding magistrate in these suits—have cast doubts on any notion of a fair hearing.

In the meantime, UNESCO has stated that it does not support the road, and Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, and the IUCN have all condemned the project. The World Bank, too, suggested it would not lend money to support the project and urged the evaluation of alternative routes.

In mid-February, the director of Panama's environmental department rejected the proposed road in an ecological-impact statement, and then immediately resigned (allegedly under pressure from Moscoso). A new director was then appointed, but he quit after just two weeks on the job, leaving the position in its current state—vacant. “It doesn't get any dirtier than this,” ANCON's Lider Sucre commented about the situation.

But winter in Panama is drawing to a close, and the nasty, April-through-November rainy season promises to bring extremely muddy conditions that will make building the road nearly impossible. With Moscoso's term ending in September, environmentalists are crossing their fingers that time will run out on the “Ecological Road.” Right now, the future hangs in the balance for the quetzals—who have no idea how to play smart—but with any luck, Mother Nature just might give the birds the last laugh.
Ìę

The post Paving the Path of the Quetzals appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

There’s a swoosh of heaven that runs from Hawaii through Mexico to Central America and the Caribbean. Don’t let it bask in the sun by itself. Our 43 sweet spots are waiting—surrender and go.
By James Glave
By Meg Lukens Noonan
By Kevin Moeller
By Jeff Hull
By Kent Black

Trailing Off on Kauai

It was our first morning in paradise. The deserted white beach at our tent flap stretched a quarter-mile out to the breakers. The backdrop was a sheer-walled green valley—some oo aa birds flitting over ancient taro terraces thick with wild guava trees, orchids, and vines. Off to our left, nubile twentysomethings splashed naked under a beachside waterfall. It was almost too much to take.
So why were the neighbors packing up already?
Most who make the grueling, full-day 11-mile trek to the Kalalau Valley, an isolated outpost at the far eastern end of Kauai’s spectacular Na Pali Coast, rest on the sand for at least a day. Many take time to explore the lush highlands and visit with the dozen-odd “full-timers” who, dodging Hawaii State Parks regulations, have formed a tropical microsociety straight out of a certain Leo DiCaprio box-office flop.
But these two hikers were acting like they were late for work. We’d met them the day before on the hike in; now they were hoofing it in toward Red Hill, a steep, sun-scorched 360-foot slope that you must descend into the valley, fully aware of the work it will take to climb back up it on the way home.
“Wait, didn’t you just get here?” I asked.
The boyfriend came over and lowered his voice. “Don’t you know how it works here?” We didn’t.
“First they invite you in on a game of chess, right?” He looked around, fidgeting. “Next thing you know, the afternoon is gone, and someone’s offering you roast wild goat for dinner. And then you’re waking up the next morning and that—he motioned toward Red Hill—looks like a lot of work. So you hang around for another day. And play some more chess. And the day turns into a week . . .”
His girlfriend rolled her eyes. She clearly wasn’t buying his Aloha Moonies theory.
Neither were we. My wife, Elle, and I were savoring our first taste of wild Hawaii. Our mud-and-sweat adventure had begun after we crossed the Hanakapi’ai River—the Kalalau Trail’s two-mile mark and the mandatory turnaround point for day hikers. We ascended 5,000 feet, seesawing in and out of five valleys along the only hikeable stretch of the Na Pali Coast.
Protected by steep pali, or cliffs, the Kalalau Valley is the perfect hideout. It was here in this jungle in the 1880s that an ailing fugitive and his wife eluded authorities for years—Jack London immortalized them in his 1908 story “Koolau the Leper.” Taro farmers populated the valley until the early 20th century. The hippies came later.

We found much to like in this Eden, including a series of deserted waterfall pools deep in the forest. After leaving our beachside homestead, we blew hours goofing off, swimming, exploring, sticking our noses into wild lilies. Heading back, we met one of the residents, dragging a folding chaise lounge—how the heck did he get that in here?—along the sand.
“Jay” is a high school gym teacher who lives in Kalalau during the off-season. He’s terribly mellow and powerfully muscled, sporting a shark-tooth necklace and not much else.
How does he survive here? “I have friends all over the island who help me out,” Jay said, adding that he also pulls papio and moi fish from the surf and hunts goats in the backcountry. After a few minutes, the conversation wound down, and Elle and I headed off to explore the nearby sea caves.
Then Jay called after us. “Hey . . . do you play chess?”

The Ins and Outboards of the Exumas

Beached: solitude off the Exumas Cays

Cut your boat engine in the clear water of the Bahamas’ Exuma Cays and who knows what will appear: a five-foot lemon shark swimming slow S-curves under your hull, a pair of stealthy eagle rays, clumps of conch shells among purple barrel sponges, even a family of swimming pigs—yes, pigs—which, long abandoned by their owners, live quite well off their pink good looks and the Wheat Thins tossed overboard by boaters. This bountiful 100-mile strand of 365 narrow, mostly uninhabited islands, bounded by the cobalt depths of the Exuma Sound to the east and the aquamarine shallows of the Great Bahama Bank to the west, is amazingly only 40 miles from the Vegas-like excesses of Nassau. But when you drop anchor on one of the cays’ empty, wild, bisque-colored beaches, you might as well be on the other side of the big blue world.
A peripatetic island escape begins at quiet Staniel Cay in the center of the Exuma chain. Book one of the Staniel Cay Yacht Club’s snug pastel cottages—each comes with a 13-foot Boston Whaler powerboat—in advance. Then spend a week day-tripping your way around these narrow, close-together islands, some barely the size of a major league pitching mound, others large enough to support a fishing village, a beach resort, and a couple of open-air bars serving conch fritters and Kalik beer. Don’t worry about your sketchy navigational skills—these are nearly idiotproof cruising waters. You need only your eyes to figure out how to get to your next anchorage. A fairly reliable sense of how shallow is too shallow for your boat will help, too.
One day you might focus on fishing, working the shimmering bonefish flats of Harvey Cay and Pipe Creek, about three miles from Staniel Cay, or angling around Exuma Sound Ledge, a thousand-foot drop-off just a few hundred yards offshore. On another day, motor to Thunderball Grotto, a snorkel-through cave, swing by “Pig Beach” on Major Spot Island, and then visit Compass Cay, where you’ll be greeted by a group of creepily Pavlovian nurse sharks looking for handouts. Make the short walk to the bluff-backed crescent of sand on Compass Cay’s east side and spend the rest of the day prone. Or head south one morning to Bitter Guana Cay (no need to know how it got its name), where you’ll see iguanas prowling the beach, and stop on another island, Great Guana Cay (don’t ask), for cracked conch with the locals at Lorraine’s Cafe.
Plan on taking a couple of days to explore the pristine reefs and coves of the Exuma Land and Sea Park, a 176-square-mile, no-take preserve (no fishing, no collecting) overseen by the Bahamas National Trust, where you can also hike the four miles of trails near Warderick Wells. The park begins at Conch Cut, about five miles northwest of Staniel, and ends 22 miles north at Wax Cut Cay.
Most evenings, you’ll be content hanging out in the Staniel Cay Yacht Club’s dockfront bar, eavesdropping on the catch-drunk anglers and hypertanned nomadic yachties. Save one night, though, for dinner in the hilltop clubhouse at Fowl Cay, a swank new three-cottage resort about a mile and a half by boat from Staniel Cay. You should know, however, that this is one very classy place—shoes are mandatory.
THE DETAILS:
Flamingo Air flies from Nassau to Staniel Cay every day but Saturday for $70 one-way (242-377-0354, ); from Fort Lauderdale, many companies charter planes to Staniel Cay—try Island Air Charters ($900 for up to seven people; 800-444-9904, ), or from Nassau, Air Charter Bahamas ($590 for up to five people; 305-885-6665, ). Cottages at Staniel Cay Yacht Club (242-355-2024, ) start at $167 per person per night and include a 13-foot Boston Whaler. At Fowl Cay Resort (866-369-5229, ), cottages start at $4,750 per week for two people, including meals, beverages, and a 17-foot boat. For information on the Exuma Land and Sea Park, visit .

Off Belay on Culebra

Flamenco Beach: Culebra’s prized possession

When I took off for Culebra, a seven-mile-long island outpost east of Puerto Rico with a stash of oceanside face climbing, I had every intention of spending my time on the rocks. I was ready for the feel of sea spray on my back while working 5.10 friction moves. But then I discovered how the sleepy rhythms of an undeveloped island can get in the way of any serious ambition.
Like Vieques, its neighbor to the south, Culebra is part of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and has played host to Navy bombing practice, though things have quieted down since the 1970s, when locals protested to stop the ordnance rain. In fact, everything is quiet. There are no sprawling resorts or gaudy casinos, just one town, Dewey, and 1,542 Spanish-speaking islanders. There are opportunities for adventure—sea kayaking, sailing, diving, and of course climbing. You just have to fend off total lethargy to get to them.
Flamenco Beach is Culebra’s prize possession, with consistently clear water and a mile of silky white sand. To get there, visitors take a 20-minute flight from San Juan aboard a prop plane, which buzzes over scrubby dry-tropical forest before dropping with a gulp onto the lone landing strip; I walked, sandals flapping, the mile and a half to Flamenco Beach. Weekends can bring ferryloads of Puerto Rican families, but even then there’s little competition for sandy real estate. Find yourself a vacant acre, plop down under a palm . . . and erase those Jersey Shore memories of folks stacked around you like frankfurters on a Weber.
Restless beachgoers strap on masks to eyeball hogfish and schools of tang just offshore, or they boogie-board the shoulder-high breakers at the beach’s south end. A mile-long dirt path leads to neighboring Carlos Rosario beach, which borders the Luis Pe-a Marine Reserve—part of the island’s 1,568 acres of wildlife refuges—where snorkelers snoop the seagrass beds for conchs. In the deeper waters of the reserve, near Cayo Yerba, divers swim with stingrays among huge boulders festooned with yellow cup corals.

I eyed the trail to my intended destination, the Punta Molinas climbing area, an hour and a half of ridge hiking from the beach parking lot. The volcanic crag, riveted with bolts covered in sea salt, is a humble 30 feet or so high, but the routes are 5.9 to 5.10—and the views of the Caribbean while dangling from a flake are expansive. Most times you share them with no one. But the afternoon slipped by, so I pitched my tent at Flamenco’s campground—surf 20 feet away—and watched a spearfisherman amble along with a dive bag full of red snappers, conchs, and lobsters, all of it hunted in a single lagoon.
By the next day, I’d let island time have its way with me and simply abandoned my notions of climbing. Too much work. I prowled around Dewey, stopping in a restaurant, El Caobo, where the cook pulled me into the kitchen to taste her guisada (chopped pork stew), handing me a spoonful with a smile. I ate a helping with fried snapper. Instead of being pumped out, knuckles bleeding, I sat there with a full belly and a sweating glass of Coca-Cola, slightly sunburned and utterly content.

THe Breezes Of Belize

Destination wet: the distant allure of Goff Kay

Read Kerr steered our 38-foot catamaran through a quartering chop off the southern coast of Belize. “Gee, Read,” I said, “kind of a rough ride. Can’t you smooth it out a little?”
“I’m not in charge of the ocean,” replied ten-year-old Read. “I’m only in charge of the boat.”
That was the tone for this eight-day sailing sojourn among Belize’s southern cays, a smattering of islands—some inhabited, none larger than a square mile—sprinkled between the coastal village of Placencia and the Mesoamerican Reef, the largest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere. The cluster of elkhorn and ivory bush corals, among others, stretches 450 miles from Mexico’s YucatĂĄn Peninsula to the Bay Islands of Honduras, and is 20 miles offshore here.
A few days earlier, my friend Onne van der Wal (a nautical photographer and seasoned sailor), his wife, their three children, and I had chartered a sailboat without a captain (a.k.a. a bareboat). We left from Placencia, a friendly, quiet village of about 500 residents made even quieter in October 2001 when Hurricane Iris obliterated 80 percent of the structures in town and killed 22 people, including 17 American divers. We headed 20 miles east-southeast to Ranguana Caye, a spit of sand with palm trees and turquoise bungalows. Read and her younger brothers hit the water the moment the anchor did, gamboling like porpoises amid massive leaf corals.
Belize, Central America’s only English-speaking country, has 1,000-foot-wide barrier reef atolls to dive, 100-pound tarpon off Ambergris Cay to catch, and Mayan temples to explore. But from the moment Read enlightened us about her responsibility vis-Ă -vis the sea, we freed ourselves from agendas. We were dinking around the outposts, dropping anchor alongside coral castles, and exploring former pirate haunts. We might cruise Punta Ycacos Lagoon in hopes of spotting manatees. Or we could swim with hawksbill turtles in the marine preserve at Laughing Bird Caye. We’d decide all this later.
Following Ranguana Caye, we ran 15 miles in an afternoon to the Sapodilla Cays, the southernmost islands. That evening Onne puttered the dinghy to a fishing panga and swapped two quarts of pineapple juice and a frozen key-lime pie for just-speared snapper fillets—dining out, cays style.
On one of our last nights, everyone retired to the cabins, leaving me on deck to sleep under the full moon. Clouds stole across the sky like great white secrets. Exhausted, I tried to remember how I got so tired: woke at sunrise, kayaked to a broad turtle-grass flat, waded around stalking bonefish and permit, paddled back, snorkeled. Not such a mystery after all. I started to think about the next day and realized that . . . well, I am not in charge of tomorrows.

Just Park Me in a Palapa in Yelapa

Rocky’s shrill whistle pierced through the sound of waves crashing beneath my bedroom. Untangling myself from mosquito net and sheet, I lurched out to the balcony of my two-story casita to peer at the dark pre-dawn ocean. Rocky, my beachfront neighbor and a former fishing guide from Arkansas, was gliding past in his sea kayak, trolling with a simple hand line of 30-pound test and a two-inch lure. He jabbed his paddle in my direction. Vamos!
I sighed. It was going to be another routine day in Yelapa, a fishing village 12 miles southwest of Puerto Vallarta on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Getting to the 1,200-person settlement requires a bumpy 30-minute ride by outboard water taxi south from Puerto Vallarta, along the rocky coast of the Bah’a de Banderas to Yelapa’s little hidden cove.
I’d start the day by joining Rocky to fish along the southern edge of the bay, Mexico’s largest, through schools of porpoises and the occasional manta ray, and past cliffs alternating with uninhabited, palm-laden lagoons. If I was lucky I’d come home with some tasty fish—known locally as sierras—for ceviche. By midmorning I’d be back at my rented casita cleaning my catch, eating a late breakfast of mangos, and pretending to write in my journal while staring out at the Pacific.
My first hard decision would be whether to hike or swim next. If the onshore wind seemed steady and strong, it might be a good day to hike two and a half hours to the top of one of the 2,000-foot summits that nearly surround Yelapa—a derelict ranchito atop one peak is a favored takeoff spot for parasailors. Or I could swim a half-mile from the casita to the center of Yelapa’s main beach, where lollygagging and slurping fresh shrimp cocktails are the main pursuits. I’d squeeze in a siesta, of course, and then make my way to the south end of the beach, where steps lead up to the town—a maze of adobe walls and red-tile roofs crisscrossed by cobblestone lanes. There are no cars or motorcycles in Yelapa, though there is traffic of a sort. Mules, the taxi/truck/car/bus of Yelapa, provide the only overland way out of town, up narrow mountain trails that would make even the hardiest SUV stall.

About two years ago, the town got electricity. Some people lamented this progress, though its only real results are television, two dozen streetlights, and too much Ricky Martin played late into the night. And the placid village has adapted itself to more vigorous visitors: Sea kayaks can be rented from Hotel Lagunita or Casa Isabel, local fishermen at the docks arrange day trips, and Miller’s Dive Service offers multiday trips to the small islands in the bay.
I might contemplate these changes as I prepare for a twilight fishing jaunt. Unless, of course, it’s game night. The locals (Raicillas) and the gringos (Bimbos) play softball three or four nights a week at a dusty field a mile up the RĂ­o Tuito from town. The game starts around 5 p.m. and ends eight or nine innings later or when you can’t see the ball—whichever comes first. After several hundred games, the series is just about even.
If the innings are quick, there’s time to get back to the casita for a cocktail and sunset observation. Then it’s a short walk to satisfy my addiction to the barbecued chicken, fish, and ribs served at Pollo Bollo. By 10 p.m. it’s time to tuck myself under the mosquito net—where the rhythm of the waves will anesthetize me until Rocky’s whistle wakes me again.
Yep, same old routine.
THE DETAILS:
Boats bound for Yelapa leave at 11:45 a.m. Monday through Friday in front of the Hotel Rosita in Puerto Vallarta (about $9.50 per person one-way; 011-52-322-223-2000, ). Cabanas for two at Hotel Lagunita (011-52-329-298-0554, ) cost $45-$75 per night; the hotel offers kayak rentals and guided waterfall hikes. Casa Isabel (; e-mail, Isabel@yelapa.com) also has kayaks and rents five palapas that sleep two to six people for $45-$75. Miller’s Dive Service (; e-mail, millersdiveservice@juno.com) offers five-day dive packages for $165 to $175 for two-tank dives. For fishing and kayaking with Rocky, contact his company, Yelapa Extreme Kayaking (rockmoninoff@hotmail.com).

The post The Tropics Next Door appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

We searched the South Pacific for the ultimate in tropical paradise. Now grab your hammock and sunblock and go!

Show Me the Mana

Gauguin found it on Hiva Oa. So can you.

PEPERU, A MOP-GIANT of a Marquesan man, his cousin Siano, and I have been hiking for four hours through the steamy jungle when he turns around and whispers, “The first time I came here, I got chicken pox—from the mana.”

I expected our destination, an ancient ceremonial site, to hold an air of mystery, but I didn’t realize that the mana, or supernatural power, would unleash an infectious disease.

“You don’t mean goose bumps, do you?” I ask, remembering that English is only one of Peperu’s four languages.

“That’s it,” Peperu says.

We’re hiking in the interior of the 77-square-mile volcanic fang of Hiva Oa, the second-largest island in the Marquesas archipelago, about 800 miles northeast of Tahiti. From the rocky seashore, the terrain vaults to 4,000-foot peaks that top out in a razor-sharp central ridge. Only about 1,800 people inhabit Hiva Oa, all but a handful in the town of Atuona, on the southern coast. True, Atuona now has a swank Pearl resort, paved roads, and Pringles, but due to its distance from everywhere, the ten-island chain is mostly left to itself. Aiming to immerse myself in local lifestyle, I stay at the family-run Temetiu Village Pension, on a hill overlooking the Bay of Traitors a half-mile east of Atuona. The bungalow is modest but spotless, and my gracious host, Gabriel Heitaa, serves tasty traditional meals of fresh tuna and lobster, or wild pig and breadfruit from the jungle.

Lured by tales of islanders living in a state of grace, artist Paul Gauguin sailed to the Marquesas in 1901 and died on Hiva Oa in 1903, 100 years ago this May. The island still reeks of the sensuality and mystique Gauguin captured on his canvases: Wild horses race across fern- covered hillsides, and even casual hikes through glades of pandanus lead to ancient ceremonial sites. Little in the way of outfitted sporting adventure exists, but you can always rent a mountain bike to tackle the singletrack pig trails lacing the bush, or find a local who will take you on a dive excursion to the sea caves that punctuate the coast.

But it’s the vertical terrain and the lost world it conceals that make Hiva Oa worth a visit. In the 200 years following the first European contact, in 1595, slave traders and disease decimated the Marquesas. An entire culture was ravaged, leaving vestiges of its history standing in the jungle.
Peperu and Siano lead me to a ridge where, shrouded in lush vegetation, low walls of stacked stone support rectangular platforms. On one a slab forms a seatback—a chieftain’s chaise. Nearby lies the worn but unmistakable shape of a pestle, left where it was discarded hundreds of years ago. Lichen-softened stone panels display bas-relief forms of carved tikis— figurines of ancient gods. Siano shows me a fantastically twisted gray-green boulder that chieftains once held on to while seeking divine guidance. I palm the boulder and am overwhelmed by the sense that the stone is touching me back. This, I understand at once, is mana. Looking down at my forearms, I find them covered with bumps. Once again, it seems, the mana has inspired a wicked case of Marquesan chicken pox.

It’s Namenalala-Land!

Taming the dragon under Fiji’s Heavenly Skies

The beast in its lair: Fiji lying in wait

A FEW MONTHS BEFORE I WALKED DOWN THE AISLE, I had become obsessed with finding the perfect place. I wanted our honeymoon to be nothing short of miraculous. Happily, the gods forgave my hubris and plopped us on Namenalala.

Our first glimpse of the island was from a 15-foot fishing boat that carried us 25 miles across the Koro Sea from Savusavu, Fiji. We squinted into the bright sunshine at the lush, mile-long, sleeping-dragon-shaped island and saw a week of perfect moments on the five pristine beaches, the 19-mile ring of barrier reef, and the three miles of hiking trails. Namenalala was uninhabited until 1983, when an intrepid American couple, Tom and Joan Moody, took out a 99-year lease on the 110-acre island and built a ten-acre resort. In place of manicured grounds and air-conditioned rooms, there are wildly overgrown landscapes, twisted, hilly walkways, and six bures (cottages) built on stilts, each with five sets of sliding doors to let in the breeze.

Throughout our stay, we couldn’t get enough of the aquamarine, 80-degree ocean. A 15-minute ride in a dive boat brought us to some of Fiji’s best scuba sites—Fish Patch was our favorite, and Karl the dive master took us there every morning to explore the Grand Canyon, a mile-deep underwater wall where, at about 80 feet, we could swim amid huge schools of trevally and wait for white-tip, gray-tip, and hammerhead sharks to swish by.

After lunch the first day, hungry for more time in the drink, we grabbed our goggles and jumped back in. The fringe of Namenalala is covered by cashmere-soft beaches—the sand made from exoskeletons of shellfish that have been crushed into powder. We snorkeled from one beach, three-quarters of a mile around the tip of the island, to the next beach, hovering to wave our hands over the giant clams’ Day-Glo-green mouths and watch them snap shut. Forty minutes later we crawled up on shore, gasping like guppies (but pretending to be shipwrecked sailors).

The next afternoon, after early-morning yoga on the deck and our midmorning trip to the Fish Patch, we set out by sea kayak. It took us half a day to circle the island, due in part to my secret backseat lily-dipping and pendulum-swing steering.

Despite the island’s size, we managed to spend all of the next afternoon hiking. One trail led through thick fig-tree roots, berry-covered bushes, and massive flame trees to the island’s 400-foot crest. Because this was the perfect place, we arrived at the Dragon’s Head, a sloping bulb at the tip of the island, at the perfect time to enjoy the sunset. The sky was streaked with wide, red fingernail marks of clouds, and what seemed like hundreds of red-footed boobies and lesser frigates called overhead. They were all going somewhere with great purpose, but it was hard to imagine there was a better place to be.

Think Naked

Baja, Pt. II

Passing through an opening in the hedge, we saw an empty volleyball court, an open-air bar, and a vast star-shaped hot tub. I counted 30 naked and oiled people soaking up sun, standing, sprawled on loungers, sitting and sipping drinks. They generally ranged in age from their thirties to their sixties: pudgy, skinny, tanned, pale, droopy, firm, you name it.


We said hello to one group. Liisa draped her towel over an adjacent chaise lounge. No hesitation. Off came her top. Down went her bottom. Smiles all around. I tried to remember the axiom of scuba diving: Don’t lose control of your breathing. “The only tan-line I want,” she announced, “is from my wedding ring.


This was not what I imagined nudism to be, at least not the blasĂ© variety in which naturists sit naked and splay-legged in mixed company playing shuffleboard and rummy, almost trying to prove that nothing is off. But neither did we sense the overt expectation of swingers. Instead, the people here seemed to be in some personal, racy in-between. They were flashers, they were voyeurs. The proximity of other naked bodies added a certain frisson of possibility, but the targets of people’s hedonism seemed their own partners. A woman and her man would stare at each other with the flushing pride of prom dates, perpetually startled and pleased by the absence of costume. Liisa and I realized that most of the couples on this side of the oleander hedge were madly in love&3151;and found daring the buff in the Mexican sunshine a remarkably loving thing. So while I don’t know if I’ll ever feel completely normal about it, I discovered that being naked in public with my wife was just all right with me—thrilling, but relaxing, too.

The post Sirens of the South Pacific appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Ìę Ìę Ìę Which is exactly the trouble. Some in the surfing community see tow-in surfing as the downfall of a once soulful, environmentally sound lifestyle. While companies such as Bombardier are developing cleaner and quieter jet-ski engines, the San Francisco­based environmental group Bluewater Network says that most machines still dump nearly 30 percent of their gas-oil mixture unburned into the water. “It’s sad to see one of the last sports where humans are in harmony with the ocean environment turning into just another motorized recreational activity,” says Bluewater Network director Russell Long.The Surfrider Foundation, a San Clemente, California­based environmental group that works to protect the cleanliness of coastal waters worldwide, is similarly dismayed by the trend. “We do have issues with personal watercraft,” says Chad Nelsen, Surfrider’s environmental program manager. “They are really polluting.” Then there are the safety issues. Though an unwritten code of conduct has emerged—complete with hand signals and basic rules (“Don’t cross the path of a jet ski towing a surfer”)—some fear that it’s only a matter of time before a swimmer and a jet ski meet on a surf break with tragic consequences. Most tow-in evangelists are keenly aware of the dangers jet skis pose to paddle-in surfers and swimmers, though, and want to keep the three groups well apart. “I stand wholeheartedlybehind the federal law of no personalwatercraft within 200 feet of a surfer or swimmer,” says Ken Bradshaw. (That same law makes tow-in technically illegal, though so far no one is enforcing it.) Tow-in surfers say they are aware of the issues but see no other way to get to the big waves. Further, Bradshaw points out that the jet skis make big-wave surfing safer than its paddle-in counterpart. “If you are going to ride waves over 20 feet, tow-surfing is the safest forum. You have your designated lifeguard attached to you,” he says. Even some of the most guarded paddle-in surfers are finding it hard to resist the call of the two-stroke engine. “It’s all the guys who swore that they would never tow-in that you see out there now,” says Moore. “When the surf gets that big you really don’t have a choice—you either tow or don’t go.” Indeed, the number of recognized tow-in surf breaks has increased quickly, particularly in Hawaii, where there are now more than two dozen such spots. It’s the same situation in California, where the first tow-in crews began buzzing the big waves in the early 1990s. “Last year I went out to Mavericks three times and I tow-surfed it with only a few friends each time I went. Now, one year later, there are five tow-in surf teams there,” says Bradshaw. “By next year, there are going to be tow-in competitions everywhere.” That’s not necessarily a good thing. Because tow-in surfing is relatively easy to learn, the pioneers of big-wave chasing may unwittingly end up unleashing a herd of novices on the high seas. In 1998 a group of Hawaii lifeguards and surfers, including Bradshaw, urged the state to mandate a certification program to ensure that tow-in surfers got some chops before they hit the big stuff. That bill died last year, but the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources has since taken up the cause and is now putting together a set of rules. Educational coursework and certification may be required, according to Oahu lifeguard operations chief James Howe, as might some kind of on-water exam, the equivalent of a big-wave road test. To Bradshaw, this is only the beginning. Someday, he speculates, there could actually be reservation times for tow-in surf spots. “It could be like a tennis court where someone has only 45 minutes to use the space.” As always, Mother Nature remains the ultimate enforcer. “People lose their jet skis and have bad wipeouts, and they figure out that they don’t belong out there,” says Troy Alotis, a 35-year-old entrepreneur who tow-in surfs the North Shore. In fact, the success of Project Neptune—tow-in’s prime-time debut—is an open question. This is, after all, a La Niña year, and as this issue went to press only a handful of big-wave swells had hit Mavericks.”No one has seen it with a huge 310-degree swell,” admits Marckx—though on October 29, the 16 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration buoys off the West Coast recorded the passing of a swell large enough to launch a 60-footer at CortĂ©s. Whether Project Neptune turns out to be a ripple or a record-breaker, tow-in is clearly taking surfing past its poetic roots toward points unknown—at breakneck speed. “Now that I have done tow-in surfing, it would be hard to go back in time and paddle in on the outer reefs,” says CortĂ©s Bank hopeful Alotis. “Tow-in surfing is pretty much here to stay.” Ìę

Commuting with Nature

An adventure-travel outfitter spawns a new trend

Winds Calm, Temperature Fair, Polymers Moist

Japan’s Snova Corporation perfects pseudo-snow and launches an indoor empire

Forget the Marshmallows, Just Run!

Northern Minnesota rangers patrol a tinder-dry disaster area

Catch-and-Release Hunting Proves a Sleeper Hit

If elephants need tranquilizing once in a while, why not charge tourists to pull the trigger?

Body by Gastropod

Marine science may yield the next generation of super-strong gear

The post Big-Wave Surfing Hitches a Ride appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.