VOLUME 245 APRIL 2024 NUMBER 04

Fabulous Scenes Fashion’s Going the

Fungi in Stone Graveyard Distance
How these marvels New revelations Where clothes The perilous and
are shaping life on from an ancient reach the end inspiring journey of
Earth, and our future synagogue of the line whooping cranes
P. 1 6 P. 5 2 P. 76 P. 1 1 2
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 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

FROM the EDITOR

N AT H A N LU M P

IN 2022, DURING MY FIRST WEEK forest that had taught me to pay

as National Geographic’s editor attention to fungi. The elegant
in chief, I met Harvard associate white winglike ones extending
and mycologist Giuliana Furci at from decaying logs. The crinkly
the National Geographic Society’s ones that popped up in fairy cir-
Explorers Festival in Washington, cles. The bright blue ones and
D.C. At this annual event, Explor- orange ones and black ones.
ers from all over the world gather Perhaps because of that connec-
to share their work and insights. tion, my talk with Furci sparked
Furci, who had traveled from the idea for this month’s cover
her home in Chile, is one of those story. The piece shares the most
incredible humans with whom, fascinating aspects of these organ-
in the space of just a few min- isms, from making up the myco-
utes, you can go from small talk biome in our bodies to their use
to soulful conversation—in this in fashion to how they’re affected
case, about fungi and their unsung by climate change.
place in our ecosystems and lives. I hope you enjoy the issue.
At the time, I was in the pro-
cess of moving to D.C. from Seat-
tle, where I lived surrounded by a
PHOTO: MARK THIESSEN

APRIL PAGE.2 2024

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VOLUME 245 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC NUMBER 04

CONTENTS

6 IN FOCUS | 15 CONTRIBUTORS

FEAT URES

16 70 96
THE WONDROUS BUGS ON THE MOVE EXTRAORDINARY
WORLD OF FUNGI Although these images MOMENTS
Most of us don’t give appear to be beautiful From the first free solo
much thought to these abstracts, they climb of Yosemite’s
organisms, but we depict the dizzying El Capitan to a polar
should. Not only do paths of flying insects. bear swimming under
they live within us; they ice, photographers
also make much of life share stories behind
76
on Earth possible. the scenes.
FA SHION ’S DESERT
G R AV E Y A R D
48 108
Thanks to cheap prices
EYE TO THE SKY and mass production, IMAGINING
In Wisconsin, the consumers buy and OTHER LIVES

historic observatory discard a lot of clothing. A best-selling author

housing the world’s Where does it go? reveals sources of her
largest refracting tele- Towering tons end up in creative inspiration,
scope is restored and Chile’s Atacama Desert. which include a
drawing new visitors. familiar yellow-
bordered magazine.
92
52 E V O LV I N G B E A S T S
SURPRISING SCENES 112
Illustrations from
IN STONE our archives show how G O I N G T H E D I S TA N C E
When archaeologists researchers’ under- By tracking wild
began excavating a site standing of dinosaurs whooping cranes,
in Israel’s Galilee, they has changed over the scientists are unraveling
found a fifth-century past hundred years. mysteries of the birds’
synagogue—with 5,000-mile round-trip
remarkable mosaics— migrations—and
94
giving clues about aiming to boost their
THE DECISIVE
ancient Jewish life. conservation success.
DISH TOWEL
This modest and
little-known item helped
bring an end to the
most divisive chapter in
American history.

1 3 4 N E W F R O M N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

O N T H E C OV E R The mushrooms of Kallipefki, Greece, are just a small part of the vast
world of fungi—wondrous and surprising, and with the potential to affect our lives in ways
we’re only beginning to understand. P h o t o g r a p h b y A G O R A S T O S P A P A T S A N I S

APRIL PAGE.4 2024

 Marie Selby Botanical Gardens

B reath e in n ature ,
exhale joy.
S a r a sota’s a b u n d a nt n atu r a l
wo n d e r s h ave a w ay of m a k in g
yo u fe e l b ot h re l a xe d a n d
e l ate d i n t h e s a m e m o m e nt .

VisitSarasota.com
 IN FOCUS

JUST IN FROM OUR PHOTOGRAPHERS

SCIENCE

“The Finding Darwin expedition provided me

with a PROFOUND IMMERSION into how he
slowly constructed his thoughts and the legacy
of scientific knowledge he left in Patagonia.”
M A R C I O P I M E N T A , Photographer and National Geographic Explorer

During his solo journey tracing the travels of Charles Darwin, supported by the
National Geographic Society, Pimenta encountered this life-size replica of a Patagotitan
dinosaur in Trelew, Argentina, home of the Egidio Feruglio Paleontological Museum.

APRIL PAGE.6 2024

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Retired business executives.
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 IN FOCUS

OCEANS

“Witnessing the synchronized elegance of thousands

of corals creating life NEVER CEASES TO AMAZE.
This enchanting phenomenon imparts a
unique aesthetic sensation, as if you’re gazing upon
an underwater, inverted, colorful snowstorm.”
T O M S H L E S I N G E R , Photographer

In the Red Sea, branching corals release egg-and-sperm bundles

into open water, where they will mingle and match. This “broadcast
spawning” event occurs only once a year for a few minutes at night.

APRIL 2024
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 IN FOCUS

C U LT U R E

“I learned about a group of women dedicated

to the EGYPTIAN GODDESS ISIS.
Their reverence for the waters of the Nile and
its history is representative of the importance
of the Nile to Egyptians and the world.”
M A T T M O Y E R , Photographer and National Geographic Explorer

Vera Novitskaya welcomes an offering as part of a ritual at the Temple

of Philae near Aswan. Moyer captured this scene while working on a National
Geographic Society–funded project about Egypt’s looming water crisis.

APRIL 2024
 SINGLE ORIGIN MĀNUK A HONEY
A G I F T F R O M T H E H O N E Y B E E & T H E M Ā N U K A T R E E R E F I N E D F O R YO U & M E

M A N U K A H E A LT H . C O M | @ M A N U K A H E A LT H S Y S T E M
 IN FOCUS

T R AV E L

“I love exploring the city without a set plan

and discovering all the interesting scenes along the
way, such as the neon sign of a restaurant and
the WARM LIGHT SPILLING onto the dark street.”
Z U Z A N A J A N E K O V A , Photographer

Iasai Food Bar in Bratislava, Slovakia, attracts patrons with its Asian dishes and
cozy vibe. Janekova thinks it’s a great place to go for dinner and a date.

APRIL 2024
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Cat adored.
Chef inspired.
LOVE IS IN THE DETAILS
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 IN FOCUS

ENVIRONMENT

“The Everglades watershed can be an

overwhelming place in its breadth and the issues
it faces. I started working on a series isolating
subjects against white backgrounds to DISTILL
COMPLEX ISSUES into simple visual narratives.”

M A C S T O N E , Photographer and National Geographic Explorer

Clinging in clusters to pickerelweeds and bulrushes, non-native island

apple snail eggs, which are bright pink, vastly outcompete the pale pink
native apple snail eggs in number (composite of 10 images).

APRIL 2024
 H E L P P ROT E C T T H E
WO N D E R O F O U R WO R L D
When you name the National Geographic Society as a beneficiary of a retirement
account, insurance policy, or other financial account you can help protect the
wonder of our world while still retaining control of your assets during your lifetime.

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Get started today! natgeo.org/givingdocs

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CREATE YOUR LEGACY

 S C R ATC H
& SNIFF

If you have an itch for travel you’ve been yearning to scratch, then set sail for the Holland and
Belgium in Springtime by River Cruise trip. From the delightful fragrance of a million blooming
tulips, to the alluring aroma of a meal prepared by the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, our National
Geographic Experts will take you on an unforgettable voyage of the senses. Even if this page
was scented, it could never compare to the real thing. So go, and experience it for yourself.

N ATG E O E X P E D I T I O N S .C O M | 1 - 8 8 8 -3 51 -3 274
 CONTRIBUTORS

N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
EXPLORER
This contributor has
received funding from the
National Geographic Society,
which is committed to
illuminating and protecting
the wonder of our world.

Tamara Merino, p . 7 6
Merino’s photography has taken her to
opal mines in Australia, migrant process-
ing centers on the U.S.-Mexico border,
and, for this feature on fashion waste, to
the Atacama Desert in Chile. An Explorer
since 2020, she visited subterranean
communities in Utah, Andalusia, and the
Australian outback for her project
Underland. Her latest project: capturing
images of her newborn daughter, Ona.
PHOTOS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP): TAMARA MERINO; SAM BRUCHEZ; TAMARA MERINO; RENE EBERSOLE; PAOLO VERZONE

Paolo Verzone, p . 5 2 Phyllis Ma, p . 1 6

For this issue, Images from Ma’s
Verzone, who lives ongoing series,
in Italy and Spain, Mushrooms & Friends,
photographed a frame this month’s
stunning synagogue story on “mycotex-
in Israel. His images tiles,” part of our
of the new Grand larger look at the hid-
Egyptian Museum den kingdom of fungi.
in the November 2022 issue were awarded Work by the New York–based photographer
first prize for science and natural history has appeared in outlets such as the New
by Pictures of the Year International. Yorker, Le Monde, and the New York Times.

Rene Ebersole, p . 1 1 2 John Bartlett, p . 7 6

A National Magazine Since moving to Chile
Award–winning in 2018, the British-
journalist, she has born writer has
traveled to some traversed the length
of the world’s most of the country to
remote places for cover subjects rang-
National Geographic, ing from fashion waste
including northern to Haitian refugees.
Canada’s vast boreal forests, where she “Still,” he says, “my favorite achievement is
reported this issue’s story about the migra- playing for Chile’s national cricket team
tions of whooping cranes. at the 2023 South American championships.”

APRIL PAGE.15 2024

AGORASTOS PAPATSANIS (CORAL SPINE AND PARASOLS)
 M AC RO L E P I O TA
P RO C E R A
While delectable, the
parasol mushroom—
seen here among
pines at dusk—is
a risky pick, as it can
be mistaken for
poisonous look-alikes
such as the death
cap mushroom.

Far left
H E R I C I UM C L AT H RO I D E S
The aptly nicknamed
coral spine fungus
cascades from a tree
in the Chalkidikí
Peninsula of Greece.
 The
Wondrous
World
of
Fungi
THEY’RE IN US,
ON US, AND ALL
A RO U N D U S .
A G R OW I N G
M OV E M E N T T O
S T U DY A N D P R O T E C T
OUR FUNGAL
N E I G H B O R S M AY
DEFINE OUR
I N T E RT W I N E D
FUTURES.

CALOSCYPHA FULGENS
Though fulgens is Latin
for “dazzling,” these
orange-hued mushrooms,
found here on Greece’s
Mount Olympus, are a
pathogenic fungus, killing
and mummifying the
dormant seeds of conifers.

19
 FLORA. FAUNA. FUNGA.
THE CASE FOR FUNGI to be considered their no mushroom field guides for the country
own kingdom within the natural world but there were no mycology programs at
was simple: Without them, much of life all. She vowed to change that and has since
as we know it on this planet—starting been documenting Chile’s native fungi.
with the ability of plants to live outside Now dozens of mycologists are ampli-
of water—would not exist. fying the call for “funga”—a new term for
It’s been at least 400 million years since the regional fungi population—to be pro-
mycorrhizal fungi helped plants colonize vided the same level of research funding
the Earth’s land, thanks to a pretty basic and biodiversity conservation as flora and
trade-off: Fungi tend to form a symbiotic fauna. Simultaneously, fungi figureheads
relationship with different plants and ani- like Paul Stamets, who appeared in the
mals, and they move by eating and expand- 2019 documentary Fantastic Fungi, and
ing outward. For most plants today, that Merlin Sheldrake, author of the best-selling
means fungi live within their root systems, 2020 book Entangled Life, have found their
metabolizing sugar from photosynthe- own ways to share the benefits and wonder
sis while helping them access water and of this hidden world.
critical nutrients. Not surprisingly, more international
But that’s only the beginning of what policy gatekeepers—such as Mexico’s
these tiny marvels can do. From yeast to Secretariat of Environment and Natural
mold to mushroom, the variety among Resources, the National Biobank of Thai-
fungi isn’t just remarkable but also far land, and Italy’s Institute for Environmental
wider than the diversity that exists among Protection and Research—and the Interna-
plants and vertebrates. There are around tional Union for Conservation of Nature
five million species of fungi, yet roughly are publicly pushing for funga’s inclusion
90 percent remain undocumented. Fungi in their own environmental conservation
are in our air, in our water, and even on work. So too is the National Geographic
our skin and within our bodies. Still, Society, which recently added funga to
researchers have only scratched the sur- its definition of “wildlife” to invite grant
face of why they’re so critical to keeping applications in this area and open up more
ecosystems in balance. opportunities for future Explorers.
“Fungi can show you that life begins In the pages ahead, you’ll learn more
even when another one ends,” says mycol- about why this effort is so important to
ogist Giuliana Furci, a Harvard Univer- our lives, from invasive species that can
sity associate and National Geographic signal how we’ll navigate a warming and
Explorer, about their crucial role in our changing world, to the complex “myco-
planetary life cycle. As founder of the biome” of bodily based fungi that offer
Fungi Foundation, she has spent the past new insight into how deadly diseases like
14 years leading the campaign for their cancer may spread (and some hints about
inclusion in conservation policy. treatment), to harnessing mycelium as a
For Furci, the aha moment arrived when, more eco-friendly fashion material. The
during a research trip as a university stu- world is a bigger petri dish than almost
AGORASTOS PAPATSANIS

dent in Chile, she came across an arrest- anyone ever imagined.

ing orange mushroom and, upon further The future is funga. Now is the time to
research, realized that not only were there understand what it holds. — N I C K M A RT I N

21
 L AC C A R I A
A M E T H YST I N A
Under the galaxy
purple cap of
this toxic beauty,
the mushroom
accumulates high
levels of arsenic.
 Chapter
One

Nature’s
Strange
Hitchhiker
FUNGI ARE
POPPING UP IN NEW
P L AC E S —W I T H
UNEXPECTED
CONSEQUENCES.

Words by
SARAH GIBBENS

Photographs by
AGORASTOS PAPATSANIS

23
 A
mushrooms
A N N E P R I N G L E WA S S U RV E Y I N G
at a field site in Tomales Bay State Park, just
north of San Francisco, when she found her-
self in a predicament. She was surrounded
by a sea of one of the world’s most dangerous
mushrooms: Amanita phalloides, commonly
known as the death cap.
“I couldn’t put my foot down without step-
ping on them,” Pringle says. “It was just a
valley of death. A total infestation.”
That was 20 years ago, when Pringle, now
OUDEMANSIELLA
a mycologist at the University of Wisconsin–
MU C I DA
Madison, was doing research at the University Porcelain mushrooms,
of California, Berkeley. Despite its prolifera- like these “towering”
tion, there was a rumor that the deadly mush- from a beech tree
on Mount Olympus,
room hadn’t originated on the Golden Coast.
reach between one
Six years and much DNA sequencing later, and three inches tall.
Pringle proved the rumor true: North Amer-
ica’s death cap mushroom was an invader, a
fungal species likely native to Europe.
Now found thousands of miles outside
that original range, death caps are the cul-
prit behind most mushroom-related poison- But death caps didn’t evolve to kill people.
ings. Their powerful toxins start to attack These mushrooms are mycorrhizal fungi.
the human body in as little as six hours after They spring from a tangle of fungal threads
they’re consumed, causing abdominal pain, that grow in soil and curl around tree roots,
nausea, and vomiting that, if untreated, helping the trees take up nutrients. This
can result in fatal liver failure. Last August activity underfoot both intrigues and wor-
three people in Australia died from ingesting ries scientists, like Pringle, who say we know
death caps, victims of an alleged poisoning. too little about the fungal kingdom and
The mushroom—about five inches tall with what happens when these underground
a greenish yellow-white cap—can be easily networks are rewired.
mistaken as edible. In British Columbia, a Over the past century, our world has become
child died after eating one in 2016; in North- more connected than ever, and fungi, like the
ern California, 14 people fell severely ill in death cap, have embarked on countless global
10 separate incidents during one particularly journeys, hitching a ride on imported plants or
scary week in 2017. simply wafting hundreds of miles in the wind.

24
Now climate change is allowing many of these And fungi are heterotrophs—capable of eat-
organisms to thrive in ecosystems that were ing other organisms, often breaking down
once too cold and dry. If history is any indica- wood and dead plant matter by releasing
tion, we may not be ready for what’s in store. and reabsorbing enzymes. Without fungi,
dead plants and animals would pile up on
IN A SENSE, fungi are a hid- forest floors, and most trees would struggle

I den earthly dimension we’re

only now learning how to see.
They thrive in soil and
to find the nutrients they need to survive.
“They’re probably closer to animals than
you think,” says Rabern Simmons, the curator
grow edible stalks like of fungi at the Purdue University Herbaria.
plants, but many of their For more than a billion years, fungi have
characteristics are distinctly unplantlike. evolved to live in specific environments,
Where plants have cell walls made of cellulose, sometimes in partnership with just one
fungi have chitin, a type of fiber also found in other species. But when a fungus is moved
the exoskeletons of insects and crustaceans. anywhere from dozens to thousands of miles

25
away, these complex relationships can go LAST AUTUMN, Pringle and
haywire. “It’s a perfect storm with fungal
pathogens,” says Stephen Parnell, an epide-
miologist at the University of Warwick who
L one of her students spent
weeks collecting hundreds of
death cap mushrooms from
models the spread of plant disease. golden-hued forests in the
Diverse strategies for reproduction help a United Kingdom, Hungary,
fungus survive. Airborne spores from differ- France, and Poland. These samples could help
ent species can intermingle in a new habi- scientists better understand why death caps
tat, or the mushrooms might fuse together thrive in some ecosystems and don’t in others.
the threads that form their underground Researchers are looking for a predator or
networks. But in a pinch, many can simply pathogen they can replicate to stop the mush-
reproduce asexually. rooms from invading forest floors, a method
With climates and landscapes changing at called biocontrol. But Pringle says one of the
record pace, says Parnell, these reproductive most effective ways to keep fungi in the right
traits make fungi uniquely—and worryingly— environment is prevention: Monitor imports
adaptable. In new environments, foreign of foreign species, and test them for fungi.
fungi can spread voraciously and remake the When fungal diseases can’t be prevented in
topography around them. an environment, treating them can become an
American chestnut trees were once giants immense undertaking. To restore the Amer-
of Appalachia, growing a hundred feet tall ican chestnut, several scientists have been
and 10 feet wide. In the early 20th century, working on decades-long breeding projects,
however, the fungus Cryphonectria parasitica one of which involves a controversial geneti-
landed on American soil. In Japan and cally modified tree. And while individual frogs
China, the fungus was only a nuisance to can be cured of chytrid, eradicating the fun-
Asian chestnut trees, but for the American gus in environments where it’s introduced is
chestnut it caused deep cankers that slowly nearly impossible. Last year, new research on
choked it of water and nutrients. An estimated how death caps produce their powerful toxin
four billion trees died over the following opened the door to a possible antidote.
century as a result. Some start-ups and nonprofits have prom-
As the last great American chestnut trees ising solutions for helping fungi help us.
withered, frogs and other amphibians faced Funga, a company in Austin, Texas, identi-
a similar peril with a fungal pathogen known fies native fungi that can assist trees in stor-
as chytrid. Believed to have originated on the ing more carbon. SPUN, a scientific research
Korean Peninsula, the fungus lived in har- organization, is mapping the world’s fungi
mony with local amphibians. But over the to identify regional hot spots in need of con-
past 150 years, chytrid has spread around servation. At least 350 species are already at
the globe and is now associated with the risk of going extinct, though the real figure is
decline of at least 500 amphibian species; likely much higher.
it’s caused 90 species to disappear from their For Simmons at Purdue’s Herbaria, win-
habitats. It’s been described as the worst ning the race against the biodiversity clock is
wildlife disease in history. critical—for humanity and fungi alike. “We’re
“We’re moving biological material across finding things that are beneficial to humanity
the world in a matter of hours, across con- in some way, whether it be the production of
tinents that were long separated,” says compounds like biofuels or compounds that
Ben Scheele, an ecologist at the Australian are understood to have medicinal purposes.”
National University. “We essentially have What’s kept protected, he adds, may one day
re-created dysfunctional Pangaea.” solve the next problem we might create.

26
 The Forgotten
Fungal Detective
HOW A PIONEER
OF MODERN
M YC O LO GY S H A P E D
THE U.S. RESPONSE
T O P O T E N T I A L LY
D E VA S TAT I N G
T H E N AT I O N A L C H E R RY PLANT DISEASES history of the specimen,”
Blossom Festival in Washing- Castlebury says. Scientists
ton, D.C., has been a source can now compare the col-
of pride and tourism dollars lections’ samples against
for nearly a century. But when suspicious spots, growths,
Japan’s original gift of 2,000 that could have severely or discolored plants to
cherry trees arrived in the damaged the food supply. help speed identification.
United States as a gesture of Patterson’s fungal detec- When Patterson held
friendship in late 1909, that tive work helped encourage Castlebury’s job a century
future seemed far from bright. Congress to pass the Plant ago, her day-to-day tasks
The trees were riddled with Quarantine Act of 1912, which varied: Fungal enthusiasts
insects, and several had ring- mandated that all U.S. ports often showed up to the
shaped dead spots on their inspect and detain suspicious USDA’s offices to ask for help
bark—often a symptom of a plants. The law opened up her identifying mushrooms they’d
contagious fungal disease. access to new samples: Over foraged. During World War I,
After inspecting the con- the course of her career, she Patterson furthered that
signment, the U.S. Depart- would bolster the burgeoning work, co-authoring a USDA
ment of Agriculture’s National Fungus Collections guide to teach the public
“mycologist in charge,” Flora with more than 90,000 new which backyard mushrooms
Patterson, filed a curt letter specimens for study. Japan could be eaten. Her team
to her superiors. She identi- also eventually sent replace- also identified several new
fied the fungus as a type of ment cherry trees. plant diseases and conducted
Pestalozzia, but, she wrote, “It’s thanks to people like experiments to fumigate
it was “impossible to decide Flora, who had the foresight emerging pathogens.
with the limited time avail- to know we should collect Described in a 1914 news-
able” if the species was and preserve them, that we paper article as the “shield
already indigenous to the U.S. are able to go back in time between the American farmer
In academic parlance, she and and see what a predominant and the plant-disease germs
her team were sounding the disease-causing fungus of Europe,” Patterson was
alarm. After a flurry of diplo- was back then,” says Lisa unlike many other women of
matic letters to Tokyo, Pres- Castlebury, the current USDA her era because her work was
ident William Howard Taft director of the collections, well documented. (Female
approved the trees’ destruc- which are located in Belts- scientists at the USDA were
tion on January 28, 1910, and ville, Maryland. allowed to publish under
the shipment was set ablaze Today that cache makes their own name, according
on the National Mall. up the world’s largest fully to research by Western
It was a radical move. But searchable fungus database, Connecticut State University
by the early 1900s, fungal with roughly a million sam- fungal ecologist Hannah
stowaways had already led ples. And much of Patterson’s Reynolds.) Yet Patterson’s
to an outbreak of chestnut work is still part of it. Indi- most lasting mark remains
blight, which would wipe out vidual specimens and their largely unseen. Fungal hitch-
many existing U.S. forests. carefully dried plant hosts are hikers are now routinely
Shortly before the cherry stored in envelopes on stiff detected and quarantined
trees arrived, Patterson and paper alongside detailed, or destroyed at ports and
several of her employees had handwritten notes from Pat- airports due partly to the
been tasked with investigat- terson and other scientists. protocols she helped enact.
ing other import threats and “It’s an intersection of natural No public bonfires required.
found a potato wart fungus history and other history—the — D I N A F I N E M A RO N
 P LU T E U S C E RV I N U S
Ushering in the next
generation and growth
cycle, spores of a deer
mushroom on Mount
Olympus shake free
and dance in the
air beneath its gills.
 b

c d

Chapter Two

The Hidden Kingdom

a. Xylaria polymorpha; b. Termitomyces reticulatus; c. Armillaria mellea;
d. Cantharellus cibarius; e. Leucoagaricus americanus;
f. Cordyceps militaris; g. Auricularia auricula; h. Morchella esculenta
 Amanita phalloides, one
A common thread of the deadliest known
mushrooms, is often
The fungal kingdom encompasses fatal if ingested. This
seemingly endless forms, but nearly all its has earned it a nickname:
members share one trait: cell walls made the death cap.
of chitin. This solid but flexible substance Cantharellus, or chanterelles,
also makes up exoskeletons in arthropods grow only on trees and are
some of the most commonly
such as insects and shellfish.
harvested edible mushrooms.

Phallus impudicus, a
stinkhorn, is known for its
Cryptococcus neoformans is phallic shape and foul odor;
a fungal pathogen that can be the latter attracts flies to
Puccinia graminis, also fatal in those with weakened
Massospora cicadina known as stem rust, disperse its spores.
immune systems, especially
hijacks cicada bodies and preys on wheat and other HIV-positive individuals.
drives them to copulate, Ustilago maydis destroys grains and can destroy
increasing the spread corn, but the resulting entire fields of crops.
of this fungal pathogen. growths taste like truffle and
are enjoyed as the Mexican
delicacy huitlacoche.

Rhizophagus irregularis may

have helped plants colonize
land by breaking down
organic matter in soil and
sharing nutrients with them.

Most mushrooms
The class Agaricomy-
cetes contains many of
BASIDIOMYCOTA today’s most commonly
Also known as club fungi, they recognized mushrooms.
produce showy fruiting bodies
with cells that resemble clubs
En

from which spores develop A

to

ARY
DIK
rrh

and are expelled.

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis
izo

LATER STAGE DIVERSITY

is an aquatic fungus that attacks
my

Fungi called Dikarya have hyphae

frogs’ skin and is responsible
co

that are divided into compartments

for the decline of more than 500
ta

they can close to protect the larger

amphibian species. MUCOROMYCOTA fungal network from damage.
This phylum’s fungi They typically have a fruiting body
include organisms that that releases spores for reproduction.
Ol

evolved mutually with

pi

plants, forming net-

di
al

works with their roots.

es

Aphelidium, one
of the earliest ZOOPAGOMYCOTA
diverging branches Sometimes parasitic,
of fungi, is parasitic CHYTRIDIOMYCOTA sometimes symbiotic
and kills algae. These ancient aquatic with their hosts, these
fungi feature spores
that retain a tail,
or flagellum, which
fungi have lost their
flagellated spores. The fungal family tree
makes them mobile.
Sometimes beneficial, other times deadly,
M

FIRST FUNGI
Bl

fungi have shaped life on Earth for over

on
as

ob

Most early diverging fungi are

to
Cr

A a billion years. They’re in the food we eat

le
cl
yp

Ro ph aquatic. They explore and feed

rs

ad

ph
to
de

to eli using filaments known as hyphae. and the air we breathe, and more than
io

ar
m

sp dia
or

id
yc

The single-celled nature of

yc

om

h le
al

90 percent of plants need them for water

ot

More aer s ce
ot
ng

these hyphae makes them highly

a

yc

en r
a

id
an
Fu

rg ate and nutrients. Our understanding of these

ot

a vulnerable to injury or death.

d

ve L
a
M

di organisms is infinitesimal: Of at least five

ic

of
ro

Genetic relatedness e r
sp

Ag rlie
million species, only about 150,000 have been
or

Orders that branch a

id

E identified and classified in a family tree.

ia

closer to the top of In general, orders that appear

the curve are more Less to the right of the curve
genetically similar. diverged from the common
fungal ancestor later.
 Genetic diversity Genetic divergence from index species
by average protein similarity
Fungal variety is extreme. For example, Humans Mice Birds Fish
the fungus that makes penicillin is as
Saccharomyces cerevisiae,
or common yeast, is used
genetically different from the one that 100% 90 80 70 60
for fermentation, from ripens blue cheeses as humans are from
leavening bread to fish. This may be one reason around 2,000 Aspergillus nidulans Aspergillus Penicillium
making beer and wine. new species are classified every year. Produces penicillin terreus roqueforti
Produces Used to
Penicillium is a genus of mold cholesterol- ripen blue
that decomposes organic reducing statins cheeses
Morchella esculenta,
matter, can be used to fight
or morels, are edible
bacterial infections, and even
mushrooms foraged in
gives flavor to soft cheeses.
woodland environments
and prized by chefs.

Letharia vulpina, the

wolf lichen, long used to
poison wolves and other
predators, is being tested
for its medicinal potential. Xylaria polymorpha, or dead
man’s fingers, is a soft rot
fungus that digests dead wood
and gets its name from its black,
finger-like fruiting bodies.

Chlorociboria turns wood a

blue-green color; used as a dye
Most lichens
for centuries, it’s now being
Lecanoromycetes is
explored as a treatment for
the largest class of
ailments such as osteoporosis.
lichens, which coexist
with bacteria or algae.

Ambrosiella roeperi forms

a symbiotic relationship
with the ambrosia beetle:
The fungus feeds the beetle,
ASCOMYCOTA which disperses the fungus.
These sac fungi form spores in
pouches and often reproduce
asexually. Known as spore shooters,
they scatter their progeny via Cordyceps is a genus of parasitic
wind and water. fungi that have been used in
Chinese medicine for 2,000 years;
many species grow on insects,
ultimately killing them.

Prototaxites, an extinct fungus,

formed large trunklike structures Distant relatives
up to three feet wide and 26 feet Fungi are biologically closer to animals than
tall, making it by far the largest
they are to plants. Both acquire energy by PLANTS FUNGI Waste recyclers
land-dwelling organism of its Many fungi in Sordariomycetes,
time, some 400 million years ago. absorbing or consuming dissolved molecules. AN
IM derived from the Latin sordes
AL
A key difference: Animals, including humans, S (filth), grow in animal feces.
digest food internally, while fungi secrete
enzymes to break down food externally.

Last Evolutionary relationship

REPORTING: BRANDON SHYPKOWSKI
SOURCES: TIMOTHY JAMES, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN; ANTONIS ROKAS,
common among plants, fungi,
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY; JASON STAJICH, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE ancestor and animals
 e

g h

Much more than just mushrooms, fungi are organisms

more closely related to humans than to plants. Despite
being recognized as their own kingdom on the tree of life,
only a small fraction of them are known to scientists. P S I L O C Y B E C YA N E S C E N S
Photographed in a
Graphic by J A S O N T R E A T studio, these intertwined
Illustrations by K A T Y W I E D E M A N N wavy caps are among
the many species of
psychedelic mushrooms
found along the west
coast of North America.
 Chapter
Three

The Fungus
Within Us
DOE S THE FUNGAL
KINGDOM HOLD THE
K E Y TO U N LO C K I N G
T H E N E X T WAV E
O F A DVA N C E M E N T S I N
C A N C E R R E S E A RC H ?

Words by
LANGDON COOK
PHYLLIS MA

37
 medicinal mushrooms. In 2022, scientists in
India and Belgium published a comprehen-
sive survey of peer-reviewed literature on the
topic. While at least 32 species showed prom-

T ise, according to the report, only around a

dozen had been clinically tested for their
potentially therapeutic properties.
“Mushrooms produce a wide range of chem-
icals not readily found in other organisms,”
says Walter Luyten, a professor emeritus at
the Belgian university KU Leuven who con-
tributed to the report. Some of these naturally
T W O Y E A R S AG O,medical researchers taking derived compounds interact with the immune
a close look at cancer cells announced system to, as the report notes, “exhibit potent
they had found a strange and surprising antitumor activity,” meaning they might slow
neighbor: fungi. But these fungi didn’t just the growth of certain cancers or even keep
live near tumors—they offered clues about them from forming. Species such as reishi
how deadly the cancer might be. Candida (Ganoderma lucidum) and maitake (Grifola
yeasts associated with colon cancer were frondosa), to name just two, have shown
predictive of metastatic growth, while with promise in clinical studies.
gastrointestinal cancer, they correlated with Though mushrooms are vastly understud-
poor survival rates. ied, Luyten and his team called them “one of
It’s still too early to know if the fungi fuel the best gifts of nature for new ... pharmaceuti-
the disease or if the disease is somehow incu- cals,” if we can better understand them.
bating the fungi. But at the very least, these This is the paradox of medicinal fungi: It’s
discoveries hint that there may be a new way a mysterious realm that could help or hurt us.
to diagnose people earlier and better under- Understanding this difference, and how best to
stand their prognosis. harness what we’re learning, hinges on explor-
“Initially, we were astounded,” says Iliyan ing a broader frontier called the mycobiome.
Iliev, an immunologist at Weill Cornell Med-
icine in New York and one of the researchers YO U R B O DY I S certainly no
who made the fungi-cancer connection. In
addition to Candida, his team found several
other fungal species that were associated
Y stranger to good or bad fungi.
The yeast in your stomach
that helps regulate diges-
with the disease, such as Blastomyces in lung tion? That’s a good thing. The
cancer and Malassezia, a variety of yeast, tied fungal infection on your skin
to breast cancer. that causes athlete’s foot? Not so much. Among
Part of that surprise, for many, might be the trillions of tiny microbes that live on or
because of another link between fungi and inside each of us in a delicate balance, there
our health. Medicinal mushrooms are sold are bacteria, viruses, and single-celled proto-
throughout the world in various forms, from zoans, all of which are part of what’s known as
MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER BROWN

tinctures and capsules to powders and teas. your microbiome. Fungi are also included in
They sustain a $30 billion business that’s that universe, but in recent years researchers
expected to double by 2032, in part because have assigned them a separate designation—
of their cancer-fighting association. the mycobiome—in recognition that these
Even so, researchers are still at an early organisms work quite differently.
stage of understanding the true benefits of Siew Ng, director of the Microbiota I-Center

38
at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, says
our body’s fungal community is a “small but
crucial component” of the gastrointestinal
microbiome in particular. But while gut fungi
such as Candida, Saccharomyces, and Clad-
osporium are all fundamental to our health,
they have also been linked to diseases. Can-
dida, for instance, can overpopulate and cause
Shroom
dysbiosis, a disorder associated with many
health issues, including colorectal cancer. In
Science
other words, good fungi can become too suc- Simplified
cessful and run amok, and turn into bad fungi.
For Deepak Saxena, a microbiologist at New
York University, the life-altering question is
simple: Why do some fungi inhabit tumors?
Saxena’s research group was the first to
identify fungi in pancreatic cancer, finding
in 2019 that a Malassezia yeast can migrate
from the small intestine to the pancreas and
inhabit cancer cells. Saxena hypothesizes that
the fungi’s presence in the pancreas might
be because of either immunosuppression
or some other kind of altered environment
that tumors help create. In lab experiments
with mice, Saxena has seen the use of anti-
fungal treatments arrest tumor progression,
although plenty of research has shown that
what works in mice often isn’t directly trans-
ferable to humans.
For mushroom experts, it’s not as simple
T H E G R A N D D A U G H T E R of a
as using one thing to treat another either. licensed traditional herbal
Ng says that traditional varietals like reishi doctor, Ophelia Chong
and turkey tail (Trametes versicolor) have began cultivating fungi in
Los Angeles nine years ago.
immune-boosting properties that have been She injects live mushroom
shown to enhance the efficacy of chemother- tissue into a liquid culture
apy. Numerous studies also indicate that of water mixed with honey,
many mushroom species do, in fact, contain dextrose, or malt extract.
(Sugar feeds the develop-
anticancer compounds, including biologi- ing fungi.) After several
cally active carbohydrates and terpenes that weeks on a magnetic stir
stimulate the immune system. Still, there are plate, the resulting mix is
moved to a bag of grain
questions about what dose is most effective and then soil, where it
and whether any of these would work as a will eventually produce
stand-alone treatment. mushrooms for personal
medicinal and culinary use.
In the meantime, there are no mushroom-
based cancer drugs or immunity boosters on
the market today that have been approved by
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. That

39
 C A N D I DA A L B I C A N S
Viewed with a scanning
electron microscope in this
color-enhanced photo,
C. albicans is found in the
human gut, or more
specifically the mycobiome.
At high levels, it may
be linked to conditions like
irritable bowel syndrome.

makes any mushroom-related remedy sold fan-shaped fungus the size of a half-dollar
over the counter with health claims essen- growing on a decayed nurse log. Its earthen-
tially “try at your own risk.” hued bands resembled the plumage of a game
MARTIN OEGGERLI, MYCOLOGY, AND PATHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY

For some people, however, that seemingly bird. This is what turkey tail looks like in the
HOSPITAL BASEL AND SWISS NANOSCIENCE INSTITUTE, BASEL

untapped potential has led them to seek wild, he told the crowd.
another kind of guidance. Rogers isn’t a doctor. He’s a self-described
clinical herbalist and the author of The Fungal
this
O N A N O V E R C A S T D AY Pharmacy, a field guide to identifying mush-

O past October near Port

Angeles, Washington, Rob-
ert Rogers tromped through
rooms and lichens with purported health ben-
efits. And he’s one of many ad hoc enthusiasts
who have compiled research about incorporat-
a shady, wooded area fol- ing fungi into everyday health routines, often
lowed by a dozen intrepid as a preventive measure. Most commonly
foragers who had signed up for his specially consumed mushrooms—even the ubiquitous
guided tour as part of the annual Olympic grocery store button—have phytonutrients
Peninsula Fungi Festival. He pointed to a beneficial to our health. When it comes to

40
cancer, however, medicinal fungi such as tur- of the mycobiome. In another recent study,
key tail are not exactly assassins. “They don’t researchers at NYU, including Saxena, found
kill cancer cells on sight,” he explains. “They that there are 20 distinct types of fungi that
encourage the immune system to do the job.” may someday be useful in distinguishing
More specifically, Ng says, turkey tail has between people with cancer and those with-
been shown to increase the production of cyto- out, pushing forward the idea that early
kines, which aid the body’s cellular response testing of fungi might pave the way for better
to fighting a foreign pathogen or tumor. Used diagnoses and treatment.
traditionally for centuries, a chemical from the Compare the potential advances of medic-
mushroom has been the focus of more than inal fungi to the advent of penicillin. One of
four dozen clinical trials to date. the great fungi-based infection fighters of the
As for the connection between fungi and modern age, it was discovered accidentally
cancer cells, Iliev concedes that he initially nearly a century ago, after a physician let
considered it to be “biologically improba- mold grow in a petri dish of Staphylococcus
ble,” but he’s since shifted toward “cautious bacteria. Who knows what other connections
optimism” about unraveling more mysteries we might find now that we’ve started looking?

41
 GA N O D E R M A S E S S I L E
When not in the
studio for its close-up,
this species (pictured
specimen was cultivated)
can be found in the
northeastern United
States on oak, maple,
and beech trees.

42
 Chapter
Four

Growing
the Future of
Fashion
I N T H E WO R L D O F
M YC O T E X T I L E S ,
C U LT I VAT I O N B E C O M E S
C U LT U R E , O N E
H A N D BAG AT A T I M E .

Words by
GIRI NATHAN

Photographs by
PHYLLIS MA

43
 Each tray is incubating mycelium, a mesh of
fine filaments that, for fungi, are roughly anal-
ogous to a plant’s root system. Mycelium is a

I structural marvel—simultaneously soft, dense,

and strong—which makes it a great potential
replacement for leather. Coaxing mycelium
to grow in predictable ways may be a com-
plex task, but recent advances in biotech have
opened up a cottage industry for mycotextiles.
The early efforts appear to be more ethical,
environmentally sustainable, and efficient
than the multibillion-dollar industry that is
animal leather. And MycoWorks is just one of
a wave of innovators, all of which are betting
I N P R E S E N T- DAY R O M A N I A , a dwindling num- big that a better understanding of mycelium
ber of artisans practice what’s thought to be can redefine the limits of fashion and design.
a centuries-old craft. They search the forest
for hoof fungus, which grows within trees and M YC OWO R K S C O - F O U N D E R
sends out shelflike mushrooms a few inches
wide. The fungus is pried off trunks and, with
a sickle, shaved lengthwise into thin strips
M Phil Ross has been exper-
imenting for more than
30 years with Ganoderma,
the color of gingerbread. Those strips are a genus of fungi that grow a
then hammered and stretched to form broad, lot like hoof fungus in the
feltlike sheets called amadou, which can be wild. As an artist in his San Francisco apart-
crafted into hats, bags, jewelry, and ornaments. ment, he learned how to manipulate the fungi
These products are beautiful and eco- into a range of forms: In 2009 he constructed
friendly, if painstaking to forage for and create. a “teahouse” made of bricks that could be
As far back as 1903, Tlingit artisans in what is removed and brewed into tea.
now the state of Alaska were crafting pouches Ross first considered mycological-based
out of a sturdy matlike material. A 2021 study construction materials, but an inquiry from
in the journal Mycologia suggests that these a shoe company in 2015 helped him and
“mats” were produced by the agarikon fungus, co-founder Sophia Wang refocus on fashion.
a hardy polypore native to old-growth forests The material that MycoWorks now produces
in the Pacific Northwest. But, again, the arti- is called Reishi, borrowing the Japanese word
sans’ process was about foraging for materials, for Ganoderma. In recent years, MycoWorks
not cultivating them for mass production. products have been used in designer bags for
Today, inside a 136,000-square-foot facility Hermès and upscale pillows for Ligne Roset.
in Union, South Carolina, the biotechnology The low-energy operation starts with agri-
company MycoWorks is pioneering a more cultural waste, like sawdust and bran, which is
intentional and scalable approach. Beneath heated to eliminate any existing microbial life
dim red lighting that resembles a darkroom’s, that might be competition for the fungus. Once
stacks of metal trays are arranged in tall col- sterilized, the substrate goes into “deep-dish,
umns. Large mechanical arms whirl about, lasagna-like trays” of varying sizes, says Ross.
ready to pluck them individually for close Then Ganoderma joins the party, digesting and
inspection by a small team of technicians who growing through the biomass. In some cases,
wear sterile suits and examine the contents fabric can be added to the tray as a scaffolding
with flashlights. for the mycelium to weave around, creating a

44
 composite material. The sheet of mycelium On a recent day, she held up a small black
is eventually peeled off the sawdust block, handbag as proof of that proprietary process.
and growth comes to a halt. From there, Neffa uses bioreactor tanks—basically a fer-
it can be “tanned” to yield a material eas- menting system similar to a brewery’s—to
ily mistaken for traditional leather before concoct a mycelial slurry that is strained out
being crafted into, say, a purse or hat. of the liquid and then poured onto a mold to
MycoWorks CEO Matt Scullin, who has dry into any desired form.
a background in materials science, praises “You can really design from the product,
the “wet spaghetti” structure of mycelium, rather than designing from the material,”
which is composed of filaments—called Hoitink says, flexing and stretching the
hyphae—that entangle one another and bag’s glossy black material that’s somewhere
branch off in treelike patterns while leaving between plastic and leather, almost reminis-
empty space between the cells. The result cent of licorice. “Technically, the bottom [of
accounts for some of Reishi’s most appeal- the bag] needs to be the strongest. So you
ing properties. “It has a bit of a velvety touch could say, OK, we add a little bit more biomass
to it,” Scullin says. “It has a bounce. It has an here so that it’s thicker and sturdier.”
absorptivity to the oils and heat that ema- This basic process allows Neffa versatility
nate from your fingers when you touch it.” with minimal labor. Most important, Hoitink
says, is that the liquid-culture process affords a
W H I L E M YC E L I U M C A N B E freedom to experiment with speculative ideas.

W grown in mechanized
warehouses, Aniela Hoit-
ink, the founder of the
“Because it’s a slurry, you can add ingredients
a bit easier,” she says. The company’s next step,
she suggests, may be to infuse the materials
Dutch company Neffa, with branded aromas or even skin-care com-
short for New Fashion pounds that treat conditions like psoriasis.
Factory, uses a liquid-culture technique That’s just one way these products may dif-
to create bags, crop tops, even lampshades. fer from standard leather. Both companies

Tricks of
the Fungal
Leather Trade
G R O W N F R O M A S T R A I N of Gan-
oderma, MycoWorks’s patented
leatherlike material is achieved by
encouraging the fungus’s strands of
mycelium to spread, says CEO Matt
Scullin. In nature, when a mycelium
reaches the end of its food source,
it reproduces; through an interplay
of temperature, light, and humid-
ity, MycoWorks can manipulate the
mycelium’s growth to create the
JESSE GREEN

desired shape, size, and texture.

45
are thinking about their eco-footprint and ones. Sometimes it swirls dye into eddies
the complete life cycle of their goods too. of startling new color. In past experiments,
MycoWorks’s Reishi, for example, is fully bio- Elston allowed the mycelium to break down
degradable—allowing for a future in which the existing material completely. “It feels like
disposing of an old pair of shoes might mean it has this intellectual understanding that we
simply composting it. as humans don’t have,” she says. “The most
beautiful pieces have come out of me not
W H I L E L A RG E R C O M PA N I E S being in control.”

W hope to use fungi to generate

wholly new environmentally
friendly materials at scale,
Maggie Paxton, a mycophile in New York
who hunts new pigments on her foraging
walks, treats silk gowns with mushroom
independent designers are dyes for the American fashion house Coach.
exploring their potential Recently, she took earth balls—mushrooms
to modify or break down the planet’s extant that resemble old golf balls, as if aged to a dull
heaps of discarded fabric. Helena Elston, brown—and boiled them in a stockpot. She
a New York–based designer, was studying was startled to discover this dye turned her silk
fashion in London a few years ago when she “the prettiest petal pink”—a color that might
devised an ethical response to the waste in her inspire a future collection.
industry. She finds an old garment or stitches Many designers still seem surprised enough
one together with scrap material, sterilizes it, by the behavior of fungi that they talk as if
and then adds an appliqué of mycelium. they’re collaborating with a vibrant, alien
Over the ensuing months, she’ll watch as intelligence. “That’s the whole excitement
the mycelium wends its way through the about the field in general,” Paxton says. “We
material. Sometimes it selectively eats at have no idea what magic is lying there right
the natural fibers and ignores the synthetic before us.” The goal is to keep finding out. j

46
 T O LY P O C L A D I UM
PA R A D OXUM
A mycoparasite
found in China,
Japan, and Korea,
T. paradoxum,
pictured in studio,
overtakes
a host cicada.

Top left
GA N O D E R M A S E S S I L E
A pathogenic
fungus, G. sessile
(featured specimen
was cultivated)
feeds on the roots
of deciduous
hardwood trees.
 JOURNEYS

EYE to the SKY

In Wisconsin, the world’s largest refracting

telescope is once more open to visitors.

Words by B I L L N E W C O T T

Photographs by
CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK

INSIDE THE DOME of Yerkes Observatory, ancient switch and the dome’s entire circu-
tucked along the shore of Wisconsin’s lar floor—at 75 feet in diameter, one of the
Geneva Lake, in the town of Williams Bay, world’s largest elevators—rises 23 feet to
it is emphatically 1897. The still-rotating give the person access. Then, in a maneu-
metal half sphere is dominated by an enor- ver familiar to any backyard stargazer,
mous, lovingly polished refracting the viewer takes hold of the massive tele-
telescope—a 60-foot-long, six-ton contrap- scope with two hands and physically shifts
tion with two 40-inch lenses at one end and the impeccably balanced device toward the
an eyepiece at the other. The thing is almost desired point of light.
ridiculously fanciful. Ironically, the cost of maintaining all
If an astronomer or a visitor wants to look this low-tech equipment is dauntingly
through that eyepiece, an operator flips an high. Today, as tour groups shuffle through

APRIL PAGE.48
 Yerkes, it’s easy to forget that the observa-
tory nearly met with a wrecking ball after
Top
For his 1921 U.S. tour,
the University of Chicago closed it in 2018.
Albert Einstein (seventh They call Yerkes the birthplace of mod-
from right) insisted ern astrophysics, but when I visited the
on visiting Yerkes (left).
YERKES OBSERVATORY (EINSTEIN)

facility about two years ago, it looked

Above more like a place teetering on extinction.
This Milky Way image, from The monumental telescope was draped in
Yerkes’s archive of over thick, clouded plastic sheeting that movie
175,000 glass plates, is by gangsters tend to use to wrap the bodies of
astronomer E. E. Barnard,
who discovered dust clouds their victims. It was a humbling state for a
in our home galaxy. precision device that was once a magnet

PAGE.49 2024
 JOURNEYS

Yerkes’s $15 million renovation included repairs to its three signature domes.
The largest, 90 feet in diameter, rotates on 36 wheels.

for the elite of astrophysicists and theoret- But the glories of Yerkes are not con-
ical astronomers—Albert Einstein, Edwin fined to the heavens: The building itself is
Hubble, Gerard Kuiper, and Carl Sagan a thing of beauty. Festooned with elaborate
among them. Victorian-era stone carvings, Romanesque
But even as I tried to make out the tele- arches, and terra-cotta figures, the land-
scope above, Yerkes was being reborn mark observatory was created by George
thanks to a $15 million facelift—inside and Ellery Hale and Charles Tyson Yerkes—two
out—financed by a nonprofit group that men with very different agendas.
took possession of the building in 2020. Hale, an astrophysicist, had the then
For the first time in more than a century, revolutionary notion to establish a facility
the observatory—including its 50-acre that housed both an observatory and an
grounds—is open for public tours of its academic institution at which physicists
working space-science facility. and chemists applied their discoveries to
Over the past few years, Yerkes staff new theories about astrophysics. Financier
have been preparing for what they expect Yerkes, on the other hand, was one of Chi-
to be one of the busiest days the institution cago’s most hated businessmen. He poured
has ever seen: North America’s total solar money into the observatory to rehabilitate
eclipse on April 8, 2024. Williams Bay will his image, but it didn’t work—and he ended
see 90.2 percent totality, and Wisconsinites up moving to New York.
who don’t want to drive hundreds of miles Yerkes’s face, however, is depicted on
to witness complete darkness could find no the observatory’s exterior columns—albeit
more compelling a setting for near totality with a sinister smile and devilish horns.
than here beneath these storied domes. “The artists had fun with that,” notes

APRIL PAGE.50
 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

of men who turned the gargantuan device

one click at a time.
Even after reflector telescopes, which
use mirrors to collect and focus light,
became the favored tool for space studies,
Yerkes’s staff continued to publish influen-
tial papers. Its archives hold thousands of
research works—including Hubble’s orig-
inal 1920 doctoral thesis.
In 2018 the university began winding
down its Yerkes presence. Astronomers
comparing present-day star positions
with where they were a century ago still
Terra-cotta globes, complete with zodiac
signs, were restored prior to being placed referenced Yerkes’s 175,000 photographic
once again above Yerkes’s entrances. plates, but the halls, once bustling with
scientists, fell silent. When the call went
out to support the restoration project, the
Dennis Kois, executive director of the influx of cash from astronomy and archi-
Yerkes Future Foundation, which inher- tecture enthusiasts across the United
ited the observatory from the university. States, including many from the neighbor-
“Nobody liked Yerkes.” ing town of Lake Geneva—for nearly 200
The telescope’s 500-pound lens—cast years a playground of the Chicago rich—
in France, ground in Massachusetts—made was overwhelming.
the instrument the biggest ever version “People have always wanted to visit
of the handheld, two-lens, direct-view here,” Kois says. That almost mystical
telescope used by Galileo in 1609. Because appeal persists today, whether visitors are
Yerkes’s was one of the first large telescopes star buffs or not. “There’s something about
designed for photography, its tube needed looking directly into a beam of light that
to rotate with absolute precision to follow has traveled millions of light-years just to
star tracks—a feat accomplished by a team end up at the back of your eyeball.” j

T R AV E L T I P S

W H AT T O K N OW W H E R E T O S TAY
Yerkes is less than two Opened in 1968 in
hours’ drive from Chi- Lake Geneva, Grand
WISCONSIN cago and Milwaukee. Geneva Resort & Spa
Yerkes Observatory Its guided 1.5-hour is a marvel of Frank
U N I T E D S TAT E S tour “Space & Spaces” Lloyd Wright–inspired
is offered daily ($43/ architecture.
adult). Other events
include concerts W H E R E T O E AT
and readings. Check Mars Resort, on
program dates and nearby Lake Como,
buy tickets at yerkes is a classic Wisconsin
NGM MAPS

observatory.org. supper club.

PAGE.51 2024
Mosaics uncovered on the
floor of a fifth-century
synagogue in Israel’s Gali-
lee include a woman’s face
and a dedication in Hebrew
(below). The scene next to
it may show the high priest
of Jerusalem meeting with
Alexander the Great.
MARK THIESSEN

52
 R E C E N T LY C O M P L E T E D E XC AVAT I O N S
O F A R O M A N - E R A S Y N A G O G U E
R E V E A L E L A B O R AT E M O S A I C S —A N D
U P E N D L O N G - H E L D B E L I E F S
A B O U T A N C I E N T J E W I S H L I F E .

SURPRISING
SCENES IN STONE
 PE AS LEBANON
EURO IA Boundary
claimed
MAP by Syria
AREA GOLAN
AF HEIGHTS
RICA Ancient
village SYRIA
of Huqoq
Sea of
Galilee
W ES T
Me d i t e r r a n e a n B AN K
Sea
Jerusalem
GAZA Dead
STRIP Sea

I S R A E L
EGYP

DAN
JO R
T

30 mi
30 km
Gulf of
Aqaba NGM MAPS

W O R D S B Y A N N R . W I L L I A M S
P H O T O G R A P H S B Y PA O L O V E R Z O N E

Student volunteer Anna

Lafleur, sweeping off a newly
WHEN ARCHAEOLOGIST JODI MAGNESS climbed to uncovered wall, lives in
Canada but was born here
the sunny hilltop overlooking the Sea of Galilee in the in Galilee. “When the oppor-
summer of 2010, she was unsure what she might find tunity to excavate was
there. An ancient Jewish village known as Huqoq once presented, I knew I wanted
to be a part of it,” she says.
stood on the site in northeastern Israel, but all that
remained above ground was a jumble of centuries-old
building stones, modern debris, and wild mustard plants.
Magness, a professor of early Judaism at the Uni-
versity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a National
Geographic Explorer, had spent years leading excavations

54
in Israel and suspected that this hilltop ago, in the early fifth century. Similar buildings of that
was worth exploring. By the following era had floors paved with flagstones. But as the team
summer, she and her team had dis- kept digging, they unearthed more and more small
covered a stone wall running north to mosaic stones, called tesserae—a hint that something
south some seven feet below ground. truly special might lie beneath.
Several pieces of evidence—includ- On a hot day in June 2012, Bryan Bozung, a recent
ing a main doorway oriented toward graduate of Brigham Young University, was carefully
Jerusalem—revealed that it was the removing dirt from his excavation square when he
perimeter of a synagogue that had scraped against something hard at floor level. He alerted
been constructed some 1,600 years Magness, and as she brushed away the remaining dirt,

55
Site conservator Christian
de Brer gently removes dirt,
salts, and mortar from a lion’s
mane. The mosaic artist who
created this panel had likely
never seen such a creature
but was reproducing a popu-
lar decorative pattern.
Dawn’s early light finds
archaeologists already at
work under the tents that
shade the dig. “This is really
the land of milk and honey,”
says director Jodi Magness,
describing the nearby hills
where orchards, cattle,
and beehives flourish.
 3

8
2

6
7

1
 JONAH
AND THE
STORMY
SEA
In the Bible, the Prophet Jonah refuses to
9 preach against the sinful city of Nineveh,
as God has commanded. Instead, he flees
on a ship. God then whips up a violent
storm, which threatens to wreck the ship.
When Jonah confesses to the crew that
the storm must be his fault, they throw
him overboard to save their fragile ves-
sel. Underwater, Jonah is swallowed by a
big fish, often rendered as a whale. The
interpretation at Huqoq, seen here, is the
earliest known depiction of this tale in an
ancient Jewish context. And it has a twist
that appears in later Jewish and Islamic
written sources: Jonah is swallowed by a
succession of three fish (1).

Located in the synagogue’s nave, the

panel presents a host of other intriguing
10 details: A balding, bearded man dangling
a looped rope into the sea (2) may be
the ship’s captain. His gray hair hints that
he is older, and so presumably has years
more experience than the rest of the crew.
A sailor at the top of the ship’s mast
points to a trio of harpies or sirens (3),
the personifications of tempestuous winds,
standing on a cloud. The strange, hybrid
creatures with the head of a woman and
the wings, feet, and tail of a bird are
playing a lyre and a flute, and dancing
to the music.
Marine animals include what may be a
sea snake wrapped around a barracuda
(4), an octopus (5), a dolphin (6), and fish
that have been identified as red snapper
(7) and sea bass (8).
A fisherman casting a net from a small
boat (9) and a man wringing water from a
ODED BALILTY

fishing net with a partner (10) (only partly

preserved) represent tasks in the daily life
of a mariner.
the two were stunned to see the face of a woman deli-
cately traced in tesserae staring up at them. It was the
first section of a mosaic to come to light.
Over the next decade, Magness returned to Huqoq
each June with an international team of experts and
student volunteers. She had originally planned to spend
only five seasons excavating part of the site but quickly
realized she was in for a much longer haul. The project
goals would now have to include preserving whatever
was left of the mosaic floor—and what was left, revealed
slowly year after year, turned out to be extraordinary.
The outline of the synagogue, when fully exposed,
was about 65 feet long by 50 feet wide. The entire
expanse of the floor had been covered in expertly ren-
dered mosaic panels, though only about half of that
original floor remained intact.
“Usually in an ordinary church or synagogue you
have one, two, or three scenes presented, but here
you have many more,” says Gideon Avni, chief archae-
ologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority, which
licensed the excavation. “It’s probably the best, most
diverse concentration of mosaics in the country.”
Many of the surviving mosaics depict stories from
the Hebrew Bible: Pairs of creatures such as camels,
donkeys, elephants, and lions heading toward Noah’s
ark. The Red Sea engulfing the Egyptian army. Carpen-
ters and masons building the Tower of Babel. Samson
carrying the gate of Gaza on his shoulders.
“There’s a lot of violence in these mosaics, a lot of
blood and gore,” says Magness. “But there’s also some
humor.” Among the most gruesome scenes: a depic-
tion from the Book of Judges in which a Kenite woman
named Jael hammers a tent stake through the head of
the Canaanite general Sisera. By contrast, a whimsical
twist on the story of Jonah portrays the hapless prophet
being swallowed by three successively larger fish. Fritz Clingroth (right), from
The mosaics also borrowed motifs from classical art, the College of Wooster
including cupids, theater masks, and the Greek god in Ohio, and conservator
Linda Roundhill study a
of the sun, Helios, who rides in his chariot surrounded mosaic depicting a hare and
by the symbols of the zodiac. what may be a fox nibbling
Huqoq may have been a village in the countryside, grapes, a scene that likely
symbolized abundance.
but it wasn’t isolated, says dig assistant director Dennis
Mizzi, senior lecturer in Hebrew and ancient Judaism
at the University of Malta. “It was connected with the
wider Mediterranean world. That means the commu-
nity was aware of a wide range of traditions and com-
fortable enough with ideas from outside its own area.”

62
 While there are still questions about people were allowed to live according to their own laws
how exactly the synagogue origi- and were granted exemptions such as not having to
nated, the discovery of its remains worship the emperor.
is now rewriting history, particularly “That really doesn’t change significantly until Chris-
our understanding of how Jews lived tianity becomes a legal religion in the Roman Empire
under foreign rule. Romans conquered and then the empire’s official religion,” says Magness.
the land east of the Mediterranean, “Once that happens, in the fourth century, legislation
including Galilee, in the first century becomes increasingly restrictive of Judaism.”
B.C. Initially, they recognized Juda- New laws sometimes banned the construction of
ism as an ancestral religion. Jewish synagogues. “If you were going on the basis of that

63
According to the Book of
Genesis, the Tower of Babel
was built to reach the heav-
ens. The Huqoq synagogue
shows the tower in mid-
construction and a diverse
crew hard at work. Miners
quarry stones; carpenters
shape wood with a saw, a
plane, and an adze; and
masons use a complex pul-
ley system to raise building
blocks. But God punished
this prideful act of humans
by confusing their language.
The resulting discord is
evident in a fight between
two workers (center left).
ODED BALILTY
alone, you would think that Jews were persecuted, it’s divided into three horizontal
that they were oppressed,” says Magness of the people registers. At the bottom, defeated
in this region. But at Huqoq, the existence of a grand soldiers, a battle elephant, and a bull
synagogue adorned with bold artistic expressions offers are dying from bloody spear wounds.
clear evidence that despite tensions, daily life in Galilee In the middle, stone arches shelter
may not have been so dismal. men wearing tunics. And at the top,
two male leaders are meeting, one in
AMONG ALL THE MOSAICS, one panel is especially a tunic and the other in armor, each
dazzling—and puzzling. More finely crafted than accompanied by his followers.
the rest of the floor, with large sections still intact, Magness thinks the one in armor

66
 is Alexander the Great. His followers are soldiers with
battle elephants. He wears the diadem and purple cloak
of a king but is not identified by an inscription.
“There was only one Greek king in antiquity who was
so great that he didn’t need a label,” Magness says. That
being the case, this mosaic may represent an encounter
between the high priest of Jerusalem and Alexander
during the famed conqueror’s battles against the
Persians in the fourth century B.C. The story—likely
a cherished legend rather than truth—circulated in
Jewish communities for centuries.
“The point of the legend is to show that even Alexander
the Great, the greatest of the Greek kings, acknowledged
the greatness of the God of Israel,” Magness suggests.
This masterpiece, along with the rest of the mosaic
panels, was probably laid by specialists from a local,
family-owned workshop. An inscription by the main
door lists several names of people identified as artisans,
perhaps the very ones who created the floor.
“There appear to be brothers within a single fam-
ily, as well as perhaps a couple of other figures,” says
Ra’anan Boustan, a historian of Judaism at Prince-
ton University. A senior artist would have designed
the floor and traced out the figures in every panel.
Experienced mosaicists fashioned details like faces,
hands, and feet, while junior workers filled in back-
grounds and the larger fields of color. They worked with
stones from the region, cut into long rods on-site and
then snipped into tiny cubes.
The quality of a mosaic depends on the size of the
tesserae. The smaller they’re cut, the more details they
create. Mosaic specialists measure the number of tes-
serae per square decimeter, about 15 square inches.
In some places at Huqoq, the count is as low as 175; in
others it’s around 230. But the mysterious three-tiered
Archaeology resembles a mosaic comes in at about 500. “The density readings in
playground game when team that area approximate what you would find in Constan-
members use their combined tinople, in imperial mosaics,” says Karen Britt, a mosaic
muscle to pull a heavy stone
away from an area to be specialist at Northwest Missouri State University.
excavated. Building blocks But that’s not the only ostentatious part of the build-
from the collapsed syna- ing. Judging from recovered flecks of colorful plaster,
gogue littered the entire site
portions of the interior may have been brightly painted,
before work began here.
inspiring dig members to dub it the “disco synagogue.”
Magness herself calls it the kitschiest synagogue ever.
Parts of the building’s interior were probably painted
red, white, pink, and yellow—a theme that may have
extended to the exterior.

67
 Throughout the excavation, Magness and her team In a scene from the biblical
revealed the mosaics in sections, exposing different Book of Judges, Samson
has used his mighty strength
areas to be cataloged and photographed before covering to kill this shield-bearing
them back up to protect them in place. After taking into Philistine soldier, who has
account other finds in the region, Magness now believes collapsed on the ground.
Two other scenes also cele-
that Huqoq’s over-the-top design may be evidence of
brate the legendary leader.
inter-Jewish competition. “All the villages in the area
are building synagogues, and they’re all pretty spec-
tacular,” she says. “But here people decided they were
going to build the mother of all synagogues.” Likely two road, part of a network connecting
stories tall and situated at a high point in the village, it Cairo and Damascus, ran right by
must have been visible for a great distance. the village and brought a flow of
merchants and pilgrims. As the area
did not come cheap.
S U C H A L AV I S H S T R U C T U R E became prosperous once again, the
Perhaps wealthy patrons underwrote the cost, but Jewish people who remained repaired
more likely, villagers of lesser means may have been the fifth-century synagogue while
making enough money to donate to a construction fund. also expanding it and adding a thick,
At least in the fifth century, Jews in this remote part concrete-like base—which, fortu-
of the empire seem to have been prospering. But they nately, protected the mosaics.
may have had concerns about how long their religious Beginning in the 15th century, com-
freedom might last. And they appear to have expressed mercial traffic in the area slowed. The
those concerns on the floor of their synagogue. synagogue appears to have been aban-
“I think they are grappling with the reality that they doned again, and it gradually tumbled
are in a rapidly Christianizing world,” says mosaic spe- to the ground. So it remained until the
cialist Britt. “One way of doing that is to say, look, this archaeologists arrived.
is not all that different from periods in the past when Twelve years after they first started
Israelites had to deal with other foreign powers, whether digging, Magness and her team com-
it’s the Philistines, the Canaanites, the Babylonians, pleted their fieldwork in the summer
the Greeks, the Romans, and now Christian Romans.” of 2023. The site remains backfilled
Boustan, the historian of Judaism, agrees, adding to protect the mosaics and has been
that “the theme of God’s deliverance through human turned over to the Israel Antiquities
warriors in the face of foreign domination is something Authority and the Jewish National
that comes across very strongly.” Fund to develop plans for tourism.
And yet, some generations after it was built, the syna- IAA archaeologist Avni predicts this
gogue was mysteriously abandoned. Given the region’s “jewel in the crown” of Israel’s cultural
long history of catastrophic seismic activity, it’s not hard heritage will become one of its great-
to imagine an earthquake leaving the synagogue so est attractions.
damaged that it was thought to be unsafe even though The digging may be done, but there
it continued to stand. Eventually parts of the building is much excavated material—now in
collapsed, destroying sections of the mosaics. Another storage in Jerusalem—to be analyzed,
tremor may have delivered the final blow. and many mysteries remain to be
“It wasn’t burned. It wasn’t taken apart,” says Martin solved, Magness says. “My team and
Wells, the project’s architecture specialist from Austin I will be coming back for years.” j
College in Texas. “My guess is an earthquake.”
In any case, some 800 years after the synagogue
Ann R. Williams specializes in writing
was constructed, the region came to be ruled by the about the ancient world and cultural
Mamluks, a Muslim dynasty based in Egypt. A Mamluk heritage preservation.

68
 PROOF

BUG S
on the

MOVE

An innovative technique
reveals the flight paths of insects
in surprisingly artful ways.

Images by
X AV I B O U

movements of
T H E S M A L L B O D I E S A N D S P E E DY
flying insects make them tough to track, but tech-
nological advances and some creative thinking have
allowed Spanish photographer Xavi Bou to do just
that. After spending 10 years concentrating on birds
in flight for his Ornithographies project, he shifted
his focus to bugs. For Entomographies, he uses high-
speed video footage taken by Adrian Smith, an ento-
mologist at North Carolina State University, to decode
and document insect trajectories. Then Bou selects
multiple frames and merges them into single images
that convey the rapid motions through space and time
of one or more animals. With Smith’s help, Bou has
mapped the aerial acrobatics of wasps, the leaps of
leafhoppers, and the flutters of butterflies in stunning
detail. In doing so, he hopes to raise awareness about
the decline of key insect populations worldwide. “It’s
happening in front of our eyes, and we are not paying
attention,” Bou says. —A N N I E R OT H

ZEBRA LONGWING
This butterfly, found in many parts of the Americas,
lives up to its name. The insect can soar to great heights
with just a few beats of its supersize wings.

PAGE.71
 Clockwise from above

MU LT I C O L O R E D A S I A N
LADY BEETLES
A common ladybug
species, these insects inhabit
various regions around
the world. They move slowly
on land but can reach
speeds of up to 37 miles an
hour in the air.

TWO -LINED SPIT TLEBUG

This insect, native to
the eastern United States,
is often called a pest
because of its taste for turf.
Spring-loaded hind legs
can launch the animal into
the air like a rocket.

YELLOW- COLLARED
SCAPE MOTH
Unlike most moths,
this North American species
can be seen flying during
the day, with its iridescent
blue-black wings
that shimmer in sunlight.

APRIL PAGE.72
PAGE.73 2024
 PROOF

AILANTHUS
WEBWORM MOTHS
These tropical moths
have moved farther north
in the U.S. Thanks to
their larval host, the
invasive tree of heaven,
they are among the
most widespread backyard
moths in the country.

PAGE.75
 Francisco Ángel,
a hospital worker
and student, makes
extra money by
scouring mounds
of clothes in the
Atacama Desert for
items to sell. Each
week, shipments
of used garments
arrive in Chile at the
free port of Iquique.
Resellers buy some,
but tons of clothes
end up here.

FASHION’S DESERT
 Clothing from many of the world’s favorite
brands lies in discarded heaps in Chile’s
Atacama Desert. How it got there tells the
story of modern fast fashion.

GRAVEYARD
WORDS BY
J O H N BA RT L E T T
PHOTO GRAPHS BY
TA M A R A M E R I N O
Used shoes lie scattered among the piles of cast-off clothing. Critics blame northern Chile’s growing
clothing dump on the rise of cheap, mass-produced fashions and problems with global trade.

78
 T H E ATA C A M A D E S E R T I N N O R T H E R N C H I L E
stretches from the Pacific to the Andes across
a barren expanse of red-orange rock canyons
and peaks. As one of the driest deserts on
Earth, it’s a bucket-list destination for star-
gazing tourists who come for some of the
clearest views of the night sky. With its arid,
rocky landscape so closely resembling Mars,
the desert has even attracted the attention of
NASA, which has tested rovers there.
But the Atacama has also attained a less
wondrous distinction as one of the world’s
fast-growing dumps of discarded clothes,
thanks to the rapid mass production of inex-
pensive attire known as fast fashion. The phe-
nomenon has created so much waste that the
UN calls it “an environmental and social emer-
gency.” The challenge is turning off that tap.
The numbers tell the tale. Between 2000 and
2014, clothing production doubled and consum-
ers began buying 60 percent more clothes and

79
wearing them for half as long as they once did. reexported without the usual taxes and fees.
Three-fifths of all clothing is estimated to end The duty-free port was established in Iquique
up in landfills or incinerators within a year of in 1975 to help generate jobs and improve an
production—that can translate to a truckload ailing local economy. Chile became one of
of used clothing dumped or burned every sec- the world’s largest importers of used clothes,
ond. Most of the facilities are in South Asia which transformed Iquique. As fast fashion
or Africa, where the nations receiving those exploded, so did imports.
loads cannot handle the amount. A landfill “The zona franca [free zone] was a true revo-
near Accra, Ghana’s capital, that is said to be lution” for the city’s residents, says Bernardo
60 percent clothes and 65 feet high has gained Guerrero, a sociologist at Fundación Crear, an
international notoriety as a symbol of the crisis. organization that studies Iquique’s history and
The scene in northern Chile has been dubbed culture. “They suddenly had access to things
in one online video “the great fashion garbage they could never have imagined, like their
patch,” a terrestrial variation of the better- own car.” Apparel began washing in and out of
known Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Colossal Iquique like waves as global fashions changed.
piles of discarded clothes, with labels from all Guerrero recalls a time in the 1990s when
over the world, stretch as far as the eye can see almost everybody in the city wore the same
on the outskirts of Alto Hospicio, a hardscrabble style of puffer jacket after large shipments of
city of 120,000 residents. In one ravine, a pile them arrived. It was a sign of what was to come.
of jeans and suit jackets, bleached by the harsh About 2,000 businesses of all types now
sun, rises above a mound of fake-fur coats and operate in the duty-free zone; more than half
dress shirts, some still bearing price tags. Bot- are foreign. Hand-painted brand logos adorn
tles, bags, and other trash are mixed in. warehouse doorways, and stacks of used cars—
As images of the clothing heaps spread on the another major import—tower over the narrow
internet, many Chileans expressed surprise. “I streets. The free zone has also developed into
was shocked to think that we were becoming a sorting depot for textile waste.
the textile dump for developed countries,” says “In essence, we are just recycling the world’s
Franklin Zepeda, a director of a company that clothes,” says Mehmet Yildiz, who arrived in
focuses on circular economic practices. But the Chile from his native Turkey two decades
story of how the South American nation came ago and operates a clothing import business
to be a repository for the world’s apparel rejects named Dilara. Yildiz brings in clothes from the
has as much to do with globalization and trade United States and Europe, most of them from
as it does with fleeting style trends. thrift stores such as Goodwill. Once the gar-
ments reach Iquique, workers separate them
AT F I R S T G L A N C E , I T M I G H T S E E M T H AT A N into four categories, ranging from premium to
isolated desert nearly a thousand miles from poor quality. Yildiz then exports the best to the
Chile’s population centers would be an unlikely Dominican Republic, Panama, Asia, Africa—
destination for fast fashion’s discards, but the and even back to the U.S. for resale.
country is also home to one of South America’s
largest duty-free ports—located in the coastal C L O T H I N G T H AT T H E I M P O RT E R S D O N ’ T WA N T
city of Iquique on the Atacama’s western edge. ends up in the hands of truck drivers who ferry
Millions of tons of clothes arrive annually from it a few miles to the dump outside Alto Hos-
Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Last year’s picio, where it goes through another cycle of
tally was 46 million tons, according to Chilean sorting and resale in small shops and street
customs statistics. markets or at La Quebradilla, a huge open-
Duty-free ports encourage economic air market. There, a roaring used-clothes
activity, as goods are imported and often trade continues on a half-mile-long strip of

80
 GLOBAL HAND-ME-DOWNS
Used clothing is a commodity traded around the world. -$213 -100 -10 Even 10 100 $810
In 2021 the European Union, the United States, and net importer net exporter
China exported $2.3 billion worth of discarded garments, Net trade balance of used clothing
capturing some 44 percent of the export market. in millions of U.S. dollars
No data

U.K. Ukraine
$316 M -$168 M
NORTH
EUROPE A S I A
European
AMERICA U.S. Union China
Top net $799 M $660 M
exporter
$810 M Taiwan
A F R I C A

Kenya
Ghana -$168 M
SOUTH Top net
importer
AMERICA -$213 M
Iquique
MAP: MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK, NGM STAFF. SOURCE: CEPII, BACI INTERNATIONAL TRADE DATABASE AT THE PRODUCT LEVEL

AUSTRALIA
Chile AFRICA
-$135 M Net imports of used
clothing totaled
$1.62 billion.

some 7,000 stalls. A recent visit turned up where they may fetch a handful of coins.
faded T-shirts commemorating the 2001 U.S. “Everything is useful to me,” she said brightly,
Open golf tournament, a jacket emblazoned laughing as she imagined herself in a brand-new
with the logo of a Texas police force, and a wool summer dress printed with strawberries. “We’re
hat with the badge of a California university, lucky to have found this.”
among a sea of other castoffs.
Clothing that doesn’t sell at the market is AS HELPFUL AS RESALE MARKETS MIGHT’VE
destined for the desert, and much of it is made been in an earlier era, they’ve been over-
from synthetic materials that won’t biodegrade. whelmed by the sheer scale of the mounting
Scavengers salvage what goods they can. On a discards. New efforts, large and small, are
cool afternoon, a woman named Génesis rum- under way to deal with clothing waste, and
maged through a pile of formal clothes, nurses’ attention to the mess in the desert may inspire
uniforms, underwear, and Crocs, taking fleeces additional projects.
and blankets for the cold nights and earmarking In 2018, Franklin Zepeda founded a start-up
the better garments to sell at La Quebradilla, that manufactures building-insulation panels

81
A woman sells tea
from a cart in La
Quebradilla, a mar-
ket in Alto Hospi-
cio. Merchants there
pay $20 for 1,320-
pound bales of used
clothing and resell
the garments for
roughly 12 cents to
two dollars each.
THE
FOUR ENVIRONMENTAL ENERGY
IMPACTS OF FIBERS CONSUMPTION
Every year the global

TOLL OF
fashion and shoe industries
use twice as much energy
Natural fiber Synthetic as all of India does.

TEXTILES POLYAMIDE
Also known as nylon, this
72.6 kWh per
pound of polyamide

HIGHER IMPACT
material has an elastic
structure that is commonly
Fashion may strive for used in tights and sportswear.
glamour, but the industry Polyamide is made
is one of the world’s largest from petroleum,
using an energy-
greenhouse gas polluters. intensive process.
Over the past two decades,
the number of new gar-
ments made per year has
nearly doubled. Fast fashion
purchases are soaring, as is
the speed at which peo-
ple discard cheaply made WOOL 54.4
clothes. Low prices belie Cashmere, fleece, and tweed are
the environmental cost of all examples of this animal fiber,
which accounts for one percent
producing the huge volume of global textile production.
of fabric needed to feed
the growth, with impacts
varying by fabric type. Pro-
ducing cloth from natural
fibers (cotton, wool, hemp)
and those made from wood
49
pulp (“man-made cellulosic POLYESTER
fibers,” or MMCFs) uses the Clothing of this oil-based textile
is the most widely produced in
least energy but requires the world and requires a high
more water than cheaper amount of energy to create.
synthetics such as polyes-
ter and nylon. Hemp—the
most sustainable in the
quilt shown here—accounts
for just 0.26 percent of 38.5
MMCF S
global textile production. Viscose, lyocell, and modal
are types of this potentially
environmentally friendly fiber
typically made from wood pulp.
LOWER IMPACT

GLOBAL COTTON 21.8

127.8
FIBER
million tons It accounts for 85 percent of
PRODUCTION
in 2022 natural fiber production.
Polyester has
the highest
proportion HEMP
7.9% 10
of recycled recycled A quick grower, it requires
fibers. less water than most fibers.
 CO2 F R E S H WAT E R WA ST E
EMISSIONS CONSUMPTION BUILDUP
The industry’s annual share It takes 2,000 gallons of water The majority of discarded
of carbon greenhouse gas to make one pair of jeans—the clothing, much of it
emissions is on par with equivalent of drinking eight polyester, ends up in
aviation’s: around 2 percent. cups of water a day for 10 years. landfills or incinerators.

17 pounds per 186.8 gallons 59.5 million tons of

pound of wool per pound of cotton polyester produced
annually

Wool production The most water- Burned polyester

emits nearly intensive material releases greenhouse
eight times as in this study, cotton gases; when
much carbon accounts for about landfilled, it
as cotton 25 percent of global leaches chemicals
production does. fiber production. into the soil.

GRAPHIC: ALBERTO LUCAS LÓPEZ, NGM STAFF; KELSEY NOWAKOWSKI. SOURCES: KIRSI NIINIMÄKI AND OTHERS, NATURE REVIEWS EARTH & ENVIRONMENT, APRIL 2020;
PATSY PERRY, MANCHESTER FASHION INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY; GREG PETERS, CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
8.3

29.7

63.5
3.3

3.3

3.1 7.7

11
6.7
2.2 10.7
Workers sort
apparel at Ecocitex,
a factory in Santi-
ago that recycles
discarded clothing.
Some items will be
turned into yarn,
others cut up and
used as stuffing
for cushions.
Ecocitex workers organize tangles of raw yarn made from recycled clothes. Next, the material
will be processed by a machine that will further refine it, yielding strong, finished yarn.

88
 from textile waste. “I was motivated by the
idea that there was a vast quantity of waste
that could perfectly be transformed into raw
materials to make new products, reducing the
amount of clothes in our desert,” he says.
Another start-up, Ecocitex, based in Santiago,
makes yarn from discarded clothes. “Our mis-
sion is to eliminate textile waste from Chile,”
says Rosario Hevia, Ecocitex’s owner. “It made
me so angry that there wasn’t a solution, so I’ve
thrown myself into solving it.” Meanwhile, in
Iquique, the clothing importer Dilara plans to
open a recycling plant this year to make fillings
for couch cushions from used clothes.
These are small but crucial steps. The most
promising solution—one that can handle the
problem’s scale—lies in the hands of the Chil-
ean government. The World Bank forecasts
3.4 billion tons of garbage will be created every
year by 2050. As it piles up, many countries
are requiring manufacturers to take respon-
sibility for their products at the end of those
products’ lives. Policies known as extended
producer responsibility have been adopted
in India, Australia, Japan, Canada, and some
U.S. states.
In 2016, Chile passed a version into law,
calling it Extended Liability of the Producer,
or Ley REP for short. The law makes producers
and importers accountable for six categories
of waste: lubricant oils, electronics, batteries,
small batteries, containers and packaging, and
tires. Initially, textiles were not listed.
Tomás Saieg, who heads the Chilean envi-
ronment ministry’s Circular Economy Office,
says a team is working to add three more prod-
uct types to the Ley REP, including textiles.
“The most important thing is to turn off the
tap, so to speak, so that these clothes don’t
keep ending up in the desert,” he says. “Con-
verting Chile from a junkyard into a recycling
hub would be the dream.”
In the meantime, must-have trends blink
in and out of fashion, online sales keep churn-
ing, and mountains of forgotten clothes
continue to grow amid the red sands of the
Atacama Desert. j

89
Mountains of dis-
cards reshape the
landscape outside
Alto Hospicio. Each
year tons of cloth-
ing is added. Much
of it is made from
nonbiodegradable
synthetics and
will remain part
of the Atacama
for generations.
 1919
Debut Drawing
Paleoartist Charles
R. Knight carefully 1942
studied dinosaur Battle Royale
fossils before Reflecting new
creating this fierce, knowledge about
iguanaesque T. rexes, Knight
Albertosaurus. showed them in
combat using their
“double-edged,
dagger-like teeth.”

1978
The Heavyweight
The T. rex
dominating our
August 1978 cover,
drawn by Roy
Andersen, is much
bulkier than earlier
depictions.

1999 2003
F ine Feathers Just a Nip
After a discov- Research
ery linked carnivo- suggested thero-
rous dinosaurs to pod Aucasaurus
eagles and other raided the nests
modern birds, this of much larger
T. rex illustration sauropods, which
included a downy helped clarify
fuzz covering the the Cretaceous-
youngster. era food chain.

ILLUSTRATIONS: CHARLES R. KNIGHT, 1919, 1942; ROY ANDERSEN, 1978; MICHAEL W.

SKREPNICK, 1999; JOHN SIBBICK, 2003 (NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION: ALL)
 FROM THE ARCHIVES

EVOLVING
BEAST S

Staying on the edge of dinosaur discoveries

means the view is always changing.

Words by
DANIEL STONE

Jurassic World movie in the works, our

W I T H A F O U RT H
fascination with dinosaurs shows no signs of slowing, espe-
cially for series’ superstars Tyrannosaurus rex and other
theropods. Ever since these beasts were first unearthed more
than a century ago, National Geographic has been reporting
on them, pairing the latest science with vivid illustrations.
With every new discovery, our depictions must evolve.
Starting in 1919, a magazine feature laid the foundation,
describing an Albertosaurus as a “powerful flesh-eater” that
was “capable of destroying any of its herb-eating relatives.”
Twenty-three years later, battling T. rexes appeared in our
pages standing some “twenty feet in height.” Three and a half
decades after that, a 1978 cover story reported that T. rex was
even larger, “fifty feet and six tons of bad news.” Until the late
1990s, most dinosaurs were shown with scaly reptilian skin,
but theropod skeletons found in China suggested young
T. rexes had feathers. That led to another new conclusion:
“We can now say that birds are theropods just as confidently
as we say humans are mammals.”
And theropods may not have been the unstoppable killers
of human fantasy. Discoveries in 2003 revealed that they
were selective in their violence and submissive at times.
In 2020 we reported that paleontology was in the midst of
“another revolution—one fueled by a wealth of fresh fossils
and innovative research techniques.” Even the latest rendi-
tions won’t necessarily be definitive but will be steps toward
a clearer picture of these marvels from the past. j

PAG E .93 2024

 HIDDEN HISTORY

WITH UNION troops your way and you have

surrounding his Con- The to go chat with the
federate Army in
Appomattox, Virginia, DECISIVE guy with the bigger
guns and more guys,
on April 9, 1865, Gen. DISH TOWEL well, then, you have to
Robert E. Lee decided find something.”
he had no choice but to In this case, Sims’s
initiate surrender talks. This humble, dish towel signal
He sent a staff officer little-known item helped enabled Lee to meet
across enemy lines to bring the American cordially with Grant
ask for a cease-fire Civil War to an end. at Appomattox Court
until he could meet House, where Lee and
Words by
with Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. his troops formally sur-
SARAH KUTA
Grant. To pass safely, rendered, a moment
Confederate officer that many people con-
Capt. R.M. Sims carried sider to be the Civil
a fringed white dish War ’s de facto con-
towel with three thin clusion. But there was
red stripes running more tragedy ahead.
across the bottom. Five days later, John
Today, half of that Wilkes Booth shot and
towel—known as the killed President Abra-
Confederate flag of ham Lincoln. Fighting
truce—sits inside a between the North and

JOHN DOMAN, ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, GETTY IMAGES; VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, BRIDGEMAN IMAGES
glass case in the Smithsonian Institution’s South dragged on for another year and a

PHOTOS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT): RICHARD W. STRAUSS, NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY;
National Museum of American History, half, until President Andrew Johnson for-
on display as part of the exhibit “The mally declared the end of the conflict in
American Presidency.” Now discolored August 1866.
with age, this often overlooked arti- Much to Sims’s chagrin, the flag of truce
fact played a key role in one of the most eventually ended up in Union hands. “Col-
pivotal moments in the nation’s history. onel Whitaker asked me if I would give him
“It’s a national treasure,” says James Fer- the towel to preserve that I had used as a
rigan, a consulting vexillologist and an flag. I replied: ‘I will see you in hell first; it
officer of the North American Vexillolog- is sufficiently humiliating to have had to
ical Association, a nonprofit dedicated carry it and exhibit it, and I shall not let you
to the study of flags. “It’s the flag that preserve it as a monument of our defeat,’ ”
began the discussion that ended the blood- Sims wrote in a May 1886 letter describing
iest conflict in American history.” his role in the surrender.
After the war, Gen. Philip Sheridan pre-
W H Y A D I S H T O W E L? Throughout history, sented the flag to Gen. George Custer’s wife,
flags of truce—also known as flags of Elizabeth, “in appreciation of the loyal
parley—were nearly always household service performed by her husband.” Upon
items like towels, sheets, and pillowcases. her death, she bequeathed it to the United
“No army in the world issues this flag States National Museum, the precursor to
because it’s counterproductive to morale,” today’s national museums. It’s been part
says Ferrigan. “And so, if things aren’t going of that collection since 1936. (Somewhere

APRIL PAG E .94

 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

along the way, it was cut in half; the missing “Monumental Cloth, the Flag We Should
piece’s location remains a mystery.) Know,” held at the Fabric Workshop and
Museum in Philadelphia. With that show,
THOUGH THE SURRENDER occurred nearly she asked viewers to imagine a world in
160 years ago, the dish towel’s symbolism which the peace-brokering flag of truce—
continues to evolve over time. “The amaz- instead of the divisive Confederate battle
ing thing about objects is they come to flag—dominated the American narrative.
carry, physically and metaphorically, the Five years later—as the deaths of George
emotions and importance of a moment, Floyd and many others have sparked an
which is why we save them,” says Lisa ongoing U.S. reckoning on race amid Pres-
Kathleen Graddy, the curator in the Smith- ident Biden’s warning that white supremacy
sonian’s political history division who put has become the “most dangerous terrorist
together the “American Presidency” display. threat to our homeland”—Clark’s feelings
“But the interpretation depends on who’s about the flag’s meaning have gotten more
looking at it: It could be seen as a moment complex. “What progress have we made?”
of bitterness or a moment of victory.” she asks. “Really, what was surrendered?” j
The same is true for a better-known
remnant of the Civil War: the Confederate
battle flag. While the flag of truce remains
largely unknown, the Confederate battle
flag has become an enduring—and ubiqui-
tous—symbol of racism. Artist Sonya Clark,
a professor of art and the history of art at
Amherst College, explored the contrasting
legacies of the flags in her 2019 exhibit,

The surrender of Confed-

erate general Robert E. Lee
to Union general Ulysses S.
Grant at Appomattox
Court House in April 1865
was captured in newspapers
and paintings, including
“Let Us Have Peace” by
Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.

PAG E .95 2024

Jimmy Chin
YO S E M I T E N AT I O N A L
PA R K , C A L I F O R N I A
Alex Honnold navigates
El Capitan’s Traverse
pitch without safety gear.
Jimmy Chin, who took this
photo in 2017 for National
Geographic, says the best
photographers share a
“commitment bordering
upon obsession with what
they are shooting.”

96
 WITH A NEW

D O C U M E N TA RY

SERIES EXPLORING

THEIR WORK,

N AT I O N A L

GEOGRAPHIC

PHOTOGRAPHERS

SHARE THE

STORIES BEHIND

THEIR MOST

ICONIC IMAGES.
 chases a tornado, or dives among sharks,
W H AT K I N D O F P E R S O N
or travels into a conflict zone, all for a photograph? Jimmy Chin—
mountain climber, skier, photographer, filmmaker—wondered
this as a child growing up in Minnesota, flipping through the pages
of his family’s copies of National Geographic. When he picked up
photography in his twenties, his goal was to shoot for the magazine.
Joining the ranks of National Geographic photographers in
2002, he has since shown how far—or high—he’ll go for a picture.
As his friend and fellow climber Alex Honnold attempted a rope-
less ascent of the El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National
Park in 2017, Chin dangled from a safety line nearby, more than
2,000 feet above the valley floor. Honnold’s death-defying feat
also became the Oscar-winning National Geographic documentary
Free Solo, directed by Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, his wife
and creative partner.
For a new series, the two National Geographic Explorers turned
the camera on photographers. In March they debuted Photographer,
six episodes that embed viewers with “some of the world’s most
extraordinary visual storytellers,” as Chin describes
them. “We’ve always been interested in stories
about people who are pushing the edges of the
human experience.” Doing something that’s never
been done, or capturing an image that’s never been
Follow these and
seen, arises from the “same instinct,” he explains.
other storytellers
in the National Dedication to craft unites the show’s featured
Geographic series photographers. From the tiniest animals to a
Photographer, final flight into space, the following images
streaming March 19
on Disney+ and Hulu. sample their work and the stories behind them.
— H I C KS WO GA N

98
Anand Varma
MONTRÉAL, QUÉBEC
National Geographic Explorer Something in the process
Anand Varma took thousands made the ladybug twitch
of frames of a ladybug clutch- like a zombie. Readers wrote
ing a braconid wasp’s cocoon to Varma confessing that
for the cover of the November they used to dislike insects
2014 issue. The wasp larva but his picture had opened
developed inside the spotted their eyes. Or, as Varma
lady beetle; just before the puts it, “I used to think
wasp emerged to spin a bugs were gross, but now
cocoon, it paralyzed its host. I think they’re cool.”
It’s a tough thing to see because you feel this contradiction.
On one hand it’s just like, Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m
witnessing this absolute phenomenon. But then at the
same time, particularly when it’s going through a town, you
realize, Well, this is absolutely destroying lives.

100
Krystle Wright
IMPERIAL , NEBRASKA The team’s timing that day
Photographer Krystle Wright was “sheer luck,” Wright
and fellow storm chasers recalls. After retreating from
arrived on the scene just as a storm in Colorado that
a supercell storm spitting pounded their SUV with hail,
lightning threatened a farm they crossed into Nebraska
with a UFO-like “mother and caught up to this system
ship” formation in May 2019. at the apex of its power.

101
If you want to be able to capture the right emotion,
to capture the image, you have to respect the
people and you have to gain their trust. It’s not
something you buy or you sell. It’s something you
invest. It’s a long-term investment.

102
Muhammed Muheisen
A L M A F R AQ , J O R DA N
Zahra Mahmoud, photographed in their native Syria. Every year
here at age seven in 2018, lives he visits them at the encamp-
in a tent in Jordan. Muhammed ment and photographs Zahra,
Muheisen, a National Geographic now a teenager. Muheisen says
Explorer who documents refugee he’ll continue telling the fami-
crises, met Zahra and her family in ly’s story until they’re in a more
2015, soon after they fled the war permanent living situation.

103
Cristina Mittermeier
GA L Á PAG O S I S L A N D S
In 2021 photographer Cristina As an ocean current pulled
Mittermeier and her partner, Mittermeier toward a reef
Paul Nicklen—both National and a large shark patrolled
Geographic Explorers— the area, she focused on the
were diving together in the scene above her: a school of
Galápagos Islands to pro- brightly colored cardinalfish
mote the expansion of a darting from the path of a
protected marine reserve. Galápagos sea lion.
 Paul Nicklen
N U N AV U T T E R R I TO RY,
N O RT H E R N C A N A DA
As Arctic sea ice disap-
pears, hungry polar bears
are increasingly forced to
[Photography is] a very hunt seals in open water.
challenging job, to be gone all In 2004 Nicklen photo-
graphed a male swimming
the time, months on end, to beneath a floating piece
be so engaged in something of ice, its image reflected
on the water’s surface.
that’s pretty isolating. To get the angle, Nicklen
To be a photographer, you’re leaned far over the side
of the small boat from
a lone wolf. So when Paul which he was observing
and I met and we started the bear and dunked his
camera underwater.
working together, it was almost
like finding your life jacket in
the middle of the ocean.
— C R I ST I N A M I T T E R M E I E R
 My primary work is portrait
work. But the other stuff is
just really my passion.
I’ve been fortunate enough
to work with NASA in an
official capacity, which
is kind of amazing. I don’t
think I would’ve imagined as
a kid working with NASA.

Dan Winters
K E N N E DY S PAC E
C E N T E R , F LO R I DA
On May 16, 2011, the space
shuttle Endeavour blasted
through clouds for the
final mission of its 19-year
career. The day before the
launch—the craft’s 25th—
Dan Winters positioned
sound-triggered cameras
around the launchpad.
He manually operated
another camera, which he
used to make this image,
lowering its exposure level
to create a darker, more
dramatic scene. When the
rocket boosters roared,
the cameras clicked.

107
 VIEWPOINT

IMAGINING
Other LIVES

For one writer, National Geographic

was a childhood portal into our world’s
endless possibilities. It was also
an inspiration for her latest book.

Words by
TARA CONKLIN

Illustration by
DADU SHIN

my father
B E F O R E H E W E N T TO C O L L E G E , Geographic picture of a Tibetan shepherd-
worked on a cargo ship that took him to the ess, her clothes brilliantly colored against a
Soviet Union, Denmark, Finland, the United stark backdrop; Harriet Tubman’s fierce gaze
Kingdom, and France. As a young child, I in an article about the Underground Rail-
would sit beside him on the living room road; or Dorothea Lange’s iconic “Migrant
couch, a photography book or a National Mother,” the face drawn, the eyes haunted.
Geographic open on our laps, looking at With each image, there was a suggested
the images of distant places and people and intimacy, a glimpse into the inner workings
listening to him talk about his own travels. of someone else’s unique, mysterious exis-
The photographs I loved best captured tence. In my memory, the photographs and
moments that evoked stories—a National my father’s stories blend together. Did I see

APRIL PAGE.108
 VIEWPOINT

a picture of the rope bridge across the Zam- constricting, too small. When the weather
bezi River, or did my father tell me about allowed, I would climb out my bedroom
the time he crossed it? Did my father once window and onto the steep roof, pushing
see a Japanese snow monkey, or did we myself up to a higher, flatter part where
look together at a photo of this extraordi- I could watch the stars and ask myself:
nary creature, its eyes sad, lashes fringed Where will I go? Who will I meet? Who do I
white with ice? want to become?
It was these moments and this imagin- I left Massachusetts as soon as I could to
ing that made me a writer. I didn’t realize it study, work, and travel in Costa Rica, New
then, but the storytelling instinct that first Zealand, Moscow, London, and throughout
took hold with a National Geographic in Europe. I loved this peripatetic life, meeting
front of me would become my livelihood new people, working diverse jobs in differ-
and my organizing principle. Those images ent cities, but eventually I yearned for a
made me feel part of a wider community. home and relationships I could sustain over
We are all connected, I thought then as a the long haul. And so 15 years ago, I settled
child. We are all searching for the same with my family in Seattle, the city where my
essential things: love, safety, family, joy. children have grown into teenagers and
And everyone, everywhere has a larger my writing career has flourished.
story about how to find them. When I began writing Community Board,
Thirty years after looking at that photo it was 2020 and the world had changed, sud-
of Harriet Tubman, I wrote my first novel, denly and irrevocably. I worried—as we all
The House Girl, which featured the Under- worried—about our kids, our livelihoods,
ground Railroad and became a surprise the safety of family far away, of elderly and
New York Times bestseller. I wrote another other vulnerable populations. The book
best-selling novel, The Last Romantics, takes place before the pandemic, but I found
which took inspiration from a family myself imposing on my protagonist the
tragedy. And then, in the midst of COVID same questions I was asking myself: How
quarantine, I began writing a third novel, do we find inspiration when we’re afraid and
called Community Board, about a young alone? How do we forge connection when
woman who retreats to her childhood home we are filled with anxiety? How do we step
in wintry New England to recover from an outside ourselves to engage with a world
unexpected loss and find her way back that seems dangerous and cruel?
into life. In creating my character, Darcy, As quarantine days stretched into weeks
I took inspiration from those long-gone and then months, something unexpected
afternoons on the couch at home. began to happen in my little neighborhood
in Seattle. It started small—neighbors wav-
I GREW UP IN A small town in western Mas- ing sparklers across our street to celebrate
sachusetts where the snow was measured a five-year-old’s birthday—but then grew.
in feet and we’d eat raspberries straight Food deliveries, check-ins, impromptu out-
off the bush all summer long. It was a door concerts, bottles of wine left on door-
lovely, peaceful, picturesque place, but my steps, phone calls that stretched for hours.
father’s stories had planted in me a wan- I noticed small acts of kindness and grace
derlust seed that grew quick and strong. happening all around me, between friends,
As I moved into adolescence, like so neighbors, and strangers.
many of us, I began to chafe against This sense of being part of a wider com-
my family and my town, which felt too munity reminded me of that feeling I’d had

APRIL PAGE.110
 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

sitting on the couch at home as a child. We

are all in this together. Across the street,
across the city, or across the globe. This was
the message I wanted to convey through
Darcy’s story. I would climb out
When I imagined Darcy’s childhood
my bedroom
home, I couldn’t help but envision stacks
and stacks of National Geographic maga- window and onto
zines. And Darcy, in her self-imposed iso- the steep roof,
lation during a long cold winter, decides
PUSHING MYSELF
to read them all. She reads about Viking
ships and scientists off the Chilean coast up to a higher,
and poet Pablo Neruda and the brilliant flatter part where
quetzal bird, and within these stories she
I could watch
finds the inspiration to reimagine herself
and rejoin the outside world. the stars and ask
One of the last stories she reads is about myself: Where
Djenné, a city in Mali where every year
will I go? Who will
before the rainy season, residents come
together to replaster and repair the central I meet? Who do I
mosque, first built in the 1200s with sun- want to become?
baked mud bricks, knowing all the while
that they’ll have to do it again next year. The
project is an act of renewal, a task under-
taken by individuals for the good of the com-
munity. In Djenné, “architecture is a verb
as well as a noun,” reads the photo caption.
So too are commune, join, adventure, love.
how many years have passed since we last
outside her
DA RC Y B E G I N S TO V E N T U R E set foot inside the house or apartment, town
house, to overcome her grief and reen- or city where we grew up, certain elements
gage with the people around her. She remain part of us. All these years later, while
meets a spry elderly widow who wants to I no longer climb onto my roof to gaze at
escape her assisted living residence; a dad the stars, I still ask questions of myself and
of three sons with plans to build a state- my place in the wider world. I still work to
of-the-art neighborhood playground; a understand this seemingly universal desire
rookie police officer who tracks down a to feel at home within myself and know my
rogue drone circling Darcy’s block; and purpose within my community. To explore
others, each weirder and more wonder- this never ending, frustrating, and beautiful
ful than the last. As the book progresses, search for ourselves and our place—that is
she finds that overcoming her grief and why I write. For us all, imagining the lives
rediscovering herself is a process she can’t of others is also a way of imagining a richer,
do alone—she needs connection with the fuller life for ourselves. j
people around her.
Tara Conklin is a New York Times best-
Home is baked into our DNA. No matter selling author based in Seattle. Her new
how long we’ve lived elsewhere, no matter novel, Community Board, is out now.

PAGE.111 2024
 I N S I D E T H E I N C R E D I B L E M I G R AT I O N O F E N D A N G E R E D W I L D
W H O O P I N G C R A N E S , W H I C H M U S T F LY N E A R LY 5 , 0 0 0 M I L E S A C R O S S N O R T H
A M E R I C A E A C H Y E A R T O E N S U R E T H E S U R V I VA L O F T H E S P E C I E S

113
A young whooping
crane (center)
and its parents
high-step through
wetlands in Wood
Buffalo National
Park, Canada.

(Previous photo)
Whooping cranes
arrive at a rainwater
basin wetland in
Nebraska to roost
for the night.

PHOTOGRAPHED ON LOCATION
WITH PERMISSION OF THE PARKS
CANADA AGENCY, IN WOOD
BUFFALO NATIONAL PARK
 Words by R E N E E B E R S O L E
Photographs by M I C H A E L F O R S B E R G

WE WERE
800 FEET UP
IN THE AIR,
FLYING IN
A HELICOPTER
with an international team of scientists over the vast boreal
forest encompassing Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park,
NGM STAFF. SOURCE: INTERNATIONAL CRANE FOUNDATION

when one of them shouted the alert. “Bird at nine o’clock!”

Pilot Paul Spring circled the helicopter left, tilting for a
clearer view of one of the countless pools of water stretching
to the horizon. Rimmed in sand and tamarack trees, the surface
5 ft
glowed iridescent. In the middle of the wetland, we could make
out a pair of snowy white specks, though they stood roughly 7.5 ft

five feet tall at ground level.

“There’s a chick,” said Environment and Climate Change
Canada (ECCC) wildlife biologist John Conkin, training his bin-
oculars on a rust-colored bird, slightly shorter than its parents,
Massive Marvels
high-stepping in the marsh. Spring spotted a semidry piece of Whooping cranes are North
land and brought us to the ground. Conkin, his ECCC ecologist America’s tallest birds.

116
 In protected areas
of northern Canada,
whooping cranes
build their nests
from surrounding
vegetation. Crane
mothers most often
lay two eggs, but
usually only one
chick survives.

colleague Mark Bidwell, and the other crane their giant black-tipped wings and departed,
catchers, U.S. Geological Survey biologist Dave no doubt reluctantly leaving their flightless
Brandt and Canadian wildlife veterinarian offspring behind. “I’ve got eyes on the chick,”
Sandie Black, piled out of the chopper. Spring said to the group, who could hear him
They had only 12 minutes to track down and through the walkie-talkies attached to their
capture the elusive target: a wild whooping vests. “It’s just below the chopper. Come
crane chick designed for traversing boot-suck- toward the chopper.”
ing mud, woody brambles, and bulrushes. Any The team crashed through the underbrush,
longer and the team would have to call off the trying to push forward faster than the soggy
chase to avoid stressing the birds too much. terrain could pull them down. In a well-
As the researchers vanished into the bush, practiced maneuver, Conkin approached the
Spring and I eased off the ground and zoomed chick; got hold of its beak, head, and legs; and
up to 500 feet for an aerial assist. Sensing the carefully tucked the bird under his arm.
humans’ approach, the crane parents flapped Six minutes, 36 seconds: bird in hand. Now

117
came the more technical part. Panting and flyway migratory flock and much of the rest
sweaty, the group unpacked their gear. Brandt, divided almost evenly between captivity
a seasoned wildlife biologist who has banded and experimental reintroduction programs
at least 150 wild whooping cranes in his career, in Louisiana and Wisconsin. Still, many
held the chick on his lap, supervising Conkin crane experts say it’s too soon to remove
as he affixed a transmitter to one leg and color the birds from the endangered species list.
bands (blue, yellow, green) on the other. The whooping crane recovery plan, written
Meanwhile, veterinarian Black performed a under the authority of the Endangered Spe-
checkup, examining the bird’s eyes and tak- cies Act, has three main strategies to build
ing stock of its body condition. She collected both ecological and genetic stability. The
biological samples—blood, feathers, saliva, first is to grow the migratory central fly-
and oral and fecal swabs—for testing at the way population large enough to survive a
lab to reveal things such as the bird’s sex and potentially catastrophic event, such as an
if it had been exposed to harmful chemicals outbreak of deadly bird flu. The second is
or diseases, including highly pathogenic avian to maintain a captive population to provide
influenza (HPAI). Then Bidwell moved in to further insurance against calamity. And
help slip a camouflage Velcro harness around the third is to establish two additional self-
the chick and weigh it on a hanging scale. sustaining wild flocks to help restore whooping
They spoke in low voices. When their work cranes to other areas of the country where
was done, Brandt cradled the chick like a foot- they lived historically.
ball and carried it to the edge of the marsh. Based on the current rate of population
There he gently set it down and dashed away. growth, some say the earliest we could plan
That chick—now known to the annals of sci- for a victory party—albeit very tentatively—is
ence as 15J—fled in the opposite direction, about 2050. “The central flyway flock is half-
pausing briefly to ruffle its feathers and shake way there,” George Archibald, co-founder of
its new leg jewelry before receding into the the International Crane Foundation, told me.
safety of the marsh, reuniting with its parents. “And neither of the experimental flocks are
These whooping cranes embody one of self-sustaining at this moment.”
North America’s greatest conservation success Only about one-third of chicks like 15J
stories. Yet they remain the rarest of 15 crane survive to reach their breeding age of four or
species found throughout the world and are still five years. They’re killed by predators such
endangered. Scientists estimate that more as bobcats or coyotes or die of fatigue and
than two centuries ago, some 10,000 whooping starvation during migration. They face man-
cranes lived in North America. But they were made dangers including polluted wetlands,
no match for steady habitat loss and hunters in poaching, and power lines that kill millions
the 1900s who killed them for food, sport, and of birds each year.
plumes to supply the millinery trade during the Considering the whooping cranes’ plight,
gilded age. By 1941, there were only 16 migratory I wanted to get a closer look at the efforts to
whooping cranes left, all of them traveling a save them. They are the polar bears of the bird
seasonal gauntlet of nearly 2,500 miles from world. If they disappear, we will have failed to
northern Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast. save one of the planet’s most beautiful species,
Over the past 70 years, a raft of protec- a symbol of hope and an ambassador for van-
tions provided by grassroots conservation, ishing wilderness—and all of the species that
legislation, habitat preservation, captive live there. My visit to Wood Buffalo National
breeding, and research have slowly brought Park sparked a monthslong journey—with
the population back. Today there are more several important detours—as I tracked 15J’s
than 800 birds, with over 530 in the central hazardous trip.

118
 VEN AFTER MORE THAN a century of southbound push. Three days and 300 miles
research, bird migration remains one later, 15J’s transmitter pinged a tower in South
of nature’s greatest mysteries. How Dakota. As the birds gradually worked their
do the animals navigate over long way down the flyway, they stayed in some
distances? Is their migration route places for days and barely touched down in
encoded in their genes or learned? Can others. On November 14, almost 300 miles
they adapt their migrations to avoid and another state south, they stopped for a
modern-day threats, including energy devel- night along Nebraska’s Platte River, where
opment and increasingly extreme weather? cranes roost on shallow mid-river sandbars
Technological advances in satellite telemetry and forage in braided side channels, agricul-
and long-term monitoring are helping crane tural fields, and wet meadows.
biologists unravel some of these mysteries. Conservation photographer Michael Fors-
Since 2009, 178 cranes from the central flyway berg, who’s documented whooping cranes for
flock have been fitted with solar-powered the past four years, saw 15J there in the pale
tracking devices that collect location data. In light of one morning, probing for food along
addition to being granted the rare opportunity the river with her parents and a lone sand-
to fly with crane biologists in Wood Buffalo hill crane. He texted me from the river: “I just
National Park, I was given a chance to receive spent the last two hours with 15J on the Platte.
updates about 15J and the cohort of 17 other Can’t believe it. They just took off. They’re
“J-birds” tagged in August 2022. heading to where it’s warmer. It’s cold here.
The first update arrived a few weeks later The river’s freezing up. It’s starting to snow.”
around lunchtime one day in mid-October. I As the number of healthy whooping cranes
was at my desk sipping a cup of soup in New increases, however, such pit stops may hold a
York; 15J was airborne and moving south, more existential threat. A year earlier, biolo-
beyond the park, an area larger than Switzer- gists surveying birds on the Platte had counted
land, with no cell coverage. Likely motivated a group of more than 46 whooping cranes—the
by cooling temperatures and high northwest biggest flock of migrating wild whoopers that
winds, she and her parents departed from anyone alive today has witnessed in the United
Wood Buffalo and arrived the next evening, States. Some experts said the sighting was a
more than 500 miles away, in Saskatchewan.
Like many other whooping cranes leav-
ing the park, 15J and her parents took a long
pit stop there, resting and refueling in the THEY ROOSTED FOR A NIGHT
prairie potholes, shallow wetlands created A L O N G N E B R A S K A’ S P L AT T E
by receding glaciers about 10,000 years ago,
RIVER. AS THE NUMBER OF
and on the northern edge of the Great Plains.
Millions of birds stopping over in this region H E A LT H Y W H O O P I N G C R A N E S
increasingly face threats such as runoff from INCREASES, HOWEVER,
farming chemicals including fertilizer and
pesticides. But in early fall, it also provides
birds with a buffet of leftover waste grain
in the agricultural fields as well as insects,
amphibians, and other small creatures in the
wetlands. The cranes typically linger in these
vital staging grounds for a few weeks. CROWDED STOPS MAY HOLD
On November 3, 15J and her parents crossed
the U.S. border into North Dakota, starting their A MORE EXISTENTIAL THREAT.
119
During the spring
migration, whoop-
ing cranes mingle
with hundreds
of thousands of
migrating sandhill
cranes on Nebraska’s
Platte River. The
Platte and other wet-
lands in the Great
Plains are vital
bird stopovers.
 A 5,000-MILE
sign the cranes are learning to once again flock
together in a large group, a natural tactic for
survival, but one that also prompted concern.

JOURNEY
When such a large percentage of a population
clumps in one place, there’s the risk that an
extreme weather event or disease outbreak
could severely knock their numbers back.
Recently, HPAI has killed millions of other Every fall, whooping cranes undertake
birds in 81 countries. Wildlife managers are an arduous flight from Canada’s subarctic
boreal forests to the Texas Gulf Coast
on high alert for outbreaks in critically endan-
and return six months later. The landscape
gered bird populations, including whooping below them, once flush with wetland habi-
cranes. In Baraboo, Wisconsin, the Interna- tat, now has fewer stopover points because
tional Crane Foundation has taken biosecurity of expanding human development. This
measures to protect the cranes in its captive map tracks the annual path of 15J, as she
facility from exposure to wild birds that could headed south in late 2022, then north in
transmit the virus. Today the organization still mid-2023. Parents often accompany their
offspring for most if not all of the trip.
raises whooping cranes to be released into the
nearby wetlands. It also supplies some eggs to Concentration of wetlands
a promising project in Louisiana that is rein-
troducing cranes to the same wetland from Less More
200 mi
which they vanished some 70 years ago after
200 km
hunting wiped them out.
Back From the Brink 536
Recovering from a low of just 16 cranes in 2022
HILE 15J CONTINUED her November 1941, the remaining migratory whooping
crane population is now above 500.
journey south, I boarded a plane to Reintroduced populations have had 500

Louisiana to see the whooping crane varying degrees of success and continue
to rely on the release of juveniles from
class of 2022 graduate from the Free- captive-breeding programs.
port-McMoRan Audubon Species
Survival Center in New Orleans, WHOOPING CRANE POPULATION COUNTS 400
where the six-and-a-half-month- (migratory and nonmigratory)

olds had become capable of flight, at which Improved survey techniques adopted in 2015
point they can be safely released into the wild. have led to more accurate population estimates.

Since the spring of 2011, the Louisiana

300 300
Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has been
leading this reintroduction project. In the first
season, biologists released 10 captive-bred Aransas-Wood Buffalo
migratory population
youngsters at the White Lake Wetlands Con-
200 200
servation Area in Vermilion Parish, about a
four-hour drive west of New Orleans. They’ve
Endangered Species
since added more juveniles to the flock, which Eastern
Act goes into effect.
migratory
1973
lives in Louisiana year-round, because some 107
82
bird populations don’t migrate if they’ve only 100 87 2023
Louisiana wild Florida
ever known one place and their needs are met. 18 nonmigratory nonmig. 80
1938 (extinct) Louisiana
The state closely monitors the birds, often with 33 nonmig.
help from cooperative landowners who tolerate 5
11 2022
cranes foraging in their rice fields and crawfish 0
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
Grays Lake (failed reintroduction)
SOREN WALLJASPER, NGM STAFF
SOURCES: MARK BIDWELL, ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE CANADA;
ANDY CAVEN AND HILLARY THOMPSON, INTERNATIONAL CRANE FOUNDATION;
CANADA CENTRE FOR REMOTE SENSING; U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
 Great Slave Lake
N U N AV U T H u d s o n
N ORT HW E ST T ER RI T ORI ES
Breeding range
STARTS SOUTHWARD MIGRATION B a y
Oct. 12, 2022
RETURNS TO Wood Buffalo
BREEDING RANGE National Park
April 25, 2023
c
Pea e
Whooping cranes must cross the
oil sands mining region, where April 24–25
landing can be hazardous. SASKATCHEWAN
OIL SANDS
REGION
MANITOBA
BRITISH COLUMBIA
April 23–24
AL BE RTA
Lake
Oct. 12–13 Half day of flying Winnipeg O NTAR I O
R

Edmonton
21-night stopover
O

Oct. 13–Nov. 3 The cranes tend to make longer

stops on the northern half of
their journey, where wetlands
C

Travels over 400

Calgary miles in 9 hours are more abundant.
5-night stopover
April 18–23 Nov. 3
K

Lake
Superior
Y

CANADA
R

UNITED STATES 3-night stopover

April 17–18 Nov. 3–6
E

NORTH
DAKOTA MINNESOTA
A

MO NTA NA WISCONSIN
M

7-night stopover Mis

S. DAKOTA Nov. 6–13 s International

iss
7-night stopover Hour-long flight
Crane Foundation
O

ip p
April 10–17 at sunset
Confined to Corridors

i
3-night stopover Nov. 13–14
Whooping cranes once soared Chicago
U

April 7–10 Mi
across much of North America. W YO M I N G s
I O WA
so

Now they fly along narrow migra-

NEBRASKA
uri
N

tion corridors and spend most latte Omaha

of their time in protected areas ILLINOIS
P

April 6–7
P

at either end of their journey. Nov. 14–15

T

Kansas St. Louis

City
L

North
A

Pole Denver MISSOURI

A

ALAS. Few pockets of

KANSAS
I

(U.S.) Historic COLOR ADO April 5–6 wetlands still exist in the
range Wichita central and southern
I

Great Plains.
N

Nov. 15–16 Ark

Aransas–Wood an
Buffalo migration CANADA sa
N

April 4–5 s
corridor ARKANSAS
S

Oklahoma
City
S

UNITED OKLA. Red

Eastern Takes a similar
NORTH S TAT E S migratory route north
corridor
Ft. Worth
AMERICA Florida
non- Stops on lake in
migratory April 3–4 Ft. Worth suburbs
Nov. 16–17 LOUISIANA
MEXICO Louisiana T E X A S New Orleans
nonmigratory U
ME .S. Austin Houston
XI
Nov. 17–18 White Lake
San Antonio
CO

Winter range
STARTS NORTHWARD MIGRATION Aransas National
April 3, 2023 Wildlife Refuge
Overwintering
Nov. 18, 2022–
April 3, 2023

Gulf of
Mexico
 3 Red River near Burkburnett, Texas,
along the Texas-Oklahoma border

CRANE’S- 5 At Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge,

Oklahoma, near the Kansas border, the sa

EYE
flats on the edge of Great Salt Plains Lake
signal a good resting place.

2 Intracoastal Waterway,
Aransas National Wildlife Refuge

VIEW
ARANSAS NATIONAL
WILDLIFE REFUGE , 1 2 3 4 5 6 7&8
CHRISTOPHER BOYER

TEXAS

Traveling north in a 1957 Cessna,

from Aransas National Wildlife Refuge,
Texas, to Canada’s Wood Buffalo National
Park in spring 2022, pilot Christopher
Boyer and photographer Michael
Forsberg (above) captured the landscape
from the aerial perspective of migratory
whooping cranes. On the roughly 2,500- 6 Wind farm near Campbell, Nebraska
mile trek, the transcontinental birds can
face strong winds and blizzards, and must
choose carefully where to stop for food
and rest. In addition to naturally occurring
1 The salt marsh wetlands of Aransas
rigors such as bad weather, drought, and National Wildlife Refuge, Texas, are
predators, these cranes must surmount core wintering grounds. Established
a host of human-caused environmental in 1937, this protected migratory bird
threats, from power lines and polluted sanctuary of 115,000 acres of Gulf
Coast habitat fades into the distance
wetlands to poaching and urban as the spring migration begins.
development. The annual journeys—
totaling some 5,000 miles—are grueling,
and only about one-third of chicks 4 Farmstead near Alfalfa, Oklahoma
survive to breeding age.
 9 Middle Loup River Valley
near Arcadia, Nebraska

,
alt 12 The surface water in this prairie pot-
hole wetland near Watrous, Saskatchewan,
appears as an important oasis.

10 Circular irrigation patterns in a grid of 14 Tar sands open-pit mining operation

agricultural fields near Atkinson, Nebraska near Fort MacKay, Alberta

WOOD BUFFALO
9 10 11 U. S . C A N A DA 12 13 14 15 NATIONAL PARK,
CANADA

11 Snowy bend in road near Kenel, Standing

Rock Indian Reservation, South Dakota

7 The wide and 15 These reflective boreal wetlands of

shallow braided Wood Buffalo National Park, Northwest
channels of the Territories, mark a return to familiar
Platte River breeding grounds. This crucial seasonal
near Gibbon, refuge provides a safe place to build
Nebraska, offer nests, raise chicks, and prepare for the
plenty of places autumn trip back to Texas.
to spread out
and safely roost.
13 Freight train near Allan, Saskatchewan

8 Crop field alongside the Platte River

being prepared for spring planting
 ponds. Louisiana’s flock is currently composed
of about 80 birds. The goal is to establish a
self-sustaining population of approximately
120 individuals, including 30 reproductive
pairs, for a decade without restocking.
I arrived before dawn to witness the reintro-
duction day, when the cranes are rounded up
from their grassy enclosures at the Species Sur-
vival Center and trucked down to White Lake
to be released into the marsh. Richard Dunn,
the center’s assistant curator, met me inside
the gate and laid out the plan. After catching
10 young cranes from their enclosures, a team
of biologists would weigh them and do a health
check. Then each bird would be tucked inside
a cardboard box with breathing holes and
loaded into a van for the drive to White Lake.
At White Lake, we were greeted by Eva
Szyszkoski, a wildlife technician with the Lou-
isiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
Szyszkoski oversaw the birds as they were
banded and fitted with tracking devices. Then
the cranes in their boxes were shuttled onto a
flat-bottom boat and ferried down a long canal
to an area of the marsh enclosed with netting.
A decoy crane stood inside the enclosure, wel-
coming the young birds to their new home.
One by one, each crane was removed from
its box and carried by a white-costume-
wearing biologist, disguised to prevent
the birds from imprinting on people. As the
humans waded into the muck, cradling
the cranes, the birds’ heads bobbed on their
long necks. Freed into the pen, they flapped cranes h
their wings, stretching after a very long day. course of
The next morning, Szyszkoski returned vanish wi
to find them all milling around, looking a

M
little antsy to fly. Soon the nets would be
opened, inviting them to disperse through- O
out the area. It’s not uncommon for many n
of these birds to die within their first year of A
being released. That may be partly because 1
captive-raised cranes haven’t experienced the a
wild before—they’re naive, she said, and liv- w
ing in close proximity to people, which means i
Two adults and a juvenile, identifiable by its rust-colored plumage,
migrate south over the central plains in late autumn. Parents teach a high chance of collision with power lines As poli
their young about reliable pit stops on the journey. and fences. More than a dozen whooping work to re
 Last fall, four men
pleaded guilty to
shooting and kill-
ing four whooping
cranes in Oklahoma
in late 2021. At the
crime scene, the
ground was littered
with feathers from
the dead birds.

ave been shot and killed over the there are concerns about how eco-friendly collisions and for making power lines more
the project. Occasionally, some just energy advancements and habitat disturbance visible with reflective markers.
ithout a trace. may affect migratory birds such as whooping One day and 260 miles later, 15J arrived in
cranes. A recent study showed these creatures Texas near Fort Worth. By Thanksgiving, her
avoid wind farm areas, preventing them from transmissions went dark. USGS biologist Dave
ORE THAN 1,600 MILES into her jour- using some important stopover sites. At least Brandt told me she was likely out of range of
ney, 15J was flapping a route through 5,500 turbines have been erected in the birds’ a cell phone tower in the state’s 115,000-acre
America’s heartland. On November migratory pathway, and over 18,000 more are Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, established
15, her transmitter connected with planned. So far there’ve been no reports of in 1937 as a safe haven for migratory water-
a cell tower in Oklahoma, a state whooping cranes being killed by turbines, but fowl and other wildlife. If so, that would mean
where one of the largest wind farms the accompanying increase in power lines is her first fall migration was a success—she’d
in the U.S. had recently come online. a major concern to conservation groups, who traveled some 2,500 miles over the course of
icymakers and the energy industry continue to advocate for careful site place- about a month and could spend the winter
educe the country’s carbon footprint, ments that may reduce the risk of potential resting along Texas’s Gulf Coast.

129
(Top) In Louisiana, biologist Eva Szyszkoski interacts with birds that originated from
a raise-and-release program, using a puppet to mimic adult crane behavior.
(Bottom) U.S. Geological Survey biologist Dave Brandt (left) and International Crane
Foundation veterinarian Barry Hartup care for an injured whooping crane in Texas.

130
 This picturesque vista of coastline, salt C O N S E RVAT I O N G RO U P S
marshes, and tidal ponds is the winter stage WA R N T H AT W I T H O U T M O R E
where whooping cranes and their lifelong
T H O U G H T F U L P ROT EC T I O N
mates perform elaborate courtship dances,
spinning in pirouettes, hopping and flapping, OF THIS LARGER ECOSYSTEM,
bobbing crimson-capped heads, and bugling WHOOPING CRANES COULD
their namesake calls.
But even on these wintering grounds there
are threats, including coastal development and
sea-level rise caused by climate change. Some
scientists predict rising seas and subsequent
saltwater intrusion will convert more than
50 percent of the Texas Gulf Coast’s freshwater LOSE THEIR ONLY WINTERING
wetlands to open water by 2100. Meanwhile,
freshwater inflows are declining because of
persistent drought and thirsty cities such as
HOME BEFORE CENTURY-END.
San Antonio upstream. Changes to salinity in
the coastal estuaries pose problems for blue
crabs and wolfberry plants—primary food crabs and wolfberries in their beaks. They
sources for whooping cranes. Some conser- seemed intent on teaching him to find his
vation groups have warned that without more own food.
thoughtful conservation of this larger ecosys- Next evening, on my way home to New York,
tem, the whooping crane could lose its only I got a text from Brandt: 15J’s transmitter had
wintering home before the end of the century. “checked in,” revealing her location was within
In December I met Brandt in Texas to a mile of where we’d cruised along the coast.
attempt to locate 15J and other J-birds in their Now another full migration cycle through
winter grounds. Standing along the Intra- spring and fall has passed. Each time, 15J has
coastal Waterway, we looked out over a salt proved to be the most elusive traveler among
marsh stretching at least a mile. It seemed like the J-birds. I often receive updates about oth-
a large area but was a fraction of the historic ers almost daily, but I’ve heard about her only a
marsh devoured by development in recent handful of times. Whenever there’s been a long
decades. Suddenly, two whooping cranes flew gap, I’ve worried: Did she collide with a power
up from behind a grassy dune, white feath- line? Get eaten by a coyote? Was she shot by
ers gleaming in the sunlight. “They’re here a poacher? Or did she succumb to an illness?
because this just doesn’t exist anywhere along If all goes well, 15J will be among the now
the coast anymore,” Brandt said of the rich hab- 536 recorded whooping cranes preparing to
itat. “This portion of the peninsula has about depart Texas this spring, when their instincts
40 percent of the population wintering here.” signal it’s again time to arrow north. In the
Shortly after dawn the next morning, we span of a month, they’ll travel 2,500 miles to
boarded a fishing boat and spent eight hours Wood Buffalo National Park, where many of
fruitlessly searching for 15J along the Aransas the adults will build nests and lay eggs. With
refuge and nearby shorelines. We did, however, luck, in a few more years it will be 15J’s turn to
find several other whooping crane families, join that cycle too, helping her species continue
including a male bird, 11J, tagged around the its climb back from the edge of extinction. j
same time the previous August. He was walk-
Michael Forsberg is a conservation photog-
ing along the salt marsh begging—peep, peep, rapher, co-founder of Platte Basin Timelapse,
peep, peep—for his parents to share the blue and always happy in the company of cranes.

131
In Aransas National
Wildlife Refuge,
Texas, whooping
cranes prance along-
side American white
pelicans at sunrise.
The nearly five-
foot-tall birds need
open spaces like
this salt marsh pond
to thrive.
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APRIL PAGE.134 2024

 U N D E RWAT E R
WONDERS

“Montgomery writes with brilliance,

humor, and a rich empathy that
makes the reader look at the world
of sea creatures in an entirely new
way. It’s a marvel.”
—SU SA N O R LEA N, author of
On Animals and The Orchid Thief

“Secrets of the Octopus is an

engaging deep dive into an eight-
armed force of intelligence.”
—C AR L SA FIN A, author of
Becoming Wild and Alfie and Me

I AVA I L A B L E W H E R E V E R B O O K S A R E S O L D

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