National Geographic USA - December 2023

12.
2023
T H E WO N DE R O F
OUR WORLD IN 29 PHOTOS
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FURTHER DECEMBER 2023
C O N T E N T S On the Cover
A banded sea krait swims
toward the surface for a
breath of air at Blue Corner,
a spectacular scuba diving
site in Palau’s Rock Islands
Southern Lagoon.
KILIII YÜYAN
P R O O F E X P L O R E
THE BIG IDEA
Exposing
Hidden Marvels
Through specialized
techniques, photogra-
phy can teach us to see
the world in new ways.
BY A N A N D VA R M A
FIELD NOTES
Circling the Globe TRAVEL RADAR
in Search of the Past Where to Go Now

Albert Lin, an adven- See Calder mobiles in
turous engineer, seeks Seattle, a rainforest
telling remnants of reserve in Cameroon,
former civilizations. and a top view of a
BY DA N I E L STO N E
royal city in Vietnam.
BY RO N A N O ’C O N N E L L
THROUGH THE LENS
Reprieve for Tigers

Into the Woods A grueling investiga-
By using a camera- tion into America’s
mounted microscope, captive tiger industry
a photographer zooms ends with a ray of hope.
in on the branches, BY ST E V E W I N T E R , W I T H
pine cones, and plants S H A RO N G U Y N U P
of a Canadian forest—
ALSO ALSO
down to their cells.
P H OTO G R A P H S BY Following the Fish Pompeian Delicacies
RO B E RT B E R DA N Wild Flora at Risk Armored Bird Nests
PHOTO (MOBILE): “GAMMA,” 1947, © 2023 CALDER FOUNDATION, NEW YORK/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK
D E C E M B E R | CONTENTS
F E AT U R E S Pictures of the Year Fortress of Faith

Diana Markosian’s Get an insider’s view
portraits of young of Spain’s Alhambra.
women who are BY EMMA LIRA Marcio Pimenta
A B OV E :
shaking things up in P H OTO G RA P H S BY photographed this taxi-
Somaliland, Renan J O S É M A N U E L N AV I A dermied Darwin’s rhea
Ozturk’s capture of A RT BY F E R N A N D O G . at the Maggiorino Bor-
an expedition vessel B A P T I S TA gatello museum in Chile
nearly swallowed by ...................................... P. 88 while on a solo expedi-
the seas of the South tion following the trail of
Atlantic—these are just Where Have All the Charles Darwin. Using the
a few of the most mem- Caribou Gone? naturalist’s travel journal as
orable images made by Once robust herds are his guide, and with support
National Geographic rapidly declining. from the National Geo-
photographers around BY NEIL SHEA graphic Society, Pimenta
the world in 2023. P H OTO G RA P H S BY covered more than 6,835
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P. 36 K AT I E O R L I N S K Y . . . . . . . P. 112 miles of land and sea.
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D E C E M B E R | FROM THE EDITOR
B Y N AT H A N LU M P PHOTOGRAPH BY NICHOLE SOBECKI
A T N A T I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C we are to our contributors. Perhaps unsur- One of the most captivat-

fortunate to work with incredible prisingly, you’ll still find in these ing images from the past
year was this Egyptian
photographers who canvass the globe photographs many of the themes fruit bat flapping its wings
to uncover stories that give us a new that are on all our minds: the shadow inside a wind tunnel at
understanding of our world. Every of war, the impact of climate change, Brown University. In her lab,
biologist Sharon Swartz
day our team of skilled photo editors the push-pull of modernity and tradi- studies the biological and
and designers combs through their tion, the promise of science. physical aspects of flight in
images (sometimes thousands for a Also in our pages this month: an in- various bat species.
single story!) to choose the ones that depth survey of the iconic Alhambra
do what great photographs do: convey in Spain, featuring a spectacular graphic
information, yes, but also compel the exploration of the site by National Geo-
eye and fill the heart. graphic senior artist Fernando Gómez
Our annual tribute to this work, Baptista, and an examination of North
“Pictures of the Year,” highlights America’s great caribou herds, which
a selection of our editors’ favorite have been experiencing a precipitous
images from photographers in the decline that is not entirely understood.
field. It is not meant to tell a story of We hope you enjoy the issue.
the year’s most important moments,
but to show what the world, in all
its variety and richness, looked like
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MERMAIDS ARE REAL
| S Y LV I A E A R L E |
With over 7,000 hours spent underwater as part of a lifetime of research, exploration, and
conservation efforts, Sylvia Earle isn’t just oceanic royalty. She’s the closest thing we’ve got
to a real-life mermaid. Explore the world alongside National Geographic Experts like Sylvia
when you make your next trip an expedition.
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
D E C E M B E R | CONTRIBUTORS
N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C E X P L O R E R S
These contributors have received funding from the
National Geographic Society, which is committed to illuminating
and protecting the wonder of our world.
Neil Shea
Based in Brooklyn, New York,
Shea is an award-winning writer
who works in print, film, tele-
vision, and audio. He covers
cultural and environmental
shifts in places from Iraqi Kurdi-
stan to East Africa. His book
Frostlines: Dispatches From the
New Arctic will be published by
Ecco in 2025. Page 112
Katie Orlinsky
During almost a decade of living in and visiting Alaska, Orlinsky has been
examining the effects of climate change on the Arctic. Her images of its
thawing permafrost appeared in the September 2019 issue of National
Geographic, and for this issue she hiked solo for days in a remote stretch
of Alaska to document migrating caribou. When a wolf approached
briefly, Orlinsky was thrilled for the company, she says. The June 2023
cover story featured her photographs of the world’s first designated wil-
derness area, in New Mexico. She became an Explorer in 2022. Page 112
Emma Lira
A travel writer and specialist
in Spain, Lira has authored his-
torical fiction novels, a Lonely
Planet Granada guide, and a
National Geographic story on
Tenerife’s mummies. She’s a res-
ident of Madrid and the Canary
Islands and leads small group
tours for women throughout
the Islamic world. Page 88
Anand Varma
In the woods near his childhood home in Atlanta, Varma discovered
his passion for being immersed in the natural world. Then he picked
up his father’s camera and found a way to share that enthusiasm. Now
living in Berkeley, California, Varma has spent years developing inno-
vative photography techniques to reveal aspects of science and nature,
such as the rapid motions of hummingbirds, that normally go unseen.
José Manuel Navia An Explorer since 2010, he’s also a TED speaker and a World Press
Navia’s images highlighting Photo award winner. Page 17
aspects of Iberian, Hispanic, and
Andalusian cultures appear reg-
ularly in El Pais and have been The following Explorers contributed photographs to “Pictures of the
featured in the Spain edition Year,” beginning on page 36:
of National Geographic for 25 David Doubilet, Yagazie Emezi, Jen Guyton, Robin Hammond, Davide
years. His photographic essays Monteleone, Matthieu Paley, Louie Palu, Thomas Peschak, Carsten
are often based on authors he Peter, Marcio Pimenta, Jaime Rojo, Alexander Semenov, Chinky Shukla,
admires, capturing their literary Nichole Sobecki, John Stanmeyer, Brent Stirton, and Kiliii Yüyan.
landscapes. Page 88
PHOTOS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT): PETER GWIN; KATIE ORLINSKY; VIJAY VARMA; LUCÍA RIVAS; EMMA LIRA
GIFT IDEAS FOR
T H E A DV E N T U R E R !
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
@NatGeoBooks
© 2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC
P R O O F
P H OTO G R A P H S BY ROBERT BERDAN
N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C L O O K I N G AT T H E E A RT H F R O M E V E RY P O S S I B L E A N G L E
8 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
INTO THE WOODS
With a camera-mounted microscope, this photographer reveals the cellular world inside a forest.
VO L . 2 4 4 N O. 6
Red and blue dyes isolate

parts of the interior of
a male pine cone, sliced
lengthwise and magnified
20 times. Pollen-filled sacs
surround the pine cone’s
central axis.
DECEMBER 2023 9
P R O O F
In Robert Berdan’s lab, tinted slices of plants transform into kaleidoscopic works of art echoing agate or stained glass. His tech-
nique, known as photomicrography, involves photographing dyed specimens under a microscope fitted with a DSLR camera.
Seen here, clockwise from top left: spruce branch; pine stem, showing four distinct growth rings; spruce needle; poplar branch;
brown lily ovary; poplar branch at greater magnification.
DECEMBER 2023 11
P R O O F
Thinly sliced, tinged with red, and photographed at 400 times magnification, a poplar branch calls to mind not wood but
macramé. “I became interested in photography because I wanted to share what I saw in the microscope,” Berdan says. In this
image, parenchyma cells, which are the foundation of all plant tissue, resemble holes, while a banding pattern reflects the
tree’s annual growth. “Plants are more complicated than most of us imagine,” he says.
DECEMBER 2023 13
P R O O F
THE BACKSTORY
A S A C H I L D, T H I S P H OTO G R A P H E R G OT A C LO S E - U P LO O K AT
T H E N AT U R A L W O R L D. H E ’ S B E E N E N T H R A L L E D E V E R S I N C E .
G ROW I N G U P O N the shores of Lake But Berdan never forgot his two
Huron in the Canadian province of early passions—being immersed in
Ontario, Robert Berdan was never nature and photographing its tiny
far from water. When he was in sixth details—and he decided to return to
grade, he received a toy microscope them. His subjects range from snow-
for Christmas. Some of the first things flakes to spruce trees. To see the latter
he saw through its lens were tiny crea- under a microscope, Berdan collects a
tures inside droplets he’d gathered small branch and wields specialized
from a local pond. He was fascinated tools to shave off paper-thin slices,
with the microorganisms. which he dyes red or blue. For the final
After eighth grade, Berdan upgraded images, he often uses a process called
to a more sophisticated model and real- focus stacking, in which similar photos
ized it was a portal to another world. with different focal planes are blended
“The new microscope changed my life,” to achieve a more profound depth of
he says. “I could see so much more.” He field, and he sometimes stitches photos
began studying photography and buy- together to create panoramas.
ing cameras to fit on his microscope. He “I investigate anything that might
captured images of ferns, mushrooms, have possibilities,” he says. And he
and trees, and learned how to develop encourages others to do the same with
film. He also developed his micros- a microscope. “Any tool that amplifies
copy skills, so much so that he earned our ability to see will enhance our cre-
a doctoral degree in cellular biology ativity,” he notes. “Our observations can
and spent five years running a lab at potentially lead to new discoveries and
the University of Alberta in Edmonton. solutions.” — C AT H E R I N E Z U C K E R M A N
Blue pigment adds an icy hue to this view of the cellular structure within a poplar branch.
IN THIS SECTION
Pizza in Pompeii?
E X P L O R E Wild Plants to Know

Calder Extravaganza
On the Tiger Beat
I L L U M I N AT I N G T H E M Y S T E R I E S — A N D W O N D E R S — A L L A R O U N D U S E V E R Y D AY
N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C VO L . 2 4 4 N O. 6
Exposing
Hidden Marvels
WITH ITS ABILITY TO CAPTURE SIGHTS INDISCERNIBLE TO THE HUMAN
E Y E , P H O T O G R A P H Y C A N ‘ T E A C H U S T O S E E T H E W O R L D A N E W.’
B Y A N A N D VA R M A
of becoming a marine biologist

A S A K I D, I D R E A M E D
and living my life by the sea. Since I grew up in a
landlocked suburb of Atlanta, I lived out this fantasy
by setting up aquariums at home. At 14, I started
working at my neighborhood aquarium shop. By
16, I had seven fish tanks at home. Then, at 20, I was
introduced to photographer David Liittschwager,
who hired me to help him with a National Geographic
magazine assignment on marine life.
We spent 10 days aboard the Oscar Elton Sette, a
224-foot NOAA research vessel sailing off the Kona
coast of Hawaii. David’s assignment was to document
the astounding biodiversity found at the surface
of the ocean. My role was to collect specimens for
him to photograph.
Every night after the Sette had completed its sci-
entific mission, I would cast a floating lamp off the
port side of the ship. Like moths drawn to a flame,
mysterious creatures would emerge from the depths
DECEMBER 2023 17
E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA
in search of this light. Shimmering baby eels, tiny saw the shimmering colors and delicate bones that
transparent crabs, sparkling squid. I’d carefully select David’s image had first revealed to me.
an ambassador for each species and set up aquariums Before working for David, I had assumed the goal
to house them as they waited for David to take their of photography was simply to reproduce an observa-
glamour shot. tion so that others could share the same experience.
Those evenings aboard the Sette made me feel It had never occurred to me that photography could
as if I were on another planet. At the end of each expand our visual perception and thereby teach us
night, I’d sit and marvel at my dazzling collection. to see the world anew.
I had never imagined such bizarre life-forms could
exist in our oceans. My eyes were glued to the tanks, These are the features of
S I Z E . T I M E . L I G H T. F O C U S .
my attention absorbed by these alien beings. But I David’s photograph that expanded my understand-
didn’t grasp the true magic of what was in front of ing of that small flounder. And these are the tools
me until I saw the photographs David took of these that photography gives us to witness and reveal the
creatures I’d been gathering. world’s invisible wonders.
For example, size. When editors at
National Geographic asked me to pho-
tograph a story on honeybees, I was not
excited to take on the assignment. The
tiny pollinators had already garnered
so much media attention that I couldn’t
imagine how I could contribute anything
new. But as an insecure young photog-
rapher, how could I say no? So I faked
some enthusiasm and landed a job I had
no idea how to accomplish.
I started by learning how to keep bees
in my Berkeley, California, backyard,
hoping that with enough time and study,
I’d discover some new way of portraying
their lives. One day I noticed something
out of place: A young bee had become
trapped as it was emerging from the hive.
Using a trick I’d learned from an ento-
mologist, I plucked one of my eyelashes
and used its thin, flexible tip to brush a
bit of debris away from the bee’s face.
A macro lens, fast shutter speed, and precise lighting brought out dazzling Then I placed a light behind the hive to
details in this young flounder that weren’t initially apparent.
make the surrounding wax glow.
The bee’s position allowed me to bring
The biggest surprise was his image of a baby my camera close and capture features on its head I
flounder, seen above. I caught this fish by accident, hadn’t noticed before, like its jointed antennae and
scooping it up as I was chasing some more obvious furry face. I’d spent a year tending to my hive—but
target. Only later, when I inspected the contents of my until that moment I’d never experienced a bee this
collecting jar, did I notice its two tiny eyeballs staring way. Once we were brought eye to eye, the intimacy
back at me. The only other feature I could discern was inspired new questions. How does this creature
the faintly wriggling outline of its transparent body. perceive its environment? What do I look like to it?
But David’s photograph of this flounder revealed Why all the hair?
a universe of detail that even my eager eyes had We tend to relate best to beings our own size, or at
missed. His macro lens magnified its finely artic- least creatures we can see with an unaided eye. When
ulated ribs. The lightning-fast exposure froze its photography magnifies a subject, it can break that
motion, providing a crisply defined view. A precisely barrier. That opens us to entirely new perspectives.
aimed light released the rainbow hidden in the floun-
der’s skin. And the black background eliminated T H E R E ’ S S I M I L A R P O T E N T I A L in time. In 2015 I met
all distractions to focus our attention on the quiet bat expert Rodrigo Medellín in Mexico’s Yucatán
beauty at hand. Peninsula, where his team had located a family of
Years after that project in Hawaii, I was snorkeling woolly false vampire bats, one of the largest species
at night on a shallow reef in French Polynesia. Out of in the Americas. National Geographic wanted me
the darkness, another baby flounder emerged and to photograph the bats, and Medellín asked me to
settled on my mask. This time I knew what to look bring an enclosure so we could work with them in
for. I angled my flashlight toward the little fish and captivity. I brought a collapsible batting cage used for
PHOTO: DAVID LIITTSCHWAGER

THERE’S A BETTER WAY
TO SHOW YOUR LOVE.
© 2023 Mars or Affiliates
Love them back™

E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA
A COMPELLING PHOTOGRAPH
CAN CHANGE US. IT SHAPES
WHAT WE NOTICE, CHALLENGES
OUR ASSUMPTIONS, AND
E X P A N D S O U R C U R I O S I T Y.
baseball practice and set it up at the foot of my hotel

room bed. We then released a captured bat inside.
Bats’ speed and stealth make them nearly impossi-
ble to track with a camera. But Medellín used a clever
technique of enticing the carnivore to fly across the
cage on command, using bits of raw chicken as a
reward, and that allowed me to predict where it would
be and when. I set the camera to take an image over Where Science
a third of a second, knowing this would record only a and Photography
blurry trace of the bat’s swift movement. But before
the camera completed its exposure, I triggered a brief
Join Forces
flash of light, creating a crisply defined image of the
bat superimposed onto its impressionistic form. After National Geographic pub-
We often assume a photograph can capture only a lished my photos of honeybees
single moment, yet that image simultaneously illus- in May 2015, a scientist told me
trates two different time intervals—in a sense, one too I had captured undescribed bee
fast for us to see and the other too slow. Our natural behavior. In pursuit of unique
perception lies somewhere in between, as a series of images, I had stumbled onto an
moments strung together into a movie whose pace original observation. That’s when
we cannot change. Photography gives us unique and I realized that science and pho-
flexible means to explore and portray time’s passage. tography aren’t mutually exclusive
efforts. Science gives us structured
see how fog transforms traffic signal
A S F O R L I G H T,
systems for observing the world,
beams in Lucas Zimmermann’s long exposure, shown while photography gives us tools
at right. Every photograph is a collaboration with for extending our visual perception.
light. Photographers position light in clever ways To harness the combined power
or manipulate it to reveal hidden patterns. Using of both, I’ve launched an enterprise
cameras’ capacities to detect colors invisible to the called WonderLab, in Berkeley,
human eye, they broaden our sensory experience. California. It draws on my training
And focus? Broadly defined, focus is how photog- as a biologist, my experience as a
raphers direct our attention, with technical skill and photographer, my fondness for tin-
thoughtful composition that compel us to slow down kering, and my desire to share what
and consider the layers of complexity and detail in a I’ve learned. It’s a science lab, a pho-
scene that we might miss at first glance. tography studio, a makerspace,
When I first decided to pursue photography, I a classroom. Ideally, WonderLab
thought I’d have to abandon my childhood dream of will inspire new ways of visualizing
being a scientist. But the longer I work in both realms, science—much as an exceptional
the better I understand how each reinforces the other. photograph gives us a fresh look
That’s the principle behind WonderLab, a research at our world. To learn more, visit
center I recently established (see sidebar). natgeo.org/wonderlab. — AV
I believe a compelling photograph can change us.
It shapes what we notice, challenges our assump-
tions, and expands our curiosity. It motivates us to
make room for new ideas and enlarges our circle of
compassion. A beautiful, bewildering photograph
is a wonderful place to start making sense of the
staggering complexity around us. j
This essay is drawn from Anand Varma’s 368-page coffee-
table book, Invisible Wonders: Photographs of the Hidden World.
It’s available wherever books are sold.
Photographs can play with
perceptions of time, as in
this image of traffic lights
shot with a long exposure on
a foggy night near Weimar,
Germany. The close-ups
below reveal the individual
bristles of a Venus flytrap
and feathers of a male
northern cardinal.
PHOTOS: LUCAS ZIMMERMANN (TOP); HELENE SCHMITZ (LEFT); TIM FLACH (RIGHT) DECEMBER 2023 21
Of the eight inhabited Canary Islands,
each has its own discrete natural history.
All have belonged to Spain for more than
half a millennium now, and the weather
is consistently warm, mild, and clement
across the whole archipelago.
One particular story has been told for as

long as anyone can remember: The legend
of a ninth. Often drawn onto past maps and
charts, the spectral isle of San Borondón
was named after the mystic Irish monk
known as Saint Brendan the Navigator.
Spreading Christianity across the seas in
the 6th century, he was guided by a giant
fish to a kind of heaven on Earth at the far
end of this archipelago. Happening upon
any of the Canary Islands today, a modern
voyager will encounter an earthly paradise
of incredible variety.
Ringed by yellow and black sand beaches,

Tenerife is also quietly spectacular through
inland forests and farmlands, ascending
to the snowy, starry summit of Mount
Teide. This mightiest volcano of the whole
archipelago casts a long shadow over the
sea, which is one possible source of the San
Borondón legend.
Lively with commerce, music, and a

flourishing gastronomic culture, Gran
Canaria arrays some of its deepest natural
pleasures across the hidden reaches of
a dynamic topography. Volcanic crags,
abyssal caves, towering dunes, ancient
pines, and rolling green hills create a
Canary Islands: “miniature continent” unto itself.
Lanzarote’s UNESCO-protected biosphere
Eight paradises, pushes most human activity right to the

margins at busy ports and lively coastal
resorts. The beautifully eerie interior
and the legend now draws ever-more hikers and cyclists

to otherworldly massifs, plains, volcanic
cones, and tunnels.
of a ninth Fuerteventura has been shaped over eons

by strong breezes that have whipped
up sand dunes into soft looming peaks.
Each of the Canaries is a world unto itself, Conditions are optimal for surfing and
other watersports off golden beaches,
with its own distinct landscape, wildlife,
while backroads wind their way to hidden
and culture. And there are even whispers coves and conservation areas for birdlife
of one more undiscovered island… or sea turtles.
PAID CONTENT FOR SPAIN TOURISM BOARD
Left hand page: Gran Canaria is a traveler’s paradise of golden beaches, but its interior conceals a treasure trove of natural
wonders. Top right: Celebrated with painted costumes and devilish masks, the diabletes (little devils) carnival has been held on
Lanzarote for several hundred years. Bottom right: Lanzarote’s Timanfaya National Park is a Lunar-like landscape of lava fields,
smoking craters, and peaks formed by volcanic eruptions hundreds of years ago. Map by: Guillermo Trapiello.
waters now known for prime dive spots. A certain

primeval atmosphere abides in volcanic pools and
Lively with commerce, thick laurel forests, especially where local legends tell
music, and a flourishing of witches gathering for ritual dances.
gastronomic culture, Gran Among the smallest, wildest, least-visited Canaries, La

Canaria arrays some of its Gomera rises from beaches and palm groves to misty
deepest natural pleasures cloud forest. Unpopulated as it is, the island still bears
living witness to its distant pre-Christian past by way of
across the hidden reaches the native “whistling language”, Silbo Gomero.
of a dynamic topography.
La Graciosa is one of Europe’s
last outposts without asphalt Discover
roads. A few whitewashed your
houses and summer residences
paradise:
On La Palma, wood-fronted houses rise out of the
harbor on a wave of solid lava, while Latin-style are scattered between deep
carnivals and hand-rolled cigars attest to a long blue undersea caves and
history as shipping hub between old and new worlds. terracotta-colored volcanic
ranges, where native bird,
Once the island at the edge of the known world, El fish, and lizard species far
Hierro’s many cliffs drop away abruptly into deep outnumber humans.
This is paid content. This content does not necessarily reflect the views
of National Geographic or its editorial staff.
E X P L O R E | BREAKTHROUGHS
The perfect revenge

To dissuade birds from fouling
buildings, owners sometimes
D I S PAT C H E S line ledges with strips of steel
spikes. But clever Eurasian
FROM THE FRONT LINES magpies rip the spikes from
OF SCIENCE structures and use them to
A N D I N N OVAT I O N top their nests, possibly as pro-
tection against crows, a new
study finds. — J A S O N B I T T E L
ARCHAEOLOGY
Pizza in
Pompeii?
Sort of
Several months
ago, when archae-
ologists in Pom-
peii revealed a
2,000-year-old
fresco showing
what they believe
to be a flat piece
of focaccia with
toppings, it wasn’t
quite the pizza
we know and love.
While the proto-
pizza might have
had garnishes,
ANIMAL BEHAVIOR
tomatoes didn’t
exist yet in Europe.
NEW ANGLE ON MANNERS Pompeians did use

garum, a salty fish
W H E N T H E G O I N G G E T S T I G H T, T H E S E F I S H H AV E A N sauce, as “ancient
UNUSUAL ABILITY TO SLOW DOWN AND QUEUE . ketchup” and dined
on stuffed dor-
A species of tiny freshwater fish found in the Amazon Basin
and in home aquariums around the world was discovered to
mouse as a delicacy.
possess something that a surprising number of people appear — CHRISTINA STERBENZ
to lack: the ability to wait their turn. In a new study published
in Scientific Reports, researchers ushered schools of neon tetras
(Paracheirodon innesi) through a narrow opening in their tank
and found that the fish used queuing to navigate the close quar-
ters without clogging up and impeding passage. The “courteous”
creatures, which are only about an inch long, did not collide into
one another as they swam near the opening. While the dexterity
to exit without bottlenecking has been observed in ants, no
other animal was known to have the skill. The study’s authors
believe that the neon tetras’ seemingly polite behavior might
have evolved to help them pass between rocks in their river hab-
itat. These findings, the authors say, could be used to improve
traffic-control strategies for autonomous cars–and perhaps for
crowds of people too. —A N N I E R OT H
PHOTOS (FROM TOP): AUKE FLORIAN HIEMSTRA; BLICKWINKEL/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; ABACA PRESS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Transforming
Parkinson’s
Research
A 2023 breakthrough is changing what’s
possible in Parkinson’s research. We’ve
never been closer to finding the cure.
Learn more.
michaeljfox.org
E X P L O R E | W I L D L I F E WATC H
the tea we drink,

T H E C A N DY W E E AT,
Brazil nut
the lotion we use—they all likely con- Bertholletia excelsa
tain ingredients from wild plants.
Harvesters trek deep into Amazon
While natural ingredients can be forests to collect these nuts, which
beneficial to buyers, the way those grow on tall trees. Once the shell
plants are harvested could harm is removed, they’re eaten whole as
snacks or made into an ingredient
ecosystems and workers. In a recent for skin-care products.
United Nations–affiliated report,
medicinal plant experts revealed the
risks behind several of them, including
Brazil nuts, frankincense, goldenseal,
gum arabic, and licorice.
Plant derivatives in household
products “sit there somewhere in
the middle of the ingredients list” on
product labels, often going unnoticed,
says Caitlin Schindler, lead author
of the report. Even if consumers do
take note, there’s no information
about what’s involved in obtaining or
processing the derivatives.
Many of these plants are threatened
with extinction from overharvesting,
disease and invasive pests, climate Frankincense
Boswellia sacra
change, and habitat loss. In addition,
collecting them may involve child This aromatic resin leaks from cuts
labor, violations of workers’ rights, made in African Boswellia trees.
After the sap hardens, it’s scraped off
and even modern slavery, according and processed for use in perfumes,
to the report. Workers are often poor, lotions, incense, and cosmetics; it can
female, and from marginalized rural also treat inflammation.
areas. The endangered status of more
than 20,000 medicinal or aromatic
plant species has never been assessed,
which means it’s impossible to know
whether their use is sustainable.
Meanwhile, the trade in wild plants—
for aromatherapy, natural medicine, Fragrance Medicine Cosmetic Food
Wild plants go into many
everyday products, often with
human and ecological costs,
but consumers can help.
BY RACHEL FOBAR
Licorice
Glycyrrhiza glabra
Often gathered by hand in rural

areas of Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan,
the root of the licorice herb flavors
tobacco, candy, and beverages. It’s
also used in skin-care products and
essential oils and as a supplement.
Gum arabic
Senegalia senegal
The sap of this African shrub is a
Goldenseal stabilizing or thickening agent in
edible items, including icing, soda,
Hydrastis canadensis
and marshmallows. It’s added to
This slow-growing, vulnerable plant essential oils and has antibacterial
native to North America goes into and anti-inflammatory properties.
medicines that help infected mucous
membranes, such as those of the
mouth and respiratory tract.
PHOTO: REBECCA HALE, NGM STAFF. SOURCES: CAITLIN SCHINDLER AND OTHERS, “WILDCHECK: ASSESSING RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF TRADE IN
WILD PLANT INGREDIENTS,” 2022, UN FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION; SUSTAINABLE HERBS PROGRAM, AMERICAN BOTANICAL COUNCIL
E X P L O R E | W I L D L I F E WATC H
food supplements, and natural beauty products—is risks and recommends best sourcing practices.
booming. U.S. consumers spent more than $12.3 billion Other programs include the Forest Stewardship
on herbal dietary supplements in 2021—up more than Council, the Rainforest Alliance, Fair for Life, and
9 percent from 2020. Plants such as licorice can be the Union for Ethical Biotrade. If certifications are
found in herbal preventives and remedies for COVID- missing, Schindler encourages people to challenge
19, and bark from the soapbark tree, endemic to Chile, companies to do better. “Until businesses get a bit
is in the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine. more pressure from consumers, we won’t see any
Wild plants have been used locally for centuries— changes happening,” she says.
frankincense in the Horn of Africa, Brazil nuts in “Historically, the medicinal plant industry has had
South America, baobab powder in southern Africa— a lot of secrecy in it,” says Ann Armbrecht, director
but today’s global demand puts many at risk. And of the Sustainable Herbs Program, which supports
international customers often have no idea where transparency in herb sourcing. She says that when
these products originate. she got her start in this field, “there was so much
Should consumers stop buying the products? No, discussion about where food came from, and nobody
Schindler says, because “the ingredients are really was asking where the chamomile in their [tea] came
critical to a lot of people’s livelihoods.” Solutions for from.” Companies don’t want to share proprietary
transforming the trade in wild plants are rooted in information, and consumers don’t think to ask.
awareness. The first step for consumers is to “just By using contact information on company web-
notice that you’re buying something that has a wild sites, consumers can pose questions: Do you source
ingredient,” she says. It’s generally safer to purchase organic and fair-trade ingredients? Do you or your
local products and splurge on more expensive ones, suppliers make site visits to the communities where
if possible. your products are grown? What are you doing to
Consumers can also look for organic and fair- combat climate change?
trade certifications. Various programs evaluate Companies that don’t make the effort to learn
wild-plant supply chains for sustainability and about the sources of their ingredients, Armbrecht
employment conditions, and many companies says, will start doing so if consumers demand it. j
advertise these certifications, either on the product Rachel Fobar is a reporter for Wildlife Watch, our investigative
or online. One of the most prominent is FairWild, reporting project focused on wildlife crime and exploitation.
which assesses both human and environmental It’s supported by the National Geographic Society.
RANGES OF CONCERN Environmental Risk level Human

In recent years the global trade Overharvesting of the High Laborers collecting the plants
in wild plants has skyrocketed. plants—along with climate can face a range of difficulties,
Medium including environmental haz-
As species are exploited, dangers change, habitat loss, and
to biodiversity and local workers disease—can lead to spe- Low ards, human rights abuses,
have also risen. cies extinction. and poor pay.
NORTH Licorice
A S I A
EUROPE Glycyrrhiza glabra
AMERICA
Goldenseal
Hydrastis canadensis
AFRICA
Frankincense
Boswellia sacra
Brazil nut
Bertholletia excelsa
SOUTH
AMERICA AUSTRALIA
Gum arabic
Senegalia senegal
LUCAS PETRIN, NGM STAFF. SOURCES: WILDCHECK 2020, UN FOOD AND

AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION; ROYAL BOTANICAL GARDENS, KEW
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E X P L O R E | FIELD NOTES
CIRCLING THE GLOBE

IN SEARCH OF THE PAST
A L B E RT L I N I S A R A R E K I N D O F E N G I N E E R— one who Albert Lin perches on a
cliff edge while seeking
scales cliffs, battles rivers, and rappels into caverns.
traces of the Cloud
The National Geographic Explorer is on a quest to Warrior people in Peru.
uncover the hidden remnants of former civilizations
for his new show, Lost Cities Revealed With Albert Lin.
He not only uses data, drones, modeling software,
and aerial imaging to locate relics, but he also hikes
into forests, deserts, and jungles, with the help of a
titanium prosthesis in place of his right leg, which
he lost after a vehicle accident.
The journeys take him to the mountains of Peru to
find the Cloud Warrior people conquered by the Inca
and to Oman to explore Magan, a Bronze Age land.
He visits ancient pyramids in Sudan and a former
settlement of Scottish tribespeople, whose members
fought off the Roman army. “There’s still so much
to be learned about who we are and where we come
from,” Lin says. The series is filled with twists, often
from unexpected acts of nature, such as a tense raft-
ing accident, and harrowing suspense, like a night
camping beside one of the world’s deadliest scorpions.
While Lin was looking for the biblical Canaanites in
Israel, a falling boulder shattered his prosthetic
leg. Luckily, he had a spare. — DA N I E L S TO N E
Catch season one of

Lost Cities Revealed With
Albert Lin on National
Geographic starting
November 23 and
Disney+ November 29.
PHOTO: ROCÍO LIRA SALAS, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC FOR DISNEY

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WHAT’S
NEW AND in Britain to
NOTEWORTHY
AROUND
conservation in
THE WORLD Cameroon.
BY RONAN O’CONNELL
1
RARE WINDOWS
The Endangered Art

of Stained Glass
For 900 years this style
of window has bathed
British castles and
cathedrals (such as
A TRAINED mechanical
Liverpool’s, below) in
colorful, dappled light. engineer, Alexander Calder
But a recent report pioneered the mobile, a
reveals that fewer than sculpture that moves via
60 stained-glass mak- motors or air currents. His
ers remain in the United 1948 “Dispersed Objects
Kingdom, primarily
With Brass Gong” (above)
because of rising mate-
rial costs and fewer is in a collection of 62 works
study pathways for by the late American artist
prospective artisans. A CAMEROON’S displayed together for the
new youth-recruitment first time at the Seattle Art
KORUP RAINFOREST
drive aims to secure Museum, in Washington.
lasting production of R E C E N T LY B E C A M E A
“Calder: In Motion, the
these precious panes. UNESCO BIOSPHERE
Shirley Family Collection”
RESERVE . THE MANA will be part of a multiyear
RIVER FOOTBRIDGE project exhibiting the inno-
LEADS INTO THE vator’s mobiles, stabiles,
AFRICAN
PARK, HOME TO wire sculptures, and oil
PARK UNIQUE FLORA AND paintings. His 39-foot-tall,
bright red, steel “Eagle”
THE CRITICALLY
already roosts permanently
ENDANGERED CROSS
in Seattle’s waterfront Olym-
RIVER GORILLA. pic Sculpture Park.
IMPERIAL VIEWS
Towering walls ring Hue’s

Imperial City, the hub
of Vietnam’s Nguyen
dynasty (1802-1945). A
new walkway allows tour-
ists to view the citadel
from atop a part of those
fortifications, including
the majestic temple The To
Mieu and its entrance gate
(right) protected by stat-
ues of dragons, unicorns,
phoenixes, and turtles.
PHOTOS: ALBERTO MANUEL UROSA TOLEDANO, GETTY IMAGES (WINDOW); CAGAN HAKKI SEKERCIOGLU, GETTY IMAGES (RIVER);
© 2023 CALDER FOUNDATION, NEW YORK/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK (MOBILE); TRIP NUTS AND BOLTS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (TEMPLE)
• • • •
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DURING PRECEDING 12 MOS. T O F I L I N G D AT E
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H. TOTAL (Sum of F and G) 1,636,921 1,510,769
I. PERCENT PAID 98.1% 97.8%
E X P L O R E | THROUGH THE LENS
Young rescued tigers Clay, Daniel, and Enzo rest after some vigorous play at the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado.
BIG CATS GET A REPRIEVE

A G R U E L I N G F O R AY I N T O T H E U N D E R B E L LY O F A M E R I C A’ S C A P T I V E -
T I G E R I N D U S T R Y E N D S W I T H A R AY O F H O P E .
BY STEVE WINTER, WITH SHARON GUYNUP
into captive
O U R T W O -Y E A R I N V E S T I G AT I O N called a U.S. tiger crisis. Captive-bred cats often ended
tigers in America sent us through 32 U.S. states— up in the illegal wildlife trade. To maintain a constant
with some truly disturbing experiences. But as supply of babies, tigresses were forced to churn out
the deadline for our National Geographic story litter after litter. Cubs, wrenched from their mothers
loomed, I still needed a powerful, hopeful image. at birth, were fed poorly and handled by hundreds
When we began our reporting in 2017—Sharon, of people. When they grew too big and dangerous to
writing; me photographing; and our son, Nick pet at around 12 weeks, cubs became breeders, were
Ruggia, filming—more tigers likely lived in cages put on display, or simply disappeared. Many of these
in the U.S. than remained in the wild. Estimates venues passed themselves off as sanctuaries. At least
ranged from 5,000 to 10,000, but with lax government one made a million dollars or more in annual revenue.
oversight, no one knew for sure. There was no federal Zigzagging the country, we interviewed hundreds
law regulating big-cat ownership. of people for the story, including owners, workers,
Roadside zoos that allowed tourists to cuddle and and customers at both roadside zoos and true sanctu-
shoot selfies with cubs were at the root of what’s been aries, as well as wildlife biologists, conservationists,
PHOTO: STEVE WINTER

READY,
SET, RETIRE!
888-353-2010,
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E X P L O R E | THROUGH THE LENS
prosecutors, and U.S. Fish and Wild- rescued from Joe Exotic’s former zoo.
life Service agents. Sometimes we These huge, nearly grown cats frol-
went undercover, sometimes not. AWARD WINNERS icked, racing beside our ATV as we
We filmed and photographed cub The prestigious annual drove the fence line and sparring on
petting at run-down zoos, a high-end Eliza Scidmore Award for their hind legs—behavior I’d seen
safari show, an Illinois county fair, Outstanding Storytelling only in wild tigers.
is presented by the National
and an Oklahoma living room. We saw Geographic Society. It was a steamy July day, and soon
sick, skeletal tigers—some scarred, The award is named for two of the cats jumped into a stock
cross-eyed, or disabled—living in the writer and photographer tank to cool off. The third settled
squalid quarters. We discovered illicit who, in 1892, became the beside them on the ground. I crossed
first woman elected to the
activities, including animal abuse, Society’s board. In 2024
the road to shoot pictures of another
donations used for personal profit, the award will recognize tiger, framed by a patchwork of blue
and wildlife trafficking, which drives National Geographic sky and gray clouds, with the last rays
poaching of the last wild tigers. Explorers Steve Winter and from the sun streaming through as it
Sharon Guynup for their
Sharon corresponded with Joe dipped behind the Rocky Mountains.
compelling investigative
Exotic, the infamous “Tiger King” reporting on the plight of Then I heard my assistant loud-
who’s now serving a 21-year sentence captive tigers in the U.S. whisper, “Steve, you said you wanted
for murder for hire and falsifying a rainbow. You got one!” I crawled
criminal records, as well as killing and trafficking back toward the trio, trying not to disturb them,
tigers at his former G.W. Exotic Animal Park in Okla- and slipped my lens through the fence. The third
homa. I spent nine days photographing Bhagavan cat laid its head against the tank, and I had the shot:
“Doc” Antle and his Myrtle Beach Safari attraction. three contented tigers, framed by a rainbow.
In June 2023 Antle was convicted of felony wildlife When the story ran in 2019, members of Congress
trafficking and conspiring to traffic in wildlife. who’d sponsored legislation regulating big cats
While we documented the underbelly of this received a copy. Three years later, the Big Cat Public
industry, we also wanted to show the best life these Safety Act became law, prohibiting private owner-
magnificent apex predators—unable to be released ship in most circumstances and public hands-on
into the wild—could have in captivity. With two contact. The U.S. cub-petting industry is now a
weeks left before my deadline, I headed to the Wild thing of the past. j
Animal Sanctuary near Denver, where well-nurtured Steve Winter photographed and Sharon Guynup wrote “The
cats roam acres of habitat. Tigers Next Door,” which ran in the December 2019 issue of
There I met Clay, Daniel, and Enzo, three of 39 tigers the magazine.
Writer Sharon Guynup captures photographer Steve Winter in action with a selfie taken atop Elephant Rock during recent
fieldwork in Sri Lanka. The team works together to document the challenges facing big cats and other animals.
PHOTO: SHARON GUYNUP

N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C DECEMBER 2023
Pictures of the Year. . . . . P. 36

Alhambra’s Legacy . . . . . P. 88
Dwindling Caribou . . . . . P. 112
F EAT U R E S
CARIBOU ARE CREATURES OF
112 H A B I T, A N D T H E I R H A B I T S S E E M
SYNCED TO AN OLDER AND
COLDER WORLD. THE QUE STION
IN OUR TIME IS HOW QUICKLY
T H E Y W I L L O R W O N ’ T A DA P T.
PHOTO: KATIE ORLINSKY

A RC T I C E L E GY
WHITE SEA, RUSSIA

Marine biologist
Alexander Semenov
calls the lion’s mane
jellyfish the queen
of the Arctic seas. He
photographed this
regal specimen in its
R E AC H I N G For a mock moonwalk,
astronaut Zena Card-
final stage of life: Hav- FOR THE man wore this training
ing reproduced, it has
shrunk in size, digested
MOON suit weighing more
than 80 pounds to
or shed its hundreds simulate a real suit’s
of long tentacles, and range of motion and
C O C O N I N O C O U N T Y,
become, in Semenov’s ARIZONA weight in lunar gravity.
words, an “alien flower.”
Before the Artemis •
• program sends humans
to the lunar surface, PHOTOGRAPH BY
PHOTOGRAPH BY
ALEXANDER SEMENOV
NASA performs high-
fidelity tests on Earth.
DAN WINTERS
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
S
U
P
R
E
C
N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C P H OTO G R A P H E R S T R AV E L T H E G LO B E TO
CAPTURE THE WONDER OF OUR WORLD AND THE SPIRIT OF OUR TIMES.
HERE WE PRESENT OUR ANNUAL SELECTION OF THEIR BEST WORK.
F
O
E
PAG E
2 02 3
39
DECEMBER
H R
E
T A
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
S N OW
P AT R O L
S O DA N KY L Ä , F I N L A N D
At a military facility
north of the Arctic
Circle, Finnish and
U.S. soldiers train for
winter warfare by
navigating an obstacle
course while on skis.
The exercise took place
two months before
Finland—which shares
an 800-mile border
with Russia—joined
NATO. The training was
arranged in response
to the war in Ukraine.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
LOUIE PALU
41
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
SPIRITS OF
THE AMAZON
P U E RTO N A R I Ñ O,
COLOMBIA
In the cosmology of
the Tikuna, one of the
largest Indigenous
groups in the Amazon,
pink dolphins are
mischievous spirits and
guardians of the watery
realm. Women dance
in dolphin costumes
made from the bark
of the yanchama tree.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
THOMAS PESCHAK
PESCHAK’S TWO-YEAR EXPEDITION
ACROSS THE AMAZON IS SUPPORTED
BY ROLEX’S PERPETUAL PLANET
INITIATIVE, A PARTNERSHIP WITH
42
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY.

SP OTTED
UP CLOSE
MASAI MARA
N AT I O N A L R E S E RV E ,
K E N YA
Soon after dawn at
Lemek Conservancy,
spotted hyenas arrive
at a pond to drink.
Widely misunderstood,
hyenas are fierce,
intelligent, and social,
living and hunting as
members of matriar-
chal clans. Jen Guyton
captured this close-
up with an armored,
remote-controlled
robot designed by
National Geographic
photo engineers.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
JEN GUYTON
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC 45
4 6 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
BUDDHISM
TOURISM
X I ’A N , C H I N A
On Chinese Labor Day,
tourists pose for a selfie
in front of a pagoda
and bronze statue of
Xuanzang, the seventh-
century Buddhist monk
who spent 16 years on
a pilgrimage to India
and translated dozens
of manuscripts from
Sanskrit into Chinese.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
JOHN STANMEYER
LOOKING
GLASS
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
C H I B A , JA PA N
Workers at the Chiba
Kogaku glass factory
use sledgehammers to
remove the clay pot
around a core of optical
glass. Highly resistant
to air-temperature
changes, the glass
will be cut into slabs,
shipped to the Univer-
sity of Arizona’s obser-
vatory, then melted
and cast into mirrors
for large, high-altitude
telescopes.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
CHRISTOPHER PAYNE
4 8
LIFE IN
U N L I K E LY
P L AC E S
F R A S A S S I C AV E S ,
I T A LY
Caver Valentina Mari-
ani (above), National
Geographic Explorer
Kenny Broad (center),
and Nadir Quarta
prepare for a dive into
the dark, toxic waters
of Lago Verde. Such
sunlight-starved eco-
systems could offer a
glimpse into the chem-
istry of life in alien seas.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
CARSTEN PETER
FEAST FOR
THE EYES
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
JARQORGON,
U Z B E K I S TA N
An all-woman cere-
mony beneath a
hand-embroidered
suzani marks a son’s
departure to study in
the capital, Tashkent.
While one recites
Quranic verses, others
remove a covering to
bless the flatbread.
This ritual was influ-
enced by Zoroastrian-
ism, one of the world’s
oldest living religions.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
MATTHIEU PALEY
52
54 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
RAISE AND
RELEASE
C H I C AG O, I L L I N O I S
A seven-foot-long zebra
shark glides through
an exhibit at Shedd
Aquarium, one of several
aquariums where endan-
gered zebra sharks are
breeding to produce
eggs for shipment to
Indonesia. They will be
raised and released into a
marine protected area in
Raja Ampat to rebuild its
wild population.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
DAVID DOUBILET
I W A N T E D T O D O C U M E N T S O M A L I L A N D I N A W AY
T H AT E M P O W E R E D W O M E N . B O L D. C O U R AG E O U S . D R I V E N .
—DIANA MARKOSIAN, PHOTOGRAPHER
GAME
CHANGERS
HARGEISA ,
SOMALILAND
Markosian traveled to
Somaliland—an unrec-
ognized, self-declared
state within Somalia—
three decades after the
country emerged from
civil war. She found
plenty of youthful
energy: “I met a gen-
eration of girls who are
mixing things up and
reshaping culture
while also maintaining
tradition.” Left: Hafsa
Omar, 20, and her
sister Asma, 18 (hold-
ing ball), play on a
women’s basketball
team and attend
university. Hafsa also
works digitizing cas-
sette tapes and other
media containing
music, speeches, and
more. Right: Suhuur
Hassan, 19, and Muhim
Mawliid, 20 (looking at
camera), study tradi-
tional dance at Hargei-
sa’s Halkar Academy.
•
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
DIANA MARKOSIAN
LIFE WITH
GIANTS
VA L PA R A I , I N D I A
Elephants wander a tea
estate that was once
part of their forest
habitat before being
converted to crop
production in the late
1800s. Today about
70,000 people live
and work in the region
among 120 elephants.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
BRENT STIRTON
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
FLIGHT
SCHOOL
P ROV I D E N C E ,
RHODE ISLAND
At Brown University,
doctoral student
Brooke Quinn (blue
glove) and her adviser,
Sharon Swartz, work
with a Seba’s short-
tailed bat inside a
wind tunnel. They
are testing how tiny
sensory hairs on bats’
wings affect their
flight responses to
turbulence.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
NICHOLE SOBECKI
60
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
TLC FOR
THE KIWI
WELLINGTON,
NEW ZEALAND
Field specialists exam-
ine a North Island
brown kiwi two months
after 11 of the birds
were released outside
New Zealand’s capital.
A national symbol,
kiwis have been deci-
mated by predators,
especially stoats, intro-
duced in the 1800s.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
ROBIN HAMMOND
62
BOMB SIGHT
C H AC H A , I N D I A
Taj Mohammad stands
among his sheep and
goats in the desert
landscape of Rajas-
than. As a boy in 1998,
Mohammad felt the
ground shake and
witnessed a gigantic
dust cloud when India
conducted under-
ground nuclear tests
at the nearby Pokhran
site. India is currently
one of nine countries
with nuclear weapons.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
CHINKY SHUKLA
BAC K TO L I F E
N E W H AV E N ,
CONNECTICUT
To better study how
cells from one region of
the brain connect with
cells in others, Yale
researchers looked
for a way to reanimate
recently dead brain
tissue. The team suc-
ceeded with a pig’s
brain by combining a
custom drug cocktail
(blue) with an oxygen
carrier (dark red).
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
MAX AGUILERA-
HELLWEG
P R E PA R I N G
FOR LAUNCH
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
JET PROPULSION
L A B O R A T O R Y,
CALIFORNIA
A technician studies
the “brains” of NASA’s
Europa Clipper space-
craft, which will launch
next year. As it flies
by Europa—one of the
largest of Jupiter’s
moons—the craft will
study its ice shell and
characterize the salty
sea below.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
CHRIS GUNN
68
C ONTACT SHEET
WHERE
MONARCHS
REIGN
M O N A R C H B U T T E R F LY B I O S P H E R E
R E S E RV E , M E X I C O
When photo editor Anne Farrar

considers images for publication,
she says, “I’m looking for special.
I’m looking for unique.” Farrar found
that quality in spring 2023 when
Jaime Rojo submitted tens of thou-
sands of recent images of monarch
butterflies, including the scenes at
left. For almost 20 years, Rojo has
been visiting the forested moun-
tains in central Mexico where North
America’s eastern populations of the
migratory insect spend winters.
The photographer is “immensely
knowledgeable about this location
and the butterflies themselves,”
Farrar says, and that familiarity helps
his pictures outshine those of tourists
allowed a few minutes at the site.
After reviewing every one of Rojo’s
images and consulting with him,
Farrar arrived at about 20 selections
for a story in next month’s issue.
•
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
JAIME ROJO
ALIGHT IN A
FOREST
M O N A R C H B U T T E R F LY
B I O S P H E R E R E S E RV E ,
MEXICO
Streaked with sunlight
and crowded together
for warmth in winter,
monarch butterflies
blanket fir trees in
El Rosario Sanctuary.
Rojo received special
permits to work out-
side the sanctuary’s
operating hours. He
made this photograph
shortly before sunset.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
JAIME ROJO
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
ORIGIN OF
SPECIES
P U N TA A R E N A S , C H I L E
A Darwin’s rhea, named
for naturalist Charles
Darwin, is displayed
at the Maggiorino
Borgatello museum.
Darwin encountered
the species of flightless
bird in 1834 during a
tour of Patagonia. Com-
paring it with the larger
American rhea helped
him realize that two
species can arise from
a common ancestor.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
MARCIO PIMENTA
74
GUARDING A
TREASURE
H E L E N R E E F, PA L A U
Brian Fidiiy jumps
from a boat into the
Helen Reef lagoon
to fish for food with
a homemade spear-
gun. Fidiiy and fellow
Helen Reef rangers—all
members of the local
Indigenous popula-
tion—protect Palau’s
most biologically
diverse reef from ille-
gal commercial fishing.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
KILIII YÜYAN
CARBON process uses clean A P L AC E relationships are
energy sources, and illegal in Nigeria,
T H AT the company pledges TO BE yet in the past
S PA R K L E S to remove an extra ONESELF four years LGBTQ
20 metric tons of CO2 activists have
for every carat of celebrated Pride
N E W YO R K , N E W YO R K diamond it creates— L AG O S , N I G E R I A month with perfor-
more CO2 than the mances and protests
Climate-tech start-up Ashley Okoli dances
average American in some parts of
Aether transforms at a Lagos night-
produces in a year. the country.
carbon dioxide cap- club, which offers
tured from the air into • a rare welcoming •
lab-grown diamonds space for people
PHOTOGRAPH BY PHOTOGRAPH BY
such as this two-carat of all sexual orien-
princess cut. Aether’s DAVIDE MONTELEONE tations. Same-sex YAGAZIE EMEZI
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
I T W A S A P R I V I L E G E T H AT A S H L E Y A L L O W E D M E TO S H A R E
I N H E R E X P R E S S I O N O F Q U E E R J O Y, S U R R O U N D E D B Y
P EO P L E U N I T E D I N T H E F R E E D O M O F DA N C E A N D M U S I C .
— YAG A Z I E E M E Z I , P H OTO G R A P H E R
79
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
WELCOME
WAT E R S
KO L W E Z I , D E M O -
C R AT I C R E P U B L I C
OF THE CONGO
Pastor Ngoy Niko
(right) of the African
Apostolic Church of
Congo presides over
the baptism of a new
member in the Lualaba
River. The congregants
use this stream for
initiation and purifi-
cation rituals because
they believe it is one of
the few still clean amid
local mining for cobalt.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
DAVIDE MONTELEONE
80
F E RVO R W I T H
A FLOURISH
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
D O Ñ A N A N AT I O N A L
PA R K , S PA I N
Pilgrims sing, dance,
and play flamenco
during a stop along
their spring journey
to the Virgin of Rocío
shrine. Photographer
Aitor Lara says that the
group’s lyrics “reflect
the magical experience
of the pilgrimage
and the joy of being
able to present their
fervor to the Virgin.”
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
AITOR LARA
82
B R AV I N G T H E
WAV E S
S O U T H AT L A N T I C
OCEAN
Volcanologists and
mountaineers return
after a weeks-long
expedition to Mount
Michael, a remote
volcano in the South
Sandwich Islands. The
team made a successful
first ascent and study
of the peak, which
holds one of Earth’s
few lava lakes.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
RENAN OZTURK
N O RT H E R N
LIGHT
N Y- Å L E S U N D , N O R W A Y
The Reverend Siv
Limstrand of the
Church of Norway is
the only pastor for the
Svalbard archipelago
in the Arctic Ocean,
welcoming worshippers
of any nationality and
religion. As the Arctic
warms, Limstrand’s
congregation of scien-
tists and local people is
chronicling, and coping
with, climate change.
•
PHOTOGRAPH BY
ESTHER HORVATH
Crowning a Granada
hill, the Alhambra
embodies the archi-
tectural golden age
of Muslim rule on the
Iberian Peninsula.
Its plain walls belie a
refined interior. The
14th-century Comares
Palace (with its tower
at far left) was one of
several built by a suc-
cession of sultans. A
predominant palace (at
right) was added later
for a Christian king.
CHRISTIAN HEEB, LAIF/REDUX
BY EMMA LIRA
P H OTO G R A P H S B Y J O S É M A N U E L N AV I A
A RT B Y F E R N A N D O G . BA P T I STA
OF
A N I N S I D E LO O K AT T H E FA B L E D A L H A M B R A ,
WHERE SPAIN’S LAST MUSLIM KINGDOM RULED FOR
N E A R LY 3 0 0 Y E A R S
Intimate spaces frame love interest held design element when they built cham-
outdoor views. The there, was converted throughout the site— bers for a king. They
defensive Tower of the into a small palace. Its describing the tower’s enclosed a garden, cre-
Captive (left), named walls are adorned with beauty. Christian rulers ating the cloister-like
for a sultan’s legendary Arabic inscriptions—a left their own imprint Lindaraja Courtyard.
F O RT R E S S O F FA I T H 91
JESÚS BERMÚDEZ has deep ties to the Alhambra.
Born in the fortress built on an imposing hill in
Granada, Spain, he grew up within the palace’s
walls. When his father became director of the
Alhambra museum in mid-century, the family
moved into a house inside the monument. It
was “the stage,” as he calls it, on which his days
played out, an upbringing that steeped him in
its legends and history from an early age—and
inspired an enduring devotion to it. For nearly
four decades, Bermúdez has been the archae-
ologist and conservator at the Alhambra, seen
as the crowning glory of the nearly 800-year
Muslim reign on the Iberian Peninsula. Though
he moves through the complex with the easy
familiarity of navigating one’s own home, he
still manages to impart a sense of wonder, as if
glimpsing it for the first time. He stops often to
greet student groups, guards, guides, garden-
ers. He displays the same pride I imagine the
Archaeologist Jesús sultans must have had when they showed their
Bermúdez shines palace to visitors.
a light into history: Bermúdez is the ideal guide for a behind-the-
“The Alhambra’s two
great chapters,” he scenes tour (and has also written the official
says, “owe their begin- guide). Starting from the Gate of Justice, the
ning to water, the largest of the Alhambra’s four entry points, we
source of life.” The hill-
top fortress required a explore not only its trademark courtyards and
complex water system. towers but also the recesses that few are allowed
This cistern, tapped to see, places where fact intermingles with fable.
with buckets through a
well (center), was built As researchers continue to plumb its depths,
in 1494 under the city’s the Alhambra remains a site for archaeology
first Christian governor and restoration, including a rebirth of one of
and expanded access
that had begun under its most enigmatic works of art, recently com-
the Muslim dynasty. pleted after nearly 20 years.
In the Hall of the Kings, “The Alhambra is first and foremost a pala-
an enigmatic 14th- tine city,” he says. “It was the seat of the head
century painting—newly
restored—may depict of state, with military barracks, a courtly city,
Granada’s sultans or a and a set of palaces built over the course of
council of judges. Illus- two and a half centuries.” The monument grew
trated in vivid pigments
drawn from lapis lazuli, over that time from the primitive Alcazaba,
hematite, cinnabar, and or fortress, built by Muhammad I beginning
gold, the scene’s Gothic in 1238, to later palaces reflecting the Nasrid
style is reminiscent of
the work of artists in dynasty’s sumptuous style. A line of sultans
Italy and France. from the Nasr family ruled until 1492, when
this last stronghold of Muslim authority on the
peninsula was toppled by a newly unified Span-
ish monarchy after the marriage of Isabella of
Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon.
During the 254 years the Nasrids governed the departure. The Spanish crown eventually ceded
Granada emirate, which extended far beyond it to the state, and it became a national mon-
the city itself, this part of today’s Andalusia ument in 1870. Today the palatine city is alive
region was “frozen in time, maintaining a feudal again, with a court of officials at its service, a
society secluded in an idyllic oasis,” Bermúdez bureaucracy that keeps it running, and strict
explains. And yet the kingdom left a legacy in entry protocols, as if we’re foreign envoys bear-
a monument considered the pinnacle of the ing a message for the emir.
beauty and architectural refinement born in Al
Andalus, as the larger Muslim-ruled region was envoys to Spain is
O N E O F T H E M O S T N O TA B L E
known. History could never forget it. the reason so many know this corner of the world
With Granada’s fall, a succession of Catholic today. The writer Washington Irving was a diplo-
governors ran the fortress until the beginning mat posted at the American Embassy in Madrid
of the 19th century, when it was occupied by when he visited Granada in 1829. That was 17
Napoleon’s troops. They decimated it on their years after Napoleon’s troops had decamped,
ONE MIGHT EXPECT
and what remained deteriorated from neglect.
Rooms were plundered, the pools became
washing areas, the courtyards were turned into
A CHRISTIAN
corrals, and families who had nowhere else to
go settled in the empty spaces. “It went from
being a castle of kings to a refuge for outcasts,
QUEEN TO REDUCE
but it was always inhabited,” says Bermúdez.
“And that kept it standing.” The squatters of the
Alhambra, Bermúdez calls them.
THE ALHAMBRA
Irving gave them a more romantic name: the
children of the Alhambra. It was the vagrants,
the bandits, the disinherited who, together
with the ghosts of the defeated, populated his
Tales of the Alhambra—unveiling the city and
putting it on the tourist map. Still in every
bookstore in the city and widely translated, the
TO ASHES. INSTEAD,
ISABELLA ORDERED IT
book perpetuated the fortress’s romantic aura,
reminiscent of One Thousand and One Nights.
Other notables had set foot in Granada, but
TO BE LEFT
none had the impact of Irving. Given the weight
of his influence, his single statue, set just off
the Cuesta de Gomérez, a historic path to the
UNTOUCHED.
fortress, seems a lukewarm tribute.
When Irving arrived at the Alhambra with his
traveling companion, a Russian diplomat, they
were appalled that visitors, even dignitaries, had
left their mark in graffiti—their names and notes
scrawled on its walls. The Russian provided a
leatherbound guest book to discourage the prac- The book made the fortress “an object of
tice. Thousands of signatures filled that volume desire—a need to visit it, to discover it,” says
for the next 43 years. It was an early glimmer of Bermúdez. “Today we know this is also part of
recognition of the structure’s value. our heritage. Preserving a universal monument
Though his fellow traveler soon departed, such as the Alhambra also means preserving all
Irving would stay on for several months, “spell- the values from its past.”
bound,” he wrote, “in this old enchanted pile.”
He ensconced himself in royal chambers that enraptured those
T H E A L H A M B R A H A S A LWAY S
opened up onto picturesque Lindaraja garden. from the outside. In January 1492 Queen Isa-
Mateo Jiménez, a self-described “son of the bella, leading a military procession, began her
Alhambra” who claimed his ancestors had lived triumphant ascent up Cuesta de Gomérez on
in the fortress for generations, offered himself up horseback to Al Hamra, which translates to
as a servant and guide, recounting the family lore. “the red” for the fortress’s pink-hued stone. The
Places where Irving set his reflections and Reconquest—lasting more than 700 years—had
accounts still can be seen today, such as the rolled back Muslim territories one by one across
reconstructed Gate of the Seven Floors. Popular the peninsula. A papal order authorized this
legend holds that Boabdil, the last sultan, fled final crusade, resulting in a 10-year war waged
through that gate, imploring that it be sealed for control of the holdout Granada kingdom.
after his departure. Irving’s story describes a suc- When the keys to the Alhambra were finally
cession of passages in which the sultan would surrendered, chroniclers noted Isabella’s sur-
have hidden a magnificent treasure in case he prise as she took in the fine details inside the
ever managed to return. Another spot, the Tower bastion that had long been forbidden to her: its
of the Princesses, later renamed after Irving’s intricate latticework, honeycombed vaulting, the
tale, was the setting for his story of three Muslim infinite geometry of its tiles, trickling pools that
princesses who fall for Christian captives. mirrored the magnificent facades.
The Alhambra had been an impregnable Tourists view our sudden apparition as if we were
fortress for almost three centuries. One might ghosts from the past. With a mischievous smile,
expect a Christian queen to reduce it to ashes, Bermúdez closes the door behind us.
erasing from its walls the inscriptions prais-
ing Allah. Instead, she ordered that it be left visit the Alhambra
S O M E T WO M I L L I O N P E O P L E
untouched. What’s more, she determined it each year, but they’re limited to about 20 percent
would be her destiny for eternity, something of the site. Bermúdez guides me through some
that the unfortunate Boabdil could not fulfill: “I of the hidden parts, namely an underground
will and command that, if I should die outside network. These are modest and functional
the city of Granada, my entire body be taken, rooms, he says, kept out of sight as they were
as it is, without delay, to the city.” When she back then, the domain of servants and guards
died in 1504 at her residence in the town of who kept the palace running. Some also held
Medina del Campo, her coffin was sent on the prisoners. We peer into one of the complex’s
three-week journey to Granada. The Alhambra, 20 dungeons, which was discovered just over a
emptied of its Nasrid court just 12 years before, century ago. After the fall of Granada, the queen
would be the final resting place of the Catholic herself rushed to free Christian prisoners, as she
queen. (Initially interred in the fortress, her had done in the Muslim stronghold of Málaga,
remains, along with those of her husband, King where an officer from the Netherlands told her
Ferdinand, were later transferred to the Royal he’d been held for more than 40 years.
Chapel of Granada.) Still in the bowels, we make our way to a large
While on his honeymoon several years later, cistern, which more readily resembles a cathe-
King Charles V, Isabella’s grandson, visited the dral with its barrel-vaulted naves and sheer
city conquered by his grandparents. Grasping size. The underground structures also provided
the symbolic value, he set out to designate his a cool, stable temperature to store grain and
own palace in the Alhambra. Construction took other staples. As we descend by ladder into a
more than a century, and the king never lived cavelike silo, it strikes me as the place where
there, but Bermúdez considers that beside the the Alhambra’s legendary passageways could
point. It superimposed a new narrative: Charles begin. I instinctively search with my headlamp.
used the original architecture as a base to build None are here, but they do exist. One level up,
anew, a metaphor for triumph. And “placing members of the royal guard would have been
himself just that little bit higher,” Bermúdez posted beneath the throne room in the Comares
says. Standing adjacent to the three Nasrid pal- Tower, ready to intervene in a crisis. We walk
aces—the Mexuar, the Comares, and the Palace through the tunnels, aware that tourists mar-
of the Lions, collectively the undisputed jewel in veling at the magnificence of the room cannot
the crown for visitors—the square, rigid struc- imagine the infrastructure that lay beneath.
ture built for the Spanish king was likened to “a Bermúdez unlocks a door. A flashlight illumi-
meteor” by one architect. nates a staircase that leads deep into the earth
Inside the central colonnade of Charles’s and, after 200 steps down, to yet another door.
palace, Bermúdez pulls out a key the size of his It opens into the heart of the woods, just outside
forearm and opens a door to a stone staircase. the walls. We’re a short distance from the Darro
The “stairway of time,” the Alhambra staff calls River. It would have been an easy—and clandes-
it. We descend in semidarkness to another gate. tine—way to leave the fortress. In 1359 Muham-
My eyes struggle to adjust before I’m dazzled by mad V, the eighth Nasrid monarch, was ousted
bright light. Bermúdez wields a new key and, by a revolt that put his half brother in his place.
as if enchanted, I’m suddenly standing in the In the middle of the night, rebels scaled the walls
Courtyard of the Myrtles, named for the bushes and knifed the guards. Barely 20 years old, the
that surround its rectangular pool, in the rightful sultan escaped—some say through a
Comares Palace. Yes, a bit lower than Charles’s. passageway in the Comares Tower. Was this the
In a moment we transitioned from Renais- place where he would have arrived breathless
sance sobriety to a saturation of the senses, and been spirited away?
from the victors to the vanquished. The staircase, The coup was a game of thrones involv-
built in 1580, was intended to do precisely that: ing changing loyalties, including that of his
to unite the old royal house with the new one. Christian ally Peter of Castile. After three
SPAIN’S MUSLIM ERA
In the eighth century, an army of Arab Muslims crossed into
the Iberian Peninsula, ousting Germanic Visigoths. Known
Balance of power in the 11th century
CHRISTIAN KINGDOM
BRIDGE TO EUROPE
Islam spreads from its birthpla
Peninsula, in 632, to North Afri
trade routes. Defeat in France
Poitiers
MUSLIM KINGDOM (A.D. 732) EUR
as Al Andalus, their new land faced constant pressures yet Settlement Fortification
became a hub of arts, education, and science for centuries. 50 mi AL ANDALUS
50 km
Toledo (712) Rome
Granada
Fez Carthage
(698)
Ba y of Bis c a y
P FRANCE Tripoli
p
ANDORRA
Bilbao Y (647)
ASTURIAS R E
SPAIN
Oviedo NAVARRE N E E S 500 mi
r i a n M t s. Pamplona A F R I C A
C a n t a b Architecture remains 500 km
ARAG O N
Santiago
g de a visible sign of
Compostela Conquest and collapse Eb Islamic culture
ro Advance of Islam
León After quickly overpowering CATALONIA
the peninsula, Muslim rulers Muslim lands, ca A.D. 756
LEÓN Barcelona
lose land to Christian kings
GAL ICI A over the next 700 years. Zaragoza
Aljafería 1
Palace
S PAIN A.D. 756-1031
er o CAST IL E
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del Campo HILLTOP FORTRESS
1085-1145 Minorca
A L A N D A L U S Ba l ea ric Water is central to construction
ablutions in the Alhambra. The
Salamanca S ea
Majorca
on Sabika Hill makes getting it t
Translation center for
Madrid
Muslim, Jewish, and 3
Christian scholars, ca 1085 VALENCIA
1147-1238
I B E R I A N P E N I N S U L A Valencia
Toledo
T a gus Bab al Mardum Ibiza
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TOLEDO
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N
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BADAJOZ Badajoz Largest city in
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Córdoba MURCIA
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iv i
r
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dal AREA SHOWN
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ua G R A NA DA ON NEXT PAGE
ea
SEVILLE 4
G
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r a
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Alhambra Almería er
it Albaicín
Málaga ed Alhambra
M
Cádiz Albor a n
Rock of Gibraltar
(Jabal Tariq) Se a
A TL A NT I C ar Ceuta (SP.)
Granada
Strait of Gibralt
OCEAN Melilla (SP.) A F R I C A
Tangier
ALGERIA
MOROCCO
Córdoba Bab al Mardum Aljafería Alhamb
Giralda
AGE OF AL ANDALUS Mosque Mosque Palace construc
A.D. 800 900 1100 1200 1238
First Crossing at Gibraltar 1 Umayyad Dynasty 2 Almoravid Dynasty 3 Almohad Dynasty

In 711, general Tariq ibn Ziyad sails A break from the Damascus caliph- North African Berber tribes for- New leaders move the capital
a Muslim army toward the rock ate leads to the Iberian Peninsula’s tify Muslim cities and strongholds from Córdoba to Seville, closer
that would later bear his name. first independent Muslim state. against Christian advances. to the ocean for better trade.
ace on the Arabian
ica and Europe along
ends the advance.
OPE
Samarkand
(711)
GRANADA’S
MEDIEVAL MUSLIMS RULED FROM THIS EUROPEAN STRONGHOLD FOR
A S I A
Constantinople Nahavand (642)
Baghdad VIEW OF THE
Damascus ALHAMBRA TODAY POINT OF VIEW OF
Medit. Sea Jerusalem Palace PALACE ILLUSTRATION
Alexandria (INTERIOR GRAPHIC)
ARABIAN Place of worship
Medina Bath
PENINSULA
Mecca (A.D. 632) Dungeon or silo
, daily life, and religious ROYAL

fortress’s position high PALACES
there a challenge.
Dam r
Albaicín
ve
Ri
Medieval city
rr
o
of Granada PALACE OF
Da CHARLES V
Harnessing flow
er River water is
iv
rr oR routed nearly
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city via gravity- ALCAZABA
Acequia
fed channels Original fortress
Real
called acequias. with large
watchtowers
Tower
of Arms
Engineering feat Watchtower

A waterwheel Gunpowder
elevates water Tower Captive caverns
from a deep well The fortress has about
supplied by chan- 20 bottle-shaped
56 ft nels cut through earthen chambers,
the mountain. used for storage—or
Low-walled as dungeons.
dividers
bra
ction CONSTRUCTION TIME LINE
1380 1400 1500
4 Nasrid Dynasty Before 1238 ca 1238-1314

In a final power split, the last Muslim Early builders set Nasrid rulers erect a
dynasty founds the Kingdom of Granada up defenses on the system of walls and
but later falls to Christian forces. strategic site. start to build palaces.
THE PALACES
Christian-period structures PALACE OF CHARLES V, 1527-1637
built after the Muslim era
Hall of the
Abencerrajes
Construction
period
The Nasrid dynasty’s seat of power, the Alhambra was the PALACE OF THE LIONS, ca 1370-1380
last holdout of Muslim rule in western Europe until 1492. It’s Lacelike porticoes frame this symmet-
rical courtyard that exemplifies the
shown here in its 15th-century glory, encoded with religious Nasrid-style integration of movement
symbolism and designed to dazzle visitors and project power. between indoor and outdoor spaces.
Hidden plumbing allows

water to flow out of the
mouths of this fountain’s Courtyard
12 marble lions and into of the Lions
shallow channels. Painting
Hall of
the Kings
Mathematical harmony
From buildings to tiles, designs are based
on knowledge of geometric proportions
passed since antiquity through the gen-
erations. At the root of designs across the
complex: circles and squares. THE PARTAL, ca 1302-1309
This early palace is part of a complex
that once included the sultan’s living
quarters. Murals in one late 14th-
century home depict life at court.
Master writers who advise the
sultan incorporate more than
100 poems into wall decorations. Domestic
Observatory houses
Stimulating the senses Domestic

Fountain-fed pools overflow houses
toward gardens edged with myr-
tle shrubs and other fragrant
plants, herbs, and fruit trees.
Tower of
the Ladies
Prayerhouse
Fast fortifications
Concrete walls can be rapidly
FERNANDO G. BAPTISTA, ROSEMARY WARDLEY, PATRICIA HEALY, AND EVE CONANT, NGM STAFF constructed by tamping locally
SOURCES: JESÚS BERMÚDEZ, MARÍA ISABEL JIMÉNEZ ARCO, JOSÉ CARLOS ÁVILA CANO, AND
AMELIA GARRIDO CAMPOS, PATRONATO DE LA ALHAMBRA Y GENERALIFE; JOSÉ MIGUEL PUERTA
sourced clay, sand, water, and
VÍLCHEZ, UNIVERSITY OF GRANADA; HUGH KENNEDY, SOAS UNIVERSITY OF LONDON; SANTIAGO lime into wooden frames.
QUESADA-GARCÍA, UNIVERSITY OF SEVILLE; NATIONAL CENTER FOR GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
Alcazaba
COMARES PALACE, ca 1333-1370 MEXUAR, 14th century

Cooling waters of the 112-foot-long An administrative section
pool mirror the grandeur of the res- of the palace
idential palace and throne hall. Airy
courtyards are hubs of daily activity. Comares Tower
is Alhambra’s
tallest, at 148 ft Tower
of the
Portico Cube
Hall of
Comares
Courtyard
Hall of of the Myrtles
the Two
Sisters
Hall
of the
Blessing
Bedroom
Royal bath
Layers of opulence
Rearrangeable carpets, cushions, and
Steam rooms with silk drapes add comfort and multifunc-
hot and cold tionality to rooms. Medieval accommo-
running water dations also include bathrooms, heating,
and pitchers of fresh water.
Basement with
sentry chambers
Lindaraja Private prayer Imprinted on
garden room of the upper walls are
sultan delicate plant
motifs, framed by
panels of poetry.
KING CHARLES’S
CHAMBERS, 1528-1533 From his throne,
the sultan has
Poem
strategic and
Queen’s Several towers
aesthetic van- Inscription
dressing are converted
tage points of
room into palaces
the hall and the
or living spaces
city beyond.
over time.
Decoration
Cursive
Arch
Intricate murals Tree Palace of poems
Plant
Panels of colorful, glazed tilework motifs motif Carved into the decor are poetic
1 2 Individual 3 Pieces are set face
in precise geometric patterns are pieces are down in a frame inscriptions praising Allah and
affixed to interior walls. Shapes hand-shaped before thick mortar the sultan in rectilinear Kufic
include waves, birds, and stars. to fit designs. is applied. and cursive Arabic calligraphy.
Kufic
ROYAL OASIS
NEARLY 260 YEARS, LEAVING A LEGACY OF ARCHITECTURAL GLORY.
GENERALIFE Tower of Tower of the Water

Recreational pal- the Captive Princesses Tower
ace with gardens,
orchards, and crops
SECANO
Gate of
the Seven
Floors
Tower of
the Heads
Church of
MEDINA
St. Mary of
Artisan workshops
the Alhambra
and houses
th
s pa
es
Gate of acc
z
Justice re
é
m
G o
de
ta
es
Cu
Protective buffer
A road between
the double city
walls could be
flooded to create
a moat.
Generalife
ca 1314-1391 16th century

Palaces evolve into Christian-era build-
the Alhambra’s archi- ings include King
tectural golden era. Charles V’s palace.
VISITING
GRANADA
The city’s rich heritage offers
unique experiences for visitors.
THE ALHAMBRA
Book tickets at least one to
two months ahead. General
admission allows access to the
Alcazaba, Nasrid palaces, Par-
tal, and Generalife. The visit is
mostly outdoors, making spring
and fall ideal times. Don’t miss
the Courtyard of the Lions foun-
tain and the Courtyard of the
Myrtles, with facades reflect-
ing in its pool. (King Charles V’s
palace, home to two museums,
may be visited without a ticket.)
The Monastery of San Fran-
cisco, where monarchs Isabella
and Ferdinand were initially
interred, is now a hotel and
restaurant that serves cuisine
based on Nasrid court recipes.
ALBAICÍN
In this winding old quarter, once
the center of Granada’s Mus-
lim life, boutique hotels occupy
villas from the Nasrid dynasty’s
era. Our pick is the 15th-century
Hotel Casa Morisca. (An alter-
native to the Albaicín’s steep
streets is the centrally located
Palacio de los Patos, a 19th-
century magnate’s mansion.)
At Carmen de Aben Humeya,
diners take in a view of the
Alhambra from within its walled
garden, a distinguishing feature
of traditional carmen dwellings.
The San Nicolás lookout and
the adjacent mosque gardens
The throne room of are classic spots for watching
Comares Palace show- the sun set over the Alhambra.
cases tile in geometric End the evening with a stop for
patterns—a hallmark of tea on Calle Calderería Nueva.
Islamic design—as well
as elaborate plaster- S AC RO M O N T E
work and inscriptions, Nearby Sacromonte is the birth-
originally painted in place of flamenco, a dance
bright colors. Phras- created by the Romany com-
ing is woven into the munity, settled here for more
honeycombed arches than 500 years. Many live in
in the decorative Kufic the area’s characteristic caves,
style of Arabic, hiding where Muslims took refuge
in plain sight. Above, after the fall of the city (and
the band of legible some say also influenced the
cursive script (which music of the dance). Cave bars
continues vertically on now host performances, includ-
the adjacent wall) hon- ing Cueva de la Rocío. A scenic
ors the throne room, walk to the neighborhood
personified in the passes through El Paseo de los
poem: “She, the central Tristes and La Carrera del Darro,
one, is like the heart.” along the river. —EL
years, Muhammad V returned to his throne. omnipresent motto of the Nasrid house, “There
Without that subsequent prosperous and is no conqueror but God,” alternates on the walls
peaceful 30-year reign, the Alhambra as we with greetings for visitors, including baraka
know it today would not exist. Muhammad (blessing), afiya baqiya (perpetual health), and
ushered in the dynasty’s golden age. He built yumn (fortune).
what many consider to be the most striking In reality, the Alhambra was designed to
spot in the Alhambra—the courtyard with a praise God—and the sultan, as God’s earthly
central fountain ringed by a dozen lion statues— representative. The ornamental script envel-
and he continued his father’s tradition of ops visitors as if they were inside a monumental
embellishing palaces with another art form: book. But the power of the written word didn’t
Arabic inscriptions. end there. The Diwan al Insa, the office of cor-
respondence and records, was created around
an
T H E A L H A M B R A I S A PA L AC E O F P O E M S , 1273 and run by a master of two nuanced arts:
architecture of words, says José Miguel Puerta diplomacy and writing. “His function was propa-
Vílchez, author of Reading the Alhambra, gandistic,” says Puerta Vílchez. “The texts had to
which decodes the inscriptions on its walls. be not only correct but beautiful, poetic, capable
Like Bermúdez, he’s spent his life studying of praising God, the dynasty, and the sultan.”
this place and translating it to the world. “If The person with the best command of language,
it lost its supports, columns, and arcades, the the katib, became a double vizier—head of that
building would be held up by words alone,” he office and prime minister—the most powerful
says, referring to its ubiquitous calligraphic man in the kingdom after the sultan.
panels. Leaning on his knowledge, I see a Puerta Vílchez regards the kingdom’s great
different Alhambra—with the language bar- poets as if he had worked with them himself,
rier, one that remains largely inaccessible to composing verses or transcribing internal doc-
those who inherited it. Verses run along its uments that serve as invaluable chronicles of
walls, curl in cartouches, and even meet in the a tempestuous era. In his view, it’s the swan
closets. Some are carved in plaster, others in song of the dynasty, aware of its geographic
wood, or meticulously inscribed on tiles. The isolation on the peninsula and the inevitability
of its fall. Written mainly by three successive
poets who headed the chancellery in the 14th
century, the Alhambra’s epigraphs represent
THE ONE WITH

some of the Nasrids’ most dazzling contribu-
tions to Islamic art—perhaps an attempt to
demonstrate a grandeur that was not going
THE BEST COMMAND

to last much longer. Of the two forms of Arabic
used, the naskhi, or cursive, is easily visible,
but the Kufic form may go unnoticed even by
OF LANGUAGE
a visitor who knows the language. With a recti-
linear style, it can masquerade as a geometric
element, blending into the decor.
BECAME THE MOST

In the Palace of the Lions, poet Ibn Zamrak
and Muhammad might have had their bold-
est collaboration. Its fountain, magnificently
sculpted so that the rock grain simulates the
POWERFUL IN
lions’ muscles, contains a symbolic message.
It features the word “caliph,” Islam’s highest
leader, whose role transcends that of sultan. The
THE KINGDOM AFTER

change in title imbued Muhammad, a political
figure, with religious authority—an impeccable
example of 14th-century PR. “Those were dif-
THE SULTAN.
ficult times,” says Puerta Vílchez. “The sultan
needed to legitimize his power not to Christians
so much as his own people.”
A large silo not only
stored grain but also
served as a dungeon—
one of 20 found in the
complex. Captives
were lowered by rope
into a hole, where they
would await ransom
or prisoner exchange.
As the conquest by a
newly unified Spanish
monarchy gradually
rolled back the Muslim
kingdom’s territory,
Christian prisoners
became more common,
though sometimes
those held here
included members of
the sultan’s own court.
a rare artwork in
T H E S A M E PA L AC E A L S O H O L D S
the Hall of the Kings, which after a two-decade
effort has just been restored to its former glory.
Three painted scenes include human figures,
atypical in Islamic art. But that’s not the only
enigma. Presiding over the central dome, 10 men
dressed in luxurious Muslim-style garb appear
to be watching over the space. One theory main-
tains they’re the first 10 Nasrid rulers (hence
the room’s name). Two other paintings depict
medieval court vignettes in which Christian and
Muslim knights hunt, joust, and rescue maid-
ens. (Muslims always win in these scenarios.) “At
least two royal weddings took place in the Hall
of the Kings,” says Puerta Vílchez. “These paint-
ings extolled the splendor of the Nasrid court
and were meant to be seen.” The 14th-century
works were eventually hidden when the room
was absorbed into a 16th-century church. Over
time, they deteriorated.
The original canvases were made from horse-
hide tanned with alum and embellished with
natural tempera pigments, then attached to
wooden frames shaped like inverted boat hulls Some 500 people care
for the historic site,
and covered with tar and plaster to prevent including 40 gardeners
water or fire damage. “Artisans from different and more than a dozen
trades were involved—specialists in wood, highly specialized
technicians for ongo-
painting, and leather. Together they created ing restoration. Here
a masterpiece whose execution technique is custodians attend to
unknown in the Spanish-Muslim world,” says an arcade in the Gen-
eralife, whose name
Elena Correa, who heads the Alhambra’s resto- originates from the
ration department. Arabic Jannat al Arif,
A collection of architects, master plasterers, or Garden of the Archi-
tect. Located uphill
carpenters, and painters has worked hand in from the Alhambra, the
hand to repair the hall, presumably as the team palace was the sultan’s
that created this artistic jewel did 600 years ago. private family retreat.
JUAN MANUEL CASTRO PRIETO,
One achievement was inventing a restorative AGENCE VU/REDUX
mortar that’s imperceptible to the viewer. The

stealth ingredient is quinine. “If we want to
show a reconstructed segment, we have to use
ultraviolet light,” says Ramón Rubio, who leads courts. Despite the arduous research involved in
the stucco and tile restoration workshop. The the restoration, in this place, as in so many others
inspiration arose from an unexpected moment— in the Alhambra, mysteries remain.
when he observed quinine’s fluorescence in a gin
and tonic under disco lights. Granada’s laby-
I L O O K OV E R T O T H E A L B A I C Í N ,
Who were the painters of these scenes show- rinthine medieval quarter, built on a hill opposite
ing a last vestige of coexistence between Muslims the Alhambra. With its whitewashed facades,
and Christians before the fall of Granada? Experts villas, and hidden gardens of cypress trees, it’s
say they could have been Christian artisans from hard to imagine a more perfect view. I descend
neighboring kingdoms that commercially traded toward the Albaicín down a lane known as Cuesta
with the emirate—mainly those on the Italian del Rey Chico (Little King, Boabdil’s nickname),
Peninsula and particularly Genoa—or Muslims departing as the 24th and last Nasrid sultan
who knew the Renaissance techniques of those did when he left the fortress forever. Crossing
into that parallel world, I see the Alhambra as Granada, before he fled to Morocco. Nothing
his subjects might have. From the Albaicín, the on the outside gives away its graceful interior.
Alhambra’s palaces can be read chronologically Like the Alhambra, the exterior reveals little.
from right to left—like Arabic itself. The lan- Beauty is unveiled only within. Before leav-
guage can still be heard in the quarter, which ing, I pause for one last look. My friend Blanca
is lined with tea shops and has the ambience Rooney, a veteran guide, is beside me. “I’ve seen
of a souk. After Boabdil was deposed, residents it many times,” she says. “It’s the look of some-
were allowed to keep their businesses, homes, one who is bidding farewell to the Alhambra as
language, and religion, but that spirit of coexis- if they had just been expelled from it.” j
tence lasted only eight years. By 1501, Muslims
were forced to flee or convert to Christianity. Staff artist Fernando G. Baptista is from Bilbao,
Spain, and previously illustrated Barcelona’s
I peer into the Dar al Horra Palace, the home Sagrada Familia. Other story elements were
of Boabdil’s mother and his final refuge in adapted from the magazine’s Spain edition.
For millennia giant herds
of caribou have migrated
across North America.
But today they are dwindling,
and no one knows why.
BY NEIL SHEA
P H OTO G R A P H S B Y K AT I E O R L I N S KY
Where Have All
the Caribou Gone?
113
C LY D E M O R RY I S C H A S I N G T H E H E R D H A R D .
He jams the throttle down, spitting up a fine curtain

of white crystals. I follow and can’t keep up. I turn my
own machine this way, that way, flailing over the same
frozen ground, but I’m just not that good, and not as
hungry as Morry is for the kill, the pounds of savory
meat—or the warmth that will flow up into his hands
as he butchers the big caribou. For some reason, even
though it’s 25 degrees, even though the April wind
whipping through this mountain pass pushes the chill
down further, Morry never seems to be wearing gloves.
“Just slows me down,” he says later.
Everything about Morry is quick—his temper, his
basketball game, his work with a skinning knife.
And this is no elegant chase: It’s hot pursuit. Morry
kicks through a few more turns, then skids to a stop,
unslings his rifle, and takes aim. A shot like a popped
balloon, small and hollow against the huge moun-
tains, the empty sky. A hundred yards away a cow goes
down. The rest of the herd, 10 or 15 mothers and their
The Western
L E F T: F L A P : Sniffing for scent, O P E N I N G P H OTO :
Arctic caribou herd a bull caribou noses Caribou, or tutu in Inu-
gathers on windy into the wind on the piat, traverse the snowy
mountain slopes tundra. Caribou, mem- heart of Alaska’s Brooks
during the summer to bers of the deer family, Range. Each spring,
avoid mosquitoes. Like once roamed through- caribou all across the
most herds, the West- out the continent. North American Arc-
ern has experienced a Today they’re found tic begin extraordinary
stark and mysterious only in the northern- migrations toward their
decline in recent years. most reaches. calving grounds.
calves, keep running but not too far, as though spirit will comfort the cow’s soul and then send
they know the worst is over. her to Earth again in a new body.
Morry and I drive up to the cow and see his This is the cycle of respect and return and
shot has been clean. He slips out a knife from renewal. Morry is 37, and it’s what he knows, what
his black coveralls, bends over the body, gets to he was taught, and what he teaches his children.
work. First, he severs her head. His people, the After the head is set, Morry begins butchering.
Nunamiut of Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska, believe Quick sharp strokes. Slick red hands. When his
this and what follows are the most important fingers get cold, he shakes them and blows on
steps. He carries the head a little distance away, them and places them against the body to soak up
gently, as though he were carrying a favorite cat, some of its fading heat. When the meat is finally
and places it just as gently in the snow, upside stacked onto a sled, he says, “Maybe I’ll put on
down. The cow’s inua, her soul, may now escape some gloves for the drive home.”
and fly to the spirit world. There, a guardian He does, and drives back to Anaktuvuk Pass at
a much safer speed. This is not to say he drives
slowly—he is mindful not to let the meat freeze.
But this time I manage to keep up. Even, once, to
pass him. As I do, I notice he’s grinning. Morry
has no job but this; he wants no job but this.
Hunting is how he provides for his big extended
family. And tonight at home there will be plenty
of food and plenty of people gathering to eat it.
Morry’s father will ask me, “Did you see him
turn the head over?”
“Yes,” I’ll say.
The elder will nod. “Don’t forget.”
T H E C A R I B O U C O W C LY D E M O R RY K I L L E D
belonged to the Western Arctic herd, sometimes
simply called the Western. At the time, in early
2021, the Western was one of Alaska’s largest
groups of caribou. In the 1990s, when Morry was
learning to hunt, the Western was on its way to a
high of nearly 500,000 animals, and they roamed
a territory about the size of California. Many of
them walked right past Morry’s house twice each
year during their spring and autumn migrations,
providing his community with a steady source of
food and spiritual well-being in a roadless and
extremely remote part of northern Alaska.
But by 2021, the Western’s numbers had
dropped by more than half. Some years, Morry
and other hunters told me, very few caribou trick-
led through Anaktuvuk Pass. In other years, they
arrived weeks late or didn’t come at all. None of
this was necessarily unusual—caribou herds have
been known to fluctuate in size over time, and
they are wild beings, heeding their own instincts,
schedules, and motivations. Placed into a larger
context, though, the decline is deeply unsettling
because the Western is not alone.
Migratory tundra caribou can be called many
things: barren-ground caribou or eastern migra-
tory caribou in Canada, while in Alaska “caribou”
Tlicho Nation members alone will usually do. In Russia and Norway,
Joe Zoe (right), Janet nearly identical animals are called wild reindeer.
Rabesca (left), and
Tyanna Steinwand look All of these live in extreme northern habitats
for the Bathurst herd between the tree line and the remote reaches
in a remote corner of of the Arctic tundra, and they make long migra-
Canada’s Northwest
Territories. The Tlicho tions. No matter where you look or what you call
have relied on Bathurst them, they have been fading away for decades
caribou for genera- right before our eyes.
tions, but since 2015,
with the herd’s num- Between the late 1990s and 2018 these animals
bers spiraling, hunting declined by some 56 percent, from about five mil-
them has been banned. lion to two million. After 2018, data on Russian
reindeer (as well as collaboration with Russian
scientists) were harder to come by, but in North
W H E R E H AV E A L L T H E C A R I B O U G O N E ? 119
Caribou on the Move
Dozens of tundra caribou herds have long roamed across Bathurst seasonal journey
the upper reaches of North America. Some of these The herd is increasingly disrupted
herds make the lengthiest migratory circuit of any land by development, such as mining
mammal—more than 800 miles when measured in a roads. A warming climate also
has impacts: more violent storms
straight line. But recently, caribou numbers have declined and insects, and more species
dramatically, for reasons scientists are trying to unravel. moving north earlier in the year,
including predators.
North American migratory tundra caribou Winter/ice road

(Rangifer tarandus) Road
Mine
Subspecies ranges 200 mi
Alaska Barren-ground Eastern migratory L. 200 km
r
R.t. granti R.t. groenlandicus R.t. caribou ea
B
at
t .
re
a rM
G
Be
RUSSIA ly
Western ARCTIC izz
Gr
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GREENLAND
Ambler (DENMARK)
Mining vuk Pass Hottah
aktu Lake
LE
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RC
Sea Baffin
CI
ALASKA Bay C
(U.S.) TI
ARE AR
C
Porcupine
ENLAA
herd RGED
YUKON
1
Setting off in spring
N.W.T. NUNAVUT
From April to June the
Winter
Bathurst NFLD. herd migrates north range
herd & LAB.
H udso n to calve where forage
B.C. Bay is rich and mosquitoes
ALTA.
SASK. MAN. are not yet active.
C A N A D A
QUE. Lac
N O R T H ONT. Grandin
Ottawa
A M E R I C A
U N I T E D S TAT E S
Lac la
Martre
Plummeting populations
Western Arctic and Bathurst numbers, 15 percent of all migra- Stewards of the herd
tory tundra caribou today, have been falling for decades. The Nomadic ancestors of the
Porcupine herd has seemed stable; its habitat has less mining Tlicho Nation followed
development and more protection and food options. caribou. In 2015 the Tlicho
halted their hunting to focus
500,000 solely on conservation.
caribou Western Arctic
(Alaska)
400K
Bathurst Willow Lake
(barren-ground)
300K Horn
Plateau
Porcupine Fort Simpson

200K
(Alaska)
218,000
188,000
100K
6,851 Jean Marie River
M
ac
0 ke
nz
1985 1995 2005 2015 2022 ie
Bathur
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nlet
2
Summer threats
Wolves, bears, and eagles Hood
Bathurst
target calving areas for Inlet
Co precious sources of pro-
pp tein. A single wolf can eat Ca lv ing area
erm J une
in e up to 30 caribou a year.
ARCTIC CIRCLE
N
NO UN
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Ma
de
T
IT WE el R rnsi
OR S in e Napaktulik Bu
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S u m m e r r a n g e
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July – August
T
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de Gras L.
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Courageous
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3
Fall mating
W
Closed Tundra
i Closed In September caribou
Faber n begin migrating to rutting
t MacKay L.
Lake T l i c h o D
ec e
grounds. As temperatures
drop, they travel farther
em r south, aiming for the tree
L a n d s be
r r line before winter sets in.
–
Ap a Snap Lake Tr e e l i ne
ril n Closed
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e
Artillery
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Whati
Marian
4
Russell Winter protections
Lake
Lake By early December, cari- M c L e o d Ba y
bou head to forests where
Behchoko they’ll wait out the winter,
surviving on shrubs and
Ba y
carbohydrate-rich lichens. ri stie
Ch
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Si
Great Slave RANGE DATA COLLECTED 1996–2012.
Lake IN RECENT YEARS SOME BATHURST CARIBOU
HAVE JOINED WITH A NEIGHBORING HERD.
CHRISTINE FELLENZ AND DIANA MARQUES, NGM STAFF.

SOURCES: ANNE GUNN, CIRCUMARCTIC RANGIFER
ASSESSMENT AND MONITORING; PETTER JACOBSEN,
TLICHO GOVERNMENT; GOVERNMENT OF THE
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES; GOVERNMENT OF CANADA
Nunamiut hunter
L E F T: T O P : A skeleton Clyde Morry,
A B OV E :
Daniel Morry holds picked clean by pred- Daniel’s uncle, pre-
the still-warm heart ators marks the route pares to haul a kill
of a caribou shot near the Western Arctic home with his snow-
his home in northern herd takes through mobile. His grandpar-
Alaska. Keeping with the Brooks Range at ents were part of the
tradition, Morry will Anak tuvuk Pass, which last Nunamiut who fol-
distribute the meat in in Inupiat means lowed caribou, until
his community, start- “the place of many about 1950, when they
ing with the elders. caribou droppings.” settled in this area.
America the fall continued. Of about 13 major
herds in Canada and Alaska, most have suffered
steady losses, and at least one, called the Bath-
urst, has disintegrated to the point where it may
disappear completely within a couple of years.
There’s no consensus on what’s behind this
great vanishing. No disease has been pinpointed,
no individual culprit gets the blame. No reme-
dies or policies seem able to stop or even slow
it. To anyone who lives south of the Arctic Circle
the problem can seem abstract—another distant
note of sadness in an era heavy with extinctions.
But this is not how it appears in the far north.
In small communities scattered along the
tree line or set in the open tundra, towns such
as Anaktuvuk Pass that are often isolated, often
Indigenous, where imported food and gas can
be astronomically expensive and hunting car-
ibou is often the cheapest and fastest and cer-
tainly the most satisfying way to provide for a
family, the decline brings a peculiar dread. An
Inupiat elder in a coastal town told me it was like
feeling the symptoms of a cold coming on. The
cold arrives, and it lingers. You don’t get over it.
Then it worsens, until you become gaunt and
haunted, until you’re afraid it isn’t a cold at all
but something deeper. Something that’s shot
through your whole system.
This is how the caribou problem feels to many
Native people in the north, including the Nun-
amiut. Their name means “people of the land,”
but anyone will tell you that they are, most of
all, a caribou people. They are also sometimes
called America’s last nomads, because only in
about 1950 did the Nunamiut give up a mobile
life, a life spent hunting and following caribou.
They chose to settle in Anaktuvuk Pass exactly
because the herd poured through it like a river.
The name Anaktuvuk means “the place of many
caribou droppings.”
One night after I’d gone out hunting with Nunamiut elder Ray-
Clyde Morry, his father, Mark, made a quiet mond Paneak (seated
left) teaches pupils to
comment about the choice his people had made. butcher a 400-pound
Mark Morry was a veteran of the Vietnam War. caribou and process
Thick gray hair, thick old glasses. He sat in a its hide at Anaktu-
vuk Pass’s school. The
recliner by a window in the house he had built, class is part of a com-
watching his family eat caribou that Clyde had munity effort to pass
brought home. traditional skills on to
younger generations.
“It was a big gamble for them to settle down Paneak died several
like that,” Mark said of his own father and months later, at age 81.
mother and uncles and aunts, the generation
who gave up nomadism. “They figured the car-
ibou would always be here.”
W H E N W I L D L I F E B I O L O G I S T H E AT H E R J O H N S O N the U.S. Geological Survey. “I thought, how can
arrived in Alaska several years ago, she was we possibly know so little about these animals?
surprised to discover how mysterious caribou But then an older colleague said, ‘Heather, you’ve
still were. Like other northern creatures—polar got to flip that around: You should be impressed
bears, say, or narwhals—caribou live what writer that we know even as much as we do.’ ”
Barry Lopez once called obscure lives. They can Consider, for example, that only recently did
be hard to find. Expensive to study. They spook researchers confirm that caribou are among the
easily. Even what they eat has been, at times, planet’s greatest wanderers. Using data from sat-
difficult to pin down. This is a major reason their ellite tracking collars, a team led by Kyle Joly, a
decline is so puzzling. wildlife biologist with the National Park Service,
“I didn’t think there was a terrestrial large showed in 2019 that the animals can travel more
mammal left in North America that we didn’t than 800 miles each year—in point-to-point,
know much about,” said Johnson, who works for straight-line terms—on their migratory circuit.
Casey Edwards carves
up a fresh caribou in
her kitchen along-
side her one-year-old
daughter, Ellie Lu. Car-
ibou remains a crucial
source of affordable
protein in Anaktuvuk
Pass, which is located
off the road system.
Practically all other
groceries are flown in
and are expensive.
That’s farther than all other terrestrial mammals. It was a lot easier, Adamczewski said, to zero
During these epic journeys caribou may in on smaller, more discrete suspects. Wolves
navigate between dark spruce forests and sun- were a popular villain. Other people believed
bleached tundra, or from bleak mountainsides hunters were killing too many animals. And
to wind-blasted coastal plains. They’ve even within the Indigenous communities that make
been known to walk into the sea. They also face up nearly half the territory’s population—and
an array of natural hazards—wolves, bears, ice- that stand to be most affected by caribou loss—
choked rivers, galactic swarms of mosquitoes, mining was often seen as the greatest threat to
and life-draining parasitic flies—as well as an the herds, Adamczewski said.
ever increasing set of human-made obstacles: Around the time the Bathurst seemed healthi-
oil fields, roads, and mines. est, a handful of mines opened in the Northwest
Climate change, too, is rapidly transforming Territories, including Colomac, a gold mine, and
their habitat. Rising temperatures across the Diavik and Ekati, both diamond mines. All of
Arctic now routinely disrupt familiar weather them sprawled across the home range of the
patterns. Where snowstorms were once the sig- Bathurst, and Lupin, an older gold mine, lay
nature weather event of an Arctic winter, freezing due south of their calving grounds in Nunavut.
rain is becoming more common, locking cari- “Everyone around here knows that the
bou forage away under impenetrable lids of ice. Bathurst were at their peak [then]. And then
Summers are also growing longer, which isn’t the mines came and roads were built, and the
necessarily a good thing: Warmer temperatures caribou started to decline.” For many people,
bring new plants and animals, more parasites, Adamczewski said, it was no coincidence.
and even wildfires to the tundra. Several studies have shown that industrial
All these forces affect caribou in ways we’ve development disrupts caribou behavior. The
only begun to unravel. What it means is that if animals often seem to perceive roads and pipe-
you’re a scientist, a hunter, a conservationist, or lines in particular as obstacles blocking their
anyone who comes looking for a reason for the migratory paths and feeding patterns. They
vanishing, you’ll suddenly find yourself staring also tend to avoid mining camps and oil fields,
into a problem as big as the landscape itself. which can leak chemical odors and tailings,
shake the earth with drilling equipment and
“ I T H I N K BY N OW I F T H E R E WA S J U S T O N E T H I N G , truck traffic, and fill the air with the racket of
we’d know it,” said Jan Adamczewski, a Cana- planes and helicopters.
dian biologist. “But when you draw up a list of While mining in the Northwest Territories
all the things that might be affecting caribou, it will almost certainly carry on no matter what
can be a very long list. And when you draw up happens to the Bathurst (the territory is heavily
a list of things you can do about it, it’s usually a dependent on the industry, which provides thou-
very short list.” sands of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue),
Adamczewski works for the government of the Adamczewski said the territory and several First
Northwest Territories, which is home for at least Nations had attempted other approaches to halt
part of the year to seven migratory tundra caribou the Bathurst’s hemorrhaging. In 2015, he said, the
herds. This includes the Bathurst—the one that territory established a controversial hunting ban,
has come to represent a kind of worst-case wild- which was supported by local Indigenous com-
life scenario. In 1986 the herd numbered 472,000 munities. The territory has also tried to reduce
animals. From there it began a gradual decline wolf numbers by, among other things, shooting
that eventually tumbled toward collapse. By 2021, them from aircraft. Still the herd shrank.
the herd had dropped 99 percent.
The fall was extraordinary, and when I asked ONE OF THE MOST HAUNTING CONSEQUENCE S
Adamczewski what might be behind it, he of decline, for the Bathurst itself, appears to be an
sighed. He was used to the question—often increasing loss of identity. In caribou biology, the
posed by people who’d already arrived at their term “herd” usually refers to a group of animals
own conclusions. Adamczewski told me that that all return to the same place to give birth—
many people he spoke to believe climate change the same calving grounds. Mothers teach their
had something to do with the herd’s decline. But young how to navigate there, show them differ-
the term was vague, the effects hard to parse. ent feeding spots along the way. They also share
Caribou live obscure lives. They
can be hard to find. Expensive
to study. They spook easily.
alternative routes, detours that might be useful phases of boom-and-bust during which they peak
depending on what the weather or the wolves or and then contract. Across Alaska and Canada,
the human hunters are doing. many herds, including the Western, bottomed
I’ve long thought these migrations resembled out in the 1970s and then began to climb into the
pilgrimages. The education of younger animals ’90s and early 2000s. Indigenous oral histories
(delivered mostly by older females) is connected record even earlier eras of plenty and of dearth.
to what scientists often call the herd’s collec- If cycles do exist, their causes are unknown
tive memory: its unique and enduring way of and appear to operate on decades-long inter-
knowing the landscape. Some have even begun vals. The idea is attractive because it suggests
to call such practices culture. These cultures caribou herds naturally bounce back. But it can
are cohesive enough that the animals tend to also be misleading, many researchers warned me,
stick with their own and remain loyal to their because in a rapidly changing, warming world
calving grounds. even the most durable creatures may not have
But Adamczewski said that in recent winters enough time to recover.
the Bathurst had been mixing with another, “There are times when we do lose herds on
much larger, herd called the Beverly. Maybe the landscape, and there are times when new
the Bathurst caribou were seeking safety in the herds will be forming as well,” Adamczewski told
Beverly’s numbers. Maybe they would fold into me. “Herds are not immortal. They’re not fixed
the larger herd. It was still possible for them to forever in time and space.”
recover; other herds had come close to disappear-
ing and scraped by. But the Bathurst’s singular O N A N OV E R C A S T D AY I N A U G U S T 2 0 2 1 I S T O O D
culture—its way of being, as an Indigenous friend on a green tundra plain in an isolated corner of
had put it to me—was at risk of blinking out. Nunavut, looking over dozens of caribou trails.
“If we lose one of these herds, there’s a lot in They were deep and narrow, and they scored the
terms of behavioral memory that we also lose,” earth in every direction, like rows of corn, like
Adamczewski told me. “When caribou don’t visit rays of light in a child’s drawing of the sun. You
their traditional calving grounds, they don’t could pick any of them and walk it to the horizon.
seem to live as long.” Maybe all the way back to the city of Yellowknife,
Seen against other changes unfolding in the far 250 miles to the south.
north—greening tundra, melting sea ice, burning I chose a trail and followed, clumsily, slotting
forests—the unraveling of the Bathurst appeared one boot in front of the other. Beside me a stout,
like a symptom of dementia, the landscape losing athletic man named Roy Judas did the same. He
another piece of its identity. Would the Bathurst’s wore woodland camouflage, though the nearest
condition spread? Was it irreversible? Was there tree was more than a day’s walk away. And he car-
a cure? No one knew. ried an old lever-action Winchester rifle, in case
Adamczewski said he found hope in small of bears, or “big men,” as his people, the Tlicho,
details: signs of growth in one herd, say, or a slow- sometimes call them—a term of respect. On that
ing rate of decline in another. Even holding on to day, though, the big men were absent, off hunting
a broader sense of time itself helped. or munching cloudberries somewhere else.
Caribou herds seem to follow cycles, he said, Everywhere we turned, the tundra appeared
Caribou navigate
waterlogged tundra
in June as they head
to summer grazing
grounds. They are born
swimmers thanks to
buoyant hollow hair
follicles and paddle-
like hooves, which
help them cross riv-
ers, streams, and lakes
during their migration.
empty. We were near the calving grounds of the
Bathurst; the old trails were probably theirs. But
the caribou were absent too.
While I walked, I tried to imagine the volume
of animals required to shape the landscape this
way—to impress their passage so firmly. Tens of
thousands of caribou. Decades of migrations. The
earth thrumming under their spadelike hooves.
“Used to be a highway for them,” Judas said.
“All gone now.”
Like Clyde Morry in Anaktuvuk Pass, Judas
had grown up hunting caribou in the forests
near his home in Wekweeti. His mental maps of
the landscape, as well as his people’s language
and culture, were flecked with caribou-related
landmarks, stories, vocabulary. Skins from
Bathurst caribou had once been their most val-
ued resource. In the form of tents, equipment,
and clothing, they made human life possible
along the cold frontier where the great northern
forests faded into open Arctic tundra. Some Tli-
cho told me they could even taste the difference
between Bathurst caribou and animals from
other herds.
Judas could no longer hunt the Bathurst, of
course: The Tlicho, a First Nation, had abided by
the territorial hunting ban. But this decision, he
and others told me, had not been easy. By that
time the Tlicho (sounds similar to CLEE-cho)
had already suffered from decades of colonial
practices, including language and cultural loss.
The collapse of the Bathurst only deepened a
sense of existential crisis. If the Tlicho couldn’t
hunt the Bathurst, if they couldn’t maintain tra-
ditions and ancient bonds with the animals, who
would they themselves become?
The Tlicho were still wrestling with the ques-
tion when I joined Judas and several other Tli-
cho citizens on the shore of Koketi, also called
Contwoyto Lake. One of the nation’s answers had
been to create a program called Ekwo Naxoehdee Southern mountain
Ke, which means, roughly, “following in the trails caribou browse for
lichen in an enclosure
of the caribou.” (It’s also known as Boots on the in south-central British
Ground.) For part of each year Judas worked for Columbia. A consortium
the program, leading groups of Tlicho citizens to of First Nations cap-
tures and collars preg-
Koketi, where they spent weeks camping, hiking, nant females to help
and searching for remnants of the herd. restore the imperiled
“When we find them, we take notes,” Judas subpopulation.
said. “We watch them, we follow them. We try
to get close and figure out what they’re up to.”
The observers counted caribou and recorded
other details, including how they looked, where
they were traveling, what they were eating, and
who was eating them. At the end of every sum- said, ‘We need to see for ourselves. So let’s get
mer, the results were returned to the Tlicho out there.’ ”
government, which used them to guide man- Steinwand-Deschambeault told me the Boots
agement decisions for the Bathurst. program also had secondary goals: to expose
“The main reason for creating that program younger Tlicho to language and hunting skills
was for our own Tlicho people to be the eyes and (if not hunting itself) and to keep contact with
ears of what’s happening out there with the car- the Bathurst.
ibou,” said Tammy Steinwand-Deschambeault, “If we’re not on the land, the caribou think
director of the department of culture and lands that they’re not needed,” she said, and they
protection for the Tlicho government. “The might decide to go away. “So we need to go
elders didn’t want to rely on the territorial gov- back to being out on the land more, you know—
ernment or anybody else to say, ‘This is what’s attend to these kinds of relationships. We have
happening; this is what we’re seeing.’ The elders to do our part.”
D U R I N G T H E T I M E I S P E N T W I T H J U DA S A N D H I S He swatted a mosquito, hefted his rifle to the
crew, we saw many animals. Enormous bears, other shoulder. “I want there to be caribou in
trout as long as my leg, eagles, cranes, muskoxen, the future,” he said.
and a young white wolf that walked through our
camp as though she owned the place. H E A D W E S T F R O M T H E L A N D O F T H E B AT H U R S T,
We also passed through layers of deep human across the Northwest Territories and into the
residence. Century-old campsites, hunting blinds Yukon, toward Alaska, and you will find the out-
built of stacked boulders that dated back to an lier in this story. Here, touching the coast of the
era of arrows and spears. Often, when we paused Beaufort Sea, straddling the international border,
to rest, we found our feet surrounded by “lithic and reaching into the lands of the Inupiat and
scatter”—shards of stone left by hunters who’d Gwich’in, lies the range of the Porcupine herd.
long ago sat in the same spots, knapping tools When I began this project, nearly every
from flint or quartz. researcher I spoke with was quick to point me
But there were very few Bathurst caribou. At toward them. The Porcupine, they said, seemed
the time, only about 6,000 animals were believed to be bucking the continental trend. And it
to remain. That number seemed large, at first. wasn’t that the herd had simply failed to col-
With a little effort, I thought, we couldn’t help but lapse: Their numbers had recently increased.
find the herd. Judas gently corrected me. It would Between 2013 and 2017, when the Bathurst were
be easy, he said, for so few animals to disappear steadily shrinking and the Western soon would
into the belly of the tundra. As the days dragged be, the Porcupine grew by about 21,000 animals
on without many sightings, I began to grasp the to reach 218,000. This despite climate change,
scale of the problem. despite wolves. Despite everything.
I live in New York City. The closest wild migra- For many scientists and hunters, this felt like
tory tundra caribou roam some 1,000 miles away hope. It wasn’t clear why the Porcupine were
in Ontario. Even for me, after years spent work- thriving while other herds declined all around
ing on this piece, interviewing dozens of people them; as with everything caribou, the answer
and camping many nights in caribou country, was likely hidden in the intricate weave of
the animals are usually out of sight, out of mind. climate, biology, and landscape. But briefly it
Less like a fellow being and more a distant idea, looked as though the Porcupine might hold a
a shadow drifting over the map. Multiply this secret, some clue that could help illuminate, or
conceptual distance across most of our lives, and maybe slow, the vanishing.
you see why their fate doesn’t summon a sense Lean on an outlier, though, and it often begins
of alarm in the capitals of Ottawa or Washington. to shift. Heather Johnson, the USGS researcher,
For Roy Judas the response was clear, and it recently cautioned me not to make too much of
was personal. In summer, he counted caribou the Porcupine’s numbers. The herd hadn’t been
on the tundra. In winter, when the Bathurst accurately counted for six years, she said, and in
migrated back into the trees near his hometown, the meantime, hunters have observed worrisome
he worked for the territorial government helping trends in body condition: The caribou are increas-
to enforce the no-hunting rule. It was his way of ingly in poor shape, packing less of the crucial
respecting the animals. Of tending to the old rela- fat that helps them survive brutal Arctic winters.
tionship. And for a while it made him unpopular. “The idea that they’re not declining is kind of out
Back in 2015, when the ban took effect, not of date,” Johnson said. “We really don’t know.”
everyone had supported it. Some Tlicho resented Around the time this article went to press, in
the notion that outsiders were trying to control fall 2023, some people I spoke with were anticipat-
their herd. They wanted to keep hunting, as they ing the release of new caribou surveys, which are
always had, and occasionally Judas’s job forced usually done over the summer. The Western and
him into uncomfortable conflict with neighbors. Porcupine were both due for fresh counts, and
Once, he’d even caught an old friend hunting. an increase in either could boost the mood, even
Late one evening on the tundra, as we tripped affect hunting regulations. On the other hand,
through caribou trails, Judas told me that people bad numbers would only deepen the gloom.
seemed finally to be coming around to his way Kyle Joly, the National Park Service biologist,
of seeing things. told me it had already been a tough year for the
“What way is that?” I asked. Western. He’d spent part of July in northern
It wasn’t clear why the
Porcupine herd was thriving
while other herds declined.
Alaska recovering satellite tracking collars river at the end of their autumn migration. Arti-
from caribou that had died during a brutal facts show that for at least that long humans had
winter that saw deep, wet snow—cement-like been arriving to meet them, hunt them, process
stuff that’s hard for caribou to travel through. In their flesh and hides and bones. It was a regular
September brighter news unfolded on the state’s appointment, kept across millennia. And though
oil-rich North Slope where the Department of local hunters still showed up, the caribou now
the Interior canceled all petroleum leases in the were often late or didn’t come at all.
immense Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, home The shifting migration brought consequences
to the Porcupine’s calving grounds. for both humans and animals. In the caribou’s
The news was celebrated among the Gwich’in, case, arriving later in the season meant finding a
for whom the area around the calving grounds river in flux—not exactly liquid, not fully frozen.
is holy, “the sacred place where life begins.” Crossing was dangerous, as the young male was
But human hunger for oil still looms over the learning. Waiting for freeze-up was too: Wolves
Porcupine’s future. While there’s no drilling in and bears patrolled the forest along the riverbank.
the refuge now, there’s also no guarantee a new But the caribou had no choice. For days hundreds
administration, or a new Congress, won’t push of them paced up and down the river, yards from
for it. Local and national politicians have already my tent, filling the air with their musky scent and
tried and failed dozens of times. the peculiar click click click that comes as they
“I think it’s been hard for us to quantify how walk, a sound thought to be made by tendons
much has been changing for caribou,” Johnson snapping over bones in their feet. They were rest-
told me. But “if there’s one thing they don’t like, less and wanted only to continue their journey.
it’s industrial development. They are just really From my small vantage it seemed impossible
sensitive to development. It’s been shown so the world would ever return to the way it had
many times.” been when this route over the river, this habit
In a mystery the size of a continent, she said, of movement, was laid down in their ancestors’
this may be the best lead we have. minds. Already the portage itself was being trans-
formed by new trees and shrubs that had crowded
C A R I B O U A R E C R E AT U R E S O F H A B I T, A N D T H E I R in and grown tall as the climate warmed. But I’d
habits seem synced to an older and colder world been told by many Indigenous people that the
that no longer exists. The question in our time caribou would adjust, given time. They were curi-
is how quickly they will or won’t adapt. Late one ous, resilient. In the Arctic they had to be.
October I stood alone on the shore of the Kobuk I looked back to the river: a chunk of ice, a blow
River in western Alaska, watching a young male to the head, another dunking. The young male
try to swim the black water. He struggled. Large surfaced in a spluttering fit. He decided to turn
rafts of ice tumbled down the current, battering around. At the shore he shook wildly, rejoined the
him, shoving him under. A group of his less dar- others. The herd turned to regard me—gray bod-
ing companions stood on the shore waiting to ies, big racks, eyes wide. Then the caribou stepped
see how things would turn out. up the bank and disappeared into the trees. j
The place was Onion Portage, and for 10,000 The Pulitzer Center provided a grant to support the
years caribou had been coming here to cross the reporting for this story.
Caribou make their
spring trek through
the Kobuk River
Valley near Ambler,
Alaska. For more than
10 years, plans to
build a 211-mile min-
ing road have hovered
over the region. The
road will cut across the
migration path of the
Western Arctic herd,
which in the past two
decades has dropped
from almost half a mil-
lion to 164,000.
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Eight paradises, pushes most human activity right to the

and the legend now draws ever-more hikers and cyclists

of a ninth Fuerteventura has been shaped over eons

waters now known for prime dive spots. A certain

gastronomic culture, Gran Among the smallest, wildest, least-visited Canaries, La

The perfect revenge

NEW ANGLE ON MANNERS Pompeians did use

the tea we drink,

Often gathered by hand in rural

RANGES OF CONCERN Environmental Risk level Human

LUCAS PETRIN, NGM STAFF. SOURCES: WILDCHECK 2020, UN FOOD AND

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CREATE A LEGACY OF YOUR OWN

CIRCLING THE GLOBE

Catch season one of

PHOTO: ROCÍO LIRA SALAS, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC FOR DISNEY

STRONG IMMUNE SYSTEM

STRONG MUSCLES INCLUDING

The Endangered Art

Towering walls ring Hue’s

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Pictures of the Year. . . . . P. 36

CARIBOU ARE CREATURES OF

PHOTO: KATIE ORLINSKY

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HERE WE PRESENT OUR ANNUAL SELECTION OF THEIR BEST WORK.

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When photo editor Anne Farrar