Southern Adventures

Though I was passionate about animals and the outdoors as a youth and had some wonderful experiences as an adult, some of the luster wore off. Bureaucracy took a toll, and supervising other employees and volunteers could also be a trying experience. I was also discouraged from signing on full-time in Alaska because I dreaded being saddled with desk work during winter.

One way to extend the field season is to move south. One winter, I worked for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Florida, mostly studying manatees.

Ironically, the closest I ever came to freezing to death was probably in Florida. I was on an uninhabited island (St. Vincent Island) in northern Florida, near the Alabama border in winter. I think it was Christmas Day when the area was struck by a sudden cold snap - and trees literally snapped as the liquids inside them froze. Fortunately, my boss got his jeep started, and we raced across the island and got a boat ride to the mainland.

Green sea turtles were the quarry at Maruata, Mexico.

Another summer took me to the Pacific beaches of Maruata, the most spectacularly beautiful of Mexico’s states. Jaguars once roamed Maruata’s white sandy beaches. However, a hiway had recently been carved through the area, and a thriving community of people who liked to eat turtle eggs and meat posed a problem.

So I spent my time helping out with studies designed to increase our understanding of green sea turtles. I also got to participate in a night beach raid, accompanying a group of Mexican Marines. Another memorable experience was an encounter with a prehistoric monster - an enormous leatherback sea turtle that crawled up on a beach to nest one night.

I worked for a guy named Kim Cliffton, one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. A biologist and airplane pilot, he would have been right at home in Alaska. But his talents didn’t end there.

A former armed forces boxing champion, Kim was the only biologist in the world who wrestled sea turtles at sea. A typical day began with Kim jumping in his plane and flying an aerial survey. Then he’d jump in a boat and go wrestle sea turtles. He also participated in law enforcement activities and sometimes had to travel to other cities on diplomatic missions - or just to buy groceries. Of course, he spoke Spanish.

Kim also introduced me to Andean music. He had a recording of some songs by a group called Quilyapun. One particular melody haunts me to this day.

My fondest memory of Maruata is of a night on top of a steep peak along the beach. I climbed to the top and discovered I had two companions - a goat and a huge iguana. A lightning storm out at sea put on a spectacular light show as I lay there, waiting to fall asleep.

From Maruata, I traveled to Santa Rosa, California, where I took a law enforcement course designed for park rangers. I was amazed at how interesting law enforcement could be. The course was intense, with classes lasting late in the day, along with cliff and whitewater rescue classes.

But I was confused, still undecided about what I wanted to do with my life.

Of course, wildlife biology can be a very lonely calling, especially in Alaska (though never as lonely as the big city). Ironically, two of my best friends were killed in Alaska-style accidents but not in Alaska. Tim Patton (who I met when we both worked at Nowitna National Wildlife Refuge) was riding in a plane flying from Alaska to the Lower 48 when it crashed in a blizzard in Idaho. Michio Hoshino was a Japanese photographer who was becoming famous when he was killed by a bear in Kamchatka (in the Russian Far East).

Michio and a Japanese television crew were visiting an area frequented by numerous brown bears to film a TV special. One night, Michio reportedly decided to escape a crowded tent by pitching his tent outside, figuring the bears were too gorged on salmon to bother him. Tragically, he was eaten by a bear. Ironically, I’ve done several stupid things, involving both bears and airplanes in Alaska and elsewhere, and lived to tell (or not tell) about it.

So there were no strong human bonds tying me to Alaska. Finally, I was obsessed with being independent and therefore self-employed, and I knew achieving that would require more stability. Yet I still saw my future in Alaska when I moved to Seattle.