The Attack of the Killer Rhododendrons (26 page)

We pulled into El Rocío, where Carmen had booked us into a hotel. A more peculiar community you are unlikely to enter. Cars slipped their way along wide sand streets that were better suited for horses. It seemed a ghost town, and I had the distinct feeling that El Rocío had been constructed by Hollywood set designers for a remake of
Gunfight at the OK Corral,
dominated as the place was by two-storey wooden buildings complete with hitching posts. As usual, I had the story completely backwards. In the early days of cattle ranching in North and South America, many cowboys had come from this part of Spain and had brought many of their traditions with them, including a sense of architecture. El Rocío did not look like the Wild West; the Wild West looked like El Rocío.

El Rocío supports only about 100 citizens on a day-to-day
basis, and most residences were locked up tight. The community featured many restaurants, but most of them were also closed. We had arrived two weeks before the start of the summer season, when the unoccupied residences fill with people fleeing the heat and congestion of Seville.

Another annual population surge had swept through El Rocío two weeks before we arrived. Each year at Pentecost, El Rocío receives one million devotees,
Rocieros,
on a religious pilgrimage, the Romería del Rocío. Part of their reverence is reserved for an image of the Virgin, La Reina de las Marismas, also known as La Virgen del Rocío, or La Paloma Blanca. Between pilgrimages, the image is housed at the beautiful white church, El Rocío’s Ermita de Nuestra Señora.

Not everyone on pilgrimage is equally devoted. According to Carmen, who worked in the area, at least nine-tenths of those making the pilgrimage treat the trip as a fiesta. The highlight of these festivities is the parading of the Virgin through the town to the accompaniment of cheering, drinking, and fireworks. Many of the pilgrims and other partygoers make the trip by traditional routes, walking or on horseback, right through the heart of Doñana National Park. Two weeks after the big event, we found that streets, alleyways, and even the approach highway were still being cleared of rubbish.

Carmen rested while I strolled down to the wetlands, the Marismas de Doñana, which looked for all the world like a lake, but which Carmen later assured me is known as “The Mother of All Marshes.” At a raised observation platform, I found two pairs of birdwatchers on vacation from England. The men were positioned behind their powerful spotting scopes, scanning the skies for rarities. The women were a little more casual, lounging with binoculars at their sides, soaking up the sun. I asked, as casually as I could, if they had seen any White-headed Ducks. “No, not here. Not yet.” Still casually, I asked how they felt about the Ruddy Duck situation in England but couldn’t get a definitive answer. “Yes, very contentious …” was all they would offer.

In the early afternoon, Carmen and I drove to the town of El Acebuche to join Carlos Gutierrez for lunch. Carmen explained that Gutierrez was someone we had to meet. He had a reputation as a great ornithologist, and although he was one of the more recent additions to the White-headed/Ruddy duck world, he was an important player.

I had reached an unusual and awkward position. Carmen had been so efficient lining up interviews with important people that I was starting to run out of relevant questions about ducks. I decided to space my material out a bit. Unfortunately, my first question seemed to turn Gutierrez against me.

“So, I understand that you are somewhat new to the world of Ruddy and White-headed ducks.” He barked back that he had been working on the ducks since 2000, and then changed his answer to 2002. First he had worked with a private company, then with the Ministry of the Environment.

I tried another tack and asked a couple of questions about Doñana National Park. Gutierrez explained that the park had been established in 1969 and was about 50,000 hectares in size, but, he explained tersely, these were things I could look up on the park’s website. It was becoming a pretty stilted conversation. One of the problems was that Gutierrez wanted to speak to me in English, rather than working through Carmen, and as I had discovered with some other Spaniards, it took a bit of practice before he remembered much English. I asked about the importance of Doñana to the White-headed Duck. Gutierrez said that the park had never been important to the duck, but that there had been a fish farm in the area, that a marsh had been destroyed, and something about 2,000 hectares of wetlands.

After a while, things settled down a bit, and I learned that although the wetlands in the area harbour a modest number of breeding White-headed Ducks, the region is important to the species as wintering habitat. In the autumn, Ruddy Ducks also arrive, and if they make it through the winter, they attempt to mate with White-headed Ducks in the spring. Up to fourteen Ruddy Ducks
had been killed in a single year, a statistic made all the more incredible by Gutierrez’s claim that no more than 400 Ruddy Ducks remained in all of Britain.

I was then told about another avian pest in the region. Just two days earlier, officials had begun to shoot Sacred Ibises. Native to sub-Saharan Africa, local populations had been founded from escapees from zoos in France, Belgium, and Spain. There were now hundreds of Sacred Ibises in the Mediterranean region, and as many as 5,000 in France. I asked why it was necessary to shoot them at all and was told that they prey on native birds and amphibians, some of which are threatened, and have shown their potential for very rapid population growth.

I then lost control over my destiny and was swept along by a wave of Spanish generosity and enthusiasm. I knew only that Gutierrez was going to give us a tour of Doñana National Park, a privilege normally reserved for those booking the services of a tour guide. We jumped into Gutierrez’s white Land Rover, Carmen in front and me in back. We roared along the beach on the park’s southwestern border. At low tide we might have driven sedately along the water’s edge, but at high tide we had to blast through the adjacent dunes. Like Gutierrez and Carmen, I had to abandon my seatbelt to avoid being throttled. As the Rover bounced, I felt I might soon be able to prove my mortality.

We then bounded up into the dunes and the Monte de Doñana. Taking notes was impossible, and so I held on for dear life, leaning forward whenever Gutierrez had something to pass along. I heard about threatened endemic plants. I saw spots where moving sand dunes were about to swallow pine trees. From the tops of dunes I spied a sea of wetlands, somewhat shrunken by a dry winter. On we drove, north through the park. I heard about the plight of the Small Buttonquail, on which Gutierrez was working. The button-quail was already very rare in Spain. Gutierrez felt that it was likely to become the first bird since the Great Auk to go extinct in Europe. Luckily it was doing a bit better in Asia and Africa.

One hour ticked into the next. I was shown woven-wood
enclosures, large and round, into which rabbits were thrown so that Imperial Eagles could hunt for them. I saw other, similar enclosures, not quite so high, that also received rabbits. They were high enough that rabbits couldn’t hop out, but short enough that hungry Iberian lynx could hop in. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful to Gutierrez for his incredible generosity, so I asked as many questions as I thought was reasonable.

“When the rabbits are added to the enclosures, how long does it take the lynx to find them? A day or two?”

“A minute or two” was the answer. “I think the lynx know the sound of the vehicle that delivers the rabbits.” And on we bounced.

“This field over here? That used to be a wetland!”

“Oh dear.”

“And this wetland over there? That used to be a field!”

“Really?”

“And this road? In heavy rain, it is completely underwater!”

“Uh-huh.”

I was shown an area that had, in the past, been completely covered with introduced eucalyptus trees, but these had been cut down and the debris used to create rabbit warrens. I saw eucalyptus trees that had been allowed to remain standing because they contained eagle nests. We stopped at an interpretive centre to see the nests of Glossy Ibises, at which a team had been banding chicks all day.

Despite earlier tensions, Gutierrez was turning out to be a really great guy, and there was no way that I could ask if the tour was nearly over. When we pulled away from the interpretive centre, he asked if I was getting tired. I explained that it had been a long day, and that it had been a busy three weeks on the road, and that I was very tired indeed. Allowing myself to hope that this would signal an end to our expedition, I showed just how naive I could be. We bombed off toward our next destination, and I heard myself making whimpering noises. I wanted to ask if Gutierrez had a gun in the truck, allowing me to give myself a non-life-threatening injury so that I could go to a hospital for a little rest.

We saw an endless parade of spoonbills, ibises, herons, kites,
and egrets, and even a few wild boar and a mongoose. We hadn’t seen any White-headed Ducks, probably because the few that were around were busy breeding amongst the reeds. And then, as the evening skies darkened and our time in the field approached six hours, Gutierrez told me that he knew a place where we could be sure to see White-headed Ducks. I wanted to say that I wouldn’t trade two rats’ balls for the chance to see a duck, but instead I played along. He was teasing me slightly and took Carmen and me to a captive breeding facility for Iberian lynx that also held captive White-headed Ducks.

I
N THE MORNING,
we set off south along the highway to the offices of the Estación Biológica de Doñana to meet Hector Garrido Guil, known to his friends as “Chiqui.” Chiqui had been involved with White-headed Duck conservation attempts and the fight against Ruddy Ducks for many years and had a reputation as a brilliant photographer. When we got to a gate that crossed the road guarded by an intercom, we were told that Chiqui had been called away to meetings in Seville but could slip in a quick discussion with us before he left. At a café. Back along the road we had come. About 200 metres from where we had started.

When Chiqui arrived, he launched into questions before I had a chance to. Heavens, I love that sort of inquisitiveness. He asked why I was so interested in the Ruddy Duck in Spain when there are so many other outrageous examples of introduced species. He cited examples of plants, turtles, crabs, and the Sacred Ibis. I told him about Ruddy Ducks breeding so close to my home in Canada. Chiqui told us that he would soon be travelling to Australia, where introduced Mediterranean rabbits are outrageously common but increasingly rare in Spain, where they are toward the bottom of the food chain and important food for species like the Iberian lynx.

When it came time for me to ask questions, Chiqui explained that he had been in on the ground floor, being on the scene when Ruddy Ducks first started appearing from Britain. Although he could not claim to have shot the first Ruddy Duck, he did kill the
sixth. Shooting was not currently part of his job. Instead he worked with marksman Pepe, whom we were scheduled to meet later in the day. Chiqui was the eyes of the outfit, and Pepe was the gun. Chiqui said that their relationship was like that of two cartoon squirrels, which Carmen translated as “Chip and Chop.” Cartoon squirrels? “Oh, do you mean Chip ‘n’ Dale?” Since Disney’s squirrels are identical, I didn’t ask Chiqui which one he was. Between Chiqui and Pepe, they could claim to have killed about 70 percent of the Ruddy Ducks in Spain. Although Chiqui now works on other projects and hasn’t had the opportunity to work with Pepe for a year, he explained that they are still “a couple in love.” That expression may have lost something in the translation.

I asked about the difficulties with Ruddy Ducks in Morocco. Chiqui responded with frustration about the failure of other countries to kill Ruddy Ducks within their borders. He explained that he had personally spoken to the Prince of Spain, asking him to ask the monarchy of Morocco to become more involved with the fight against Ruddy Ducks. However, he said, the government of Morocco is slow to respond to any challenge if it cannot see a short-term advantage. While at a conference in Morocco to present findings of a census of Slender-billed Curlews, Chiqui had taken the opportunity to discuss the Ruddy Duck problem with members of the Moroccan Ministry of the Environment. Everyone seemed to be onside, and two Ruddy Ducks were killed in the next two days. After that, the enthusiasm died away, and the remaining Ruddy Ducks were spared.

Chiqui said that it was important for persons resistant to the Ruddy Duck cull to remember that this was not a natural problem, but one caused by a person, the one who was responsible for the release of Ruddy Ducks from captivity. The cull is not an attack on nature but an attack on a human-created problem. Equally important is the realization that conservation is not an issue for a single person or even a single country. In one sense, White-headed Ducks in Spain belong to the world, and we all have a responsibility for their survival.

Was Chiqui optimistic about the future of the White-headed Duck? There was a time when he was very pessimistic. He and others blasted away at every Ruddy Duck that arrived in Spain and yet the birds continued to arrive, and in increasing numbers. The time came when Chiqui made a conscious decision to stay the course for two additional years and wait for England to come onside before giving up. Experts met, and the British government made a commitment to cull Ruddy Ducks.

I
FELT THAT I HAD HEARD
just about every technical aspect of the White-headed/Ruddy duck situation, and it seemed to be time to hear more about the emotional side. Carmen had arranged for us to meet Pepe, the man behind the gun, after work. We arrived at the agreed-upon bar in El Rocío at 8 p.m.

We were met by a curious group composed of eight young men and women and one older man with long dishevelled hair and a ZZ Top beard. This latter fellow seemed to be playing the jester, gesturing wildly and violating the personal space of others. They were kicking back after spending the day banding 500 Glossy Ibis chicks in Doñana National Park under the direction of the older fellow, Luis. Members of the group were at least mildly interested in my quest but were a lot more amused by the gentle teasing that I started getting from Luis. He started by ribbing me about speaking so little Spanish; I tried to hold my end up by using Spanish to say “Hello. My name is Glen. I speak no Spanish. Please bring me two beers.” It got a good laugh.