Nature and Local History Stories

Was it Worth the Snake Bite? By Jack Ewing When I first arrived at Hacienda Barú most of the lowlands were pasture and several parcels were rice fields. Some species of trees that had once been abundant had all been cut down and were locally extinct. In other words, they

Memo’s Cornfield When I began working at Hacienda Barú in 1972, the owners were a group of investors from North America. They had recently purchased the hacienda, and according to the sale contract the property was supposed to be free of squatters. That turned out to be false. About three

My sister and brother-in-law, live in northern Minnesota where they own and manage a nature reserve called Wolf Song. When they bought the land there weren’t any wolves. Now, after 40 years of rewilding, there are plenty. Recently, among other new species, they have been seeing lots of black bears.

One century ago, White-lipped Peccary were plentiful in the area along the Pacific coast south of Quepos. Also abundant was a closely related species, the Collared Peccary. Today the white-lipped peccary is locally extinct in most of Costa Rica. A few small herds can be found in several isolated, large

I couldn’t believe it, but there was the headline on the local news, the price of cacao had surpassed $10,000 per metric ton on the international commodities market. Could that be possible? When in doubt “Google it”. I did, and the close for that day, April 2, 2024, was $10,051

“Daddy, I’m afraid. I heard a ghost out there”. “No honey, Orlando told me that a sloth makes that moaning sound”. Later several other friends and neighbors who had lived their entire lives on or near Hacienda Barú confirmed that the eerie wail we sometimes heard once darkness settled over

Birds That Defy Gravity in More Ways Than One In past writings, I have referred to the Swifts and Swallows as the jet planes of the bird world. They are fast, but not very maneuverable and feed by swooping down with their mouths wide open at high speed through swarms

The Great Tinamou (Tinamus major) known as the Gallina de Monte, or Jungle Chicken in Spanish, flies with great difficulty. According to some sources and based on fossil evidence, among the Costa Rica birds it is the most closely related to the true ratites which are flightless. These include ostriches,

Occasionally one of my trail cameras captures a photo of a mouse or rat. They are small, difficult to identify, and unexciting. Not at all like a photo of a puma, jaguarundi, tayra, or ocelot. Not long ago, however, one of my cameras captured a series of photos that told

When I lived in the United States about 60 years ago, I became aware of a livestock pest that was prevalent in the southern part of the country, the screwworm. I worked tending show cattle, which my wife, Diane, and I took to numerous livestock expositions. Every time we passed

What is it? – By Jack Ewing I have a system for predicting the weather. I watch the weather forecast on TV and predict the exact opposite. I am right about 50% of the time. You may think I’m joking, but it really works. Try it for yourself, and you’ll

By Jack Ewing For those of you who are too young to have known the cartoon character “Baby Huey”, he was an overgrown duckling created by Martin Taras for Paramount Pictures Famous Studios and was in vogue when I was growing up during the 1950s. Currently, Diane and I have

I don’t remember when I wrote my first article for Quepolandia, but my first book, Monkeys Are Made of Chocolate, was a collection of 32 articles, most of which had been previously published in Quepolandia. The first edition of the book was published in Costa Rica in 2003. That means

Bye-Bye Mosquitos Many years ago, before we had electricity, I had a small fish tank. I couldn’t use an air pump to oxygenate the water, so I had to struggle to keep everything in balance as best I could. Fish need oxygen, which is produced by green plants, which need