The Great Pause Week 4: Beady-Eyed Bandits

If nothing else, we are getting a good lesson in the power of the exponential function.

You know something has changed when you come back from a walk and find a raccoon under your bed.

Here on the north coast of the Yucatan, we are seeing the flip-side of lockdown. Wildlife is soaring back. With humans in quarantine, animals have reclaimed their natural spaces, and, as in case of this raccoon, some of ours, as well. She made a hole in my thatch and hid under the bed, maybe hoping to have some babies there.

This region experienced significant destruction from Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, followed by a drought and severe wildfires in 1989. That damage led locals to form an organization to petition for greater environmental protection from the federal government. They called themselves the “Yum Balam Civil Association,” taking a phrase from the Yucatec Maya language that translates, “Father Jaguar,” the Lord of Nature.

Área de protección de flora y fauna Yum Balam became in 1994 the first protected nature reserve in México to be created by the demand of its local residents. Its hundreds of square kilometers include important cork forests, wetlands stretching along the Strait of Cuba, Yalahau Lagoon, and adjacent barrier islands.