Mark Carwardine's 5 ultimate wildlife experiences
17th May 2012
The wildlife expert and TV presenter reveals his favourite experience from 30 years travelling the world
1. Seeing ghosts in the Great Bear Rainforest, Canada
The experience
What? Looking for spirit bears and other North American wildlife in an extremely remote and breathtaking wilderness twice the size of the Serengeti
Where? Princess Royal Island, on the west coast of British Columbia
How? Exploring aboard a small yacht or staying in a lodge
The Great Bear Rainforest is a breathtaking wilderness of ancient trees, fern-clad canyons, glacial waterfalls, rivers, streams and creeks, unnamed islands and islets, rocky headlands, coves, inlets and bays that stretches seamlessly from the northern end of Vancouver Island all the way to south-east Alaska. Covering an area more than twice the size of Belgium (25,000 square miles) and stretching for more than 250 miles down Canada’s west coast, it is the largest remaining tract of intact temperate rainforest left in the world.
It is sometimes called Canada’s Amazon and is an awe-inspiring place to explore. One day you might be hiking through the shadowy forest, darkened by the sun-blocking canopy of some of the oldest and largest trees on earth: Sitka spruce, red cedar and western hemlock (some nearly 1,000 years old and 300 feet tall).
The next day you could be walking along the lower, slower reaches of a river tracking wolves and bears (wolves eat just the head of a salmon and leave the rest, while bears eat the rest and leave the head). You could be crawling around on your hands and knees, studying banana slugs or marvelling at the multi-coloured starfish in coastal rock pools. Or you could be in a small boat or kayak, cruising past a boisterous summer rookery of hundreds of Steller sea lions, watching humpback whales fishing with nets made of bubbles, or following a pod of orcas hunting along the coast. Then, at night, reminiscing about the sights of the day, you could be sitting on the deck of your yacht, or the veranda of your lodge, listening to the silence punctuated only by howling wolves and wailing loons. It is out of this world.
2. Freezing with penguins, Antarctica
The experience
What? A wildlife-packed adventure in the last great wilderness on earth
Where? The most accessible parts of Antarctica: the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands
How? A comfortable expedition aboard a ship with a specially strengthened hull
There is something very special, almost spiritual, about Antarctica. When asked why he returned there again and again to bitter cold and uncertain survival, Frank Wild (second-in-command of Ernest Shackleton’s famed Endurance expedition of 1914-16), said he couldn’t escape the ‘little voices’. It’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t already been there, but the same little voices call many people back to the White Continent time and time again.
Nothing prepares you for the sheer beauty of the place: it bombards you with sensory overload at every turn. Imagine cruising in an inflatable Zodiac among otherworldly ice formations; mingling with fur seals as they assert their dominance on wild and desolate beaches; sitting alongside rookeries of noisy penguins; watching families of orcas patrolling the rugged coast; or simply taking time to enjoy the breathtaking scenery of ice-choked waterways, glaciers, blue and white icebergs, and snow-covered mountains. Not only is it home to the greatest concentration of wildlife in the world, Antarctica also provides a spectacular icy setting that lends the animals an incredible air of magnificence and majesty.
It’s exceptional for other reasons, too. No country owns any part of the continent. The UK, Norway, France, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand and Australia all have territorial claims, which have been ‘frozen’ by the Antarctic Treaty, but the entire continent belongs to no one.
A number of babies have been born there – the first was Emilio Marcos de Palma, born at the Argentinian base, Esperanza, on 7 January 1978. It is home to about 1,100 scientists and support personnel in winter; up to 5,000 in summer. But there is no native population and no one lives there permanently.
Even better, despite all the remoteness and wildness, you can get to the Antarctic Peninsula region, explore a sizeable chunk of it, and get home again in little more than two weeks. The same journey a century ago would have demanded no less than two or three years – and you may not have come back alive.
3. Meeting friendly giants, Baja California
The experience
What? The world’s best place for whale watching: a kaleidoscope of greys and blues
Where? The spindly peninsula that divides mainland Mexico from the Pacific Ocean
How? Fly to San Diego, California, and join a two-week live-aboard boat, or head for San Ignacio, Mexico, and take day tripsLook at a map of North America and, down in the bottom left-hand corner, you will see a long stretch of land that looks rather like a giant chilli.
This is Baja California – my favourite place for whale watching. Over the years, I’ve been to most of the top whale-watching destinations around the world – and there are some wonderful spots among them – but Baja is the place I return to time and time again. I’ve been visiting this wild corner of Mexico one, two or three times a year since the late 1980s and it’s always utterly breathtaking.
With a little luck, in a two-week trip, you can tickle implausibly friendly grey whales under the chin, listen to humpback whales singing their haunting, unearthly songs, enjoy unforgettably close encounters with gargantuan blue whales, travel with thousands of boisterous common dolphins, and see a host of other species from sei whales and sperm whales to Dall’s porpoises and Peruvian beaked whales. Along the way, you can snorkel with playful California sea lions, rare Guadalupe fur seals and even whale sharks; go beachcombing on remote subtropical islands; explore spectacular cactus forests; and marvel at bioluminescent seas.
One of the longest peninsulas in the world, stretching 800 miles south from the Californian border, Baja is unusual because it is both a breeding ground and a feeding ground for great whales. This means that you can see a greater variety of species in
a couple of weeks here than almost anywhere else on the planet.
4. Tracking jaguars, Brazil
The experience
What? The best-kept secret in South America
Where? A watery wonderland south of the Amazon and east of the Andes
How? Stay in comfortable lodges and explore by 4WD and boat, on horseback and on foot
The Pantanal is the largest continuous wetland on the planet, and it’s absolutely stuffed full of wildlife. Three-quarters of this magical place is in Brazil, divided between the
states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul; the rest spills over into Bolivia and Paraguay. Covering an area of 77,250 square miles, it is many times bigger than the Okavango Delta in Botswana, and roughly the size of England and Wales combined.
The aquatic heart of South America, it is a seemingly endless mosaic of rivers, lakes, lily-choked ponds, swamps, islands, forest, scrub and wooded savanna (or cerrado, as
it is known locally). It is a bit like a giant sponge.
When the Paraguay, the Cuiabá and several other rivers burst their banks during the rainy season, much of the Pantanal is completely submerged – and then, during the dry season, most of the water is gradually released. This annual ebb and flow is the pulse of Pantanal life.
Dubbed ‘South America’s Wild West’, it is mind-bogglingly superb for wildlife watching and photography, for four main reasons: the sheer variety of species; the fact that many of them occur in phenomenal numbers; the presence of so many red-letter animals (from jaguars to giant otters – the Pantanal oozes quality as well as quantity); and the relative ease with which they can be found (you do actually get to see most of the local specialities – they’re not just names on a list).
With no fewer than 80 species of large mammal (plus lots of bats and small rodents), 650 different birds, 80 species of reptile, at least 50 different amphibians and more than 300 species of fish, there really is masses to see.
High on the list for most visitors is South America’s top predator, the jaguar. The Pantanal is probably the best place in the world for close encounters with the largest cat in the Americas.
The sub-species here is twice the size of the individuals living in Central America, and far less elusive. There is one particular spot, on and around the Cuiabá River east of Porto Jofre, where jaguars are seen almost daily during the dry season. They spend a lot of time skulking in the forest and long grass, of course, but they also seem to be fond of the sun, the breeze and the hunting opportunities on riverbanks and, once settled, often spend hours sitting or lying down in the same spot right out in the open.
They are usually alone but, if you’re lucky, you may come across a mother with her cubs. The way to do it is to cruise around slowly, in a small boat, checking the riverbanks as you go. Jaguars are strong swimmers, so you may also come across one crossing from one side to the other.
5. Encountering Great Whites, Mexico
The experience
What? Cage-diving with the quintessential shark, the great white
Where? The remote island of Guadalupe, a tiny little dot in the North Pacific some 210 miles south-west of San Diego
How? From a live-aboard dive boat (no dive qualifications necessary)
Admittedly, it’s an unusual way to spend your precious holiday. You fly to San Diego, in southern California, and take a small boat on a bumpy 20-hour rollercoaster ride to
a remote volcanic island in the North Pacific. Then you jump overboard into cold water, with a giant tuna head for company, and hope for a close encounter with an animal many people would pay good money never to meet.
The great white shark’s enormous size, powerful jaws, rows of large triangular teeth and jet-black eyes made it the perfect star of Jaws – the film that gave sharks such a terrible and undeserved reputation.
But having met umpteen of these endangered animals over the years, I’ve not only emerged unscathed but also enjoyed some of my most impressive and unforgettable wildlife encounters.
There are few places in the world where great white sharks are seen on a regular basis. The Western Cape, in South Africa, is best-known and has a prolific population of great whites. It is superb for surface watching – False Bay, in particular, is the best place for seeing great whites breach clear of the water – but underwater visibility is really poor compared to Guadalupe. Visibility is also a problem in the Farallon Islands, California, where it averages a mere 20 feet; however, surface watching can be dramatic, because this is where the sharks attack northern elephant seals at the surface. South Australia is the closest contender: the hotspot is the Neptune Islands, where visibility is highly variable but, on a good day, can rival Guadalupe.
In my experience, Guadalupe is best for underwater encounters. It has the advantage of being a seamount surrounded by deep blue water, which is why the visibility is so good – 100 feet is by no means unusual. It also has a well- deserved reputation for huge great whites: the largest I have seen there was a 16-foot female, but others have reported individuals reaching 18 feet or more. And with as many as 100 great white sharks around the island in season, perhaps more, sightings are consistent. Suffice it to say, in shark-diving circles we talk about Guadalupe in hushed and reverential tones.
Until recently, it was better known for its seals. A century ago, Guadalupe was the last refuge of northern elephant seals and Guadalupe fur seals. Luckily, small numbers of both species managed to hide from sealers –otherwise, they would almost certainly have become extinct. There are also a number of interesting birds on the island, though they are hard to see without special permission to land. The rock wren, house finch and junco are all endemic sub-species, found only on Guadalupe.
The five experiences above have been taken from Mark Carwardine's Ultimate Wildlife Experiences. To find out more about the world of wildlife and how, where and when to see the world's top best bits pick up a copy in the Wanderlust Shop
More like this
Take a look at more articles by wildlife expert Mark Carwardine here | Contributors... More
One perfect hour with Uganda's mountain gorillas | Destinations... More
Wildlife facts: did you know? | Inspire me... More
5 really wild courtships | Inspire me... More
Mark Carwardine reveals 16 ridiculous questions guides get asked | Inspire me... More