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The Mob That Almost Hanged Us in Chiapas, Mexico

It happened during Richard Vogt’s first visit to Mexico, while he was doing a postdoc at the Carnegie Museum, February–March 1980. I was doing my master’s work with Gustavo Casas at the Instituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). At that time my English wasn’t very fluent, and I had never spoken in English to other people. I could read the language very well, but my written and spoken English were really deficient.

I was commissioned by my advisor to accompany Richard (Dick) and Mike Papas (his companion on that trip) during their eight-week field trip visiting different areas of Mexico. We started at the UNAM Tropical Biological Station in Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, and then continued to Tabasco and Chiapas, surveying freshwater turtle populations. During our 10 days at Los Tuxtlas, I was learning how to collect and preserve turtles. I enjoyed Dick’s cooking in the field—he was an excellent cook. Then we went to Tabasco and finally to Chiapas. And that’s where it happened.

We traveled to what is today the biosphere reserve of the Lacandon Rain Forest (Montes Azules). There were no roads in 1980; roads were completed and paved in 2000. We traveled by boat on the Usumacinta River to reach the town of Frontera Corozal, right across the border with Guatemala. After several hours on the river, we arrived in Frontera Corozal around midday. We talked with local people about our plan to search for freshwater turtles, in particular the largest and most valuable of them: the Central American River Turtle (Dermatemys mawii), or tortuga blanca as it is called in Chiapas.

Everything was shut down in town because the Mexican president, José López Portillo, was visiting the area. His visit likely was connected with the problems related to the revolt in Guatemala and the frequent incursions of the Guatemalan army in Mexican territory. The government of Mexico was determined to put an end to the constant harassing of the Guatemalan army toward Mexican peasants in the army’s search for Guatemalan guerrillas who took refuge in Mexico.

Someone pointed us to a big cayuco (wooden canoe, of one piece, used by local fishermen for transporting people and merchandise) packed with about 100–200 Dermatemys. They said the turtles were confiscated that morning in anticipation of the president’s visit. At the time we did not know why the turtles were confiscated, but we could not have thought of a better catch! Most local people were at the meeting with the president, and there were only a few men guarding the cayuco with the turtles. Later, we learned that some of the fishermen declared to the authorities accompanying the president that the turtle populations were being depleted and that the resource should be protected. In the traditional idiosyncratic and populistic traditions, at that meeting it was decreed that all freshwater turtles of the Usumacinta River be protected.

Meanwhile, we waited for someone to come and let us examine the precious Dermatemys in the cayuco. After a while, the meeting ended, and people resumed their activities. A large group of people with machetes and sticks headed to the side of the river, where we were waiting. I do not recall very well, but it seems to me that someone from the group saw three gringos by the side of the big cayuco and asked, in Spanish, what we were doing there. My answer immediately was venimos a buscar tortugas para la universidad (we are here looking for turtles to take to the university). I had no idea what a big fuss I was starting with my words. Immediately a mob gathered around us, screaming and threatening us. I vaguely remember something like They are coming to take away our resources, and Do not let them take our turtles, as well as other claims I do not remember. I quickly turned toward Dick and said, Give me the copy of your collecting permit. Dick and Mike were pale. They had no idea what was happening: they did not understand a word of Spanish. I learned later that they only knew that something very bad was happening.

The mob was approaching us, and they were shouting. Somehow I started to shout louder than all those guys and held in my hand the collecting permit, printed on letterhead paper with the stamp of the Mexican government. I told them, We were sent by the Mexican government to study the turtle populations here. This is our permit. It is to help you. Magically my voice was heard, and the mob calmed down. I started to explain that we came from Mexico City and that the authorities from the City of Mexico had sent us to study the turtles, that we were not commercial collectors, and that we were concerned with the populations of turtles and wanted to know how many species were in the river and their status. One of the men said something like, This was very quick action from the president. The situation calmed after my brief speech.

Dick and Mike were astonished to see how friendly the mob turned toward us. We then negotiated, asking the guy in charge of the confiscated turtles to let us examine them (measure, weigh, and sex). That was another problem. I do not remember how many guys we tried to convince to let us examine the turtles. No one was willing to make that decision, despite our permit. It was one thing to stop the mob from hanging us; it was another to try to obtain some morphological data from the turtles that were confiscated. After about an hour, we got the promise that the next day someone would let us examine the turtles. We decided to spend the night in Frontera Corozal.

We camped on one of the beaches of the Rio Usumacinta, not knowing that a north storm was going to hit that part of Chiapas during the night. In the months of September to May (fall to spring) in the Gulf of Mexico versant, the north storms (nortes) hit the states that are located from Tamaulipas to Chiapas. The nortes are characterized by cold air, winds, cloudy skies, and cold rains. I was sleeping on top of my sleeping bag; we did not have a tent. In the middle of the night the rain woke me up. In a short time, we all were awake, wet, and cold. There was no place to take refuge from the rain, all our equipment was soaked, and rain was pouring down. I thought it was the worst night of my life. I spent the rest of the night shivering on top of a big rock, covered with my wet sleeping bag. I could not get back to sleep, but I dozed every now and then. I felt completely exhausted by the revolt the day before and how it turned in our favor.

At sunrise the rain stopped, and we managed to light a small fire to warm our bones. We ate breakfast and returned to town looking for the turtles. We could not find the person in charge of the turtles or the cayuco with the turtles. The turtles were gone. Someone told us that the turtles were kept in a small hut in town, but we never found the place. We were frustrated at missing such a unique opportunity to study this endangered turtle, which was very important in the diet of many peasants in Chiapas. At that time there was very little information published on Dermatemys from Mexico, and especially no information on such a large sample caught in the wild. I believe the confiscation of the turtles was done by agents of the Mexican government in anticipation to the president’s visit. It may have been done as a distraction for local people to hide the real purpose of such an important visit. For that reason, the turtles were not kept. After the president’s visit, they were probably returned to the people who had caught them.

We continued on the Rio Usumacinta, looking for turtles. I do not remember ever again seeing so many Dermatemys together—not even in the fall of 1984 when I worked for Dick on a research project financed by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (the equivalent of the National Science Foundation in Mexico) to study the freshwater turtles in the biosphere reserve of Montes Azules. The turtles’ populations, only four years later, were being overexploited, mainly for local consumption or exportation to markets out of the state of Chiapas. The visit of the Mexican president to the area was another event with promises and good intentions, but as it has been the environmental policy of Mexico, it was only promises and good intentions. Today Dermatemys wawii is one of the most endangered turtles in the world. I hope it will not vanish.