क्यूबा – आवारा मुसाफिर

Tourists in Cuba brave worsening shortages

February 17, 2023805 Views

British birdwatcher Harriet Babeo arrived at Cuba's Bay of Pigs earlier this week and promptly racked up 80 species for her list including the world's smallest hummingbird and the elusive red, white and blue Cuban trogon, rarities found only the island. Far more challenging, she says, was hunting down a few liters of gasoline for her group's rental car. "We've gone ... three days now, and (the service stations) have had nothing," Babeo said over breakfast, binoculars and bird book near at hand, at a private home-stay on Cuba's serene Bay of Pigs. Tourists swim in the sea, in Playa Giron, Cuba, February 14, 2023. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini Tourists like Babeo who spoke with Reuters often raved about their experience in Cuba, praising the country's hospitality, culture and weat...

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Cuban scientists race to save one of the world´s rarest crocodiles

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

September 5, 2022294 Views

Shirtless and waist-deep in the dark waters of Cuba's palm-speckled Zapata Swamp, researcher Etiam Perez releases a baby crocodile confiscated from illegal hunters back into the wild. It is a small victory, he says, in a bigger battle. Cuban crocs, an endemic species found only here and in a swamp on Cuba's Isle of Youth, are critically endangered and have the smallest natural habitat left of any living crocodile species, scientists say. Cuban crocodiles (Crocodylus rhombifer) swim at a hatchery at Zapata Swamp, Cienaga de Zapata, Cuba, August 24, 2022. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini "We are trying to bring them back from the edge of extinction," Perez told Reuters as the spotted reptile, mouth full of fine teeth, kicked its striped tail and disappeared. Illegal hunting and hybri...

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Cuban sea turtles can’t escape climate change, even on these far-flung beaches

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

July 13, 2022889 Views

On Cuba's far-flung Guanahacabibes peninsula, park guard Roberto Varela watches as a green sea turtle lumbers ashore and a ritual as old as the dinosaurs unfolds. "To see them lay their eggs and to know their nests will be protected, you get the sense you are making a difference," said Varela, who helps oversee turtle research in a national park that spans much of the peninsula. So far, efforts by Varela and fellow researchers at the park and University of Havana have been a success. Turtle nesting here, once threatened by poaching, has stabilized and increased in some cases, published studies show, even as it has fallen off elsewhere in the tropics. A green sea turtle returns to the sea after laying eggs on the beach in Guanahacabibes Peninsula, Cuba, June 28, 2022. REUTERS/Alex...

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Cuba zookeepers celebrate birth of rare baby white rhino

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

June 25, 2022207 Views

The zookeepers at Cuba's National Zoo are especially proud of Ale, a pudgy, gray-brown baby white rhinoceros born earlier this month on the outskirts of capital Havana. For starters, he's cute. Baby rhinos look similar to adults, but have a stub in place of the horn and thus, are more docile in appearance. A newly-born white rhinoceros follows its mother (not pictured) at the National Zoo in Havana, Cuba, June 24, 2022. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini But the white rhino is also a threatened species, and zoos the world across have been asked to reproduce them in captivity in the hope of creating a gene bank that will help preserve the species should it go extinct in the wild. "It is a great privilege for us to be able to contribute to the rescue of a species as threatened as the w...

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Cubans grow corals, restore ailing barrier reef on shoestring budget

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May 7, 2022508 Views

A small group of Cuban dive instructors, working on a shoe-string budget and with flotsam salvaged from the beach, have launched a small-scale project to grow corals and replant them, in hopes of restoring a patch of Cuba's barrier reef. Luis Muiño, 44, one of the project's leaders, grew up as a fisherman nearby, and said he saw his beloved reefs outside the mouth of Matanzas Harbor, on Cuba's north coast, slowly decline and fish grow scarce over nearly three decades. Professional diver and coral reef conservationist Luis Muino cleans the coral nursery from algae in Playa Coral beach, Cuba April 29, 2022. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini "It's incredible the loss of coral in the past 30 years," Muiño told Reuters. "Our dream is to repopulate again the parts of the barrier reef that ha...

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After pandemic peace, fresh swarms of crabs invade Cuba´s Bay of Pigs

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

March 27, 2022849 Views

Migrating crabs around Cuba´s Bay of Pigs have emerged early and in unprecedented swarms, according to local residents, following two years of pandemic that allowed them to cross normally trafficked roadways and reproduce in peace. After the island´s spring rains begin, millions of red, yellow and black landcrabs emerge at dawn and dusk and march from the forest across the road and down to the bay on Cuba's southern coast to spawn in the sea. A car drives over migrating crabs as they are marching from the forest across the road and down to the bay to spawn in the sea, following two years of pandemic, around the Bay of Pigs, in Playa Larga, Cuba March 24, 2022. REUTERS/Stringer Most years, untold thousands fall victim to the tires of passing motorists. But for the past two years, ...

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World’s most beautiful endangered snail crowned Mollusc of the Year 2022

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March 19, 20221206 Views

Results are out! The Cuban Painted Snail has won an international competition – and will now have its DNA blueprint unravelled and the key to its beauty unlocked, potentially helping to protect this iconic species from extinction. Scientists in the UK and Cuba have been campaigning for the eye-catching snail to be crowned winner of the Mollusc of the Year 2022 – an international public vote led by the Senckenberg Nature Research Society, the LOEWE Centre for Translational Biodiversity Genomics (TBG) and the Worldwide Society for Mollusc Research. Orange form of Polymita picta, Photo: Adrián González Guillén There were five finalists in the competition - three snails, one mussel and a tusk shell or scaphopod. The Painted Snail won with a staggering 10,092 votes, taking 62...

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Russians vanish from Cuba beaches, casting doubt on tourism recovery

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

March 11, 2022928 Views

When planeloads of Russian tourists left Cuba this week, their vacations interrupted by war in Ukraine, it marked a sad day in the resort town of Varadero, a visible sign the conflict will rattle the island nation's fragile economy. Varadero, a finger of white sand extending out into the blue Caribbean sea, has long been a magnet for Russians fleeing the northern winter. In 2021, with much of the world hunkered down amid the coronavirus pandemic, visitors from Russia soared to 40% of total arrivals in Cuba, according to government figures. Tourists sunbathe at the beach in Varadero, Cuba, March 7, 2022. REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli Varadero's beaches, usually teeming with tourists at this time of year, are suddenly quiet, said Yanet Costafreda, who sells trinkets to tourists along...

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Cuban women emerge from shadows to promote body art

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

March 3, 2022848 Views

Once seen as taboo, it is slowly getting more acceptability in the society An eclectic group of Cuban women brandishing tattoos has emerged from the shadows on the insular, communist-run island, pushing the boundaries of a legal vacuum and leveraging the internet to promote an ancient art that has only recently become common again in Cuba. The nearly 200-member woman´s association, called Erias, was founded in July 2021, and is the first to actively and openly promote body art on the island, a practice for decades considered taboo in Cuba, especially among women. Women with tattoos pose for a selfie in Havana, Cuba, February 27, 2022. REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli While tattoos themselves are not illegal in Cuba, the island's traditional "machista" culture has long stygmatized the ...

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World’s most beautiful endangered snail needs a few votes

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

March 1, 20221145 Views

Scientists in the UK and Cuba are urging members of the public to vote for the ‘world’s most beautiful snail’, in an international competition to unravel its DNA blueprint – thus unlocking the key to its beauty. The Cuban Painted Snails, which are only found in Eastern Cuba, are known for their eye-catching coloured shells, which come in a variety of colours, and their ‘love dart’ – a device they use to stab mating partners. They live in a wide variety of habitats, from xerophytic shrub woodland to rainforests. Red and white Polymita picta. Photo: Bernardo Reyes-Tur Cuba is home to perhaps the world’s greatest diversity of snails, but none have shells with such a range of colours and complex patterns as the Painted Snail, or Polymita picta. Sadly, this makes them appealing to col...