Rescuing Ladybugs. Jennifer Skiff

Start with one small action. Once you’re on the path, you will meet others who will support you and give energy and the conviction to do more. Take one step at a time and begin. It can start with rescuing a ladybug; it can start with helping a blind person cross the street. Start small and connect. Open your heart and see where your path will take you.

Chapter 3

       DRAGON, MANTA, ORANGUTAN

Preservation for the Good of All

      Komodo Island, Indonesia

      There’s only one place in the world where the man-eating Komodo dragon still lives in the wild: in the archipelago of the Lesser Sunda Islands in Indonesia. The prehistoric monitor lizard is said to have evolved from a species of lizard that originated in Asia forty million years ago. Fossils in Australia prove it took its current form while living there. Then, around fifteen million years ago, at a time when the Asian and Australian continents were still connected, it moved north into Indonesia. But when the oceans rose, it divided the continents, and the Komodo dragons became stranded on some of the most remote islands in the world. Today, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the lizard is a vulnerable species, with only three thousand left in the wild. They are known to live on the islands of Flores, Gili Montang, Gili Dasami, Rinca, and Komodo in the Flores Sea.

      In 1980, in an effort to prevent the dragon’s extinction — and to preserve the biodiversity of the region, both on land and in the water — the government of Indonesia created Komodo National Park. The dragon is threatened by the increasing encroachment of people and, according to park officials, the poaching of Timor deer, the dragon’s primary food source. Surrounding these islands are some of the richest marine environments in the world, featuring coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass beds. The thriving ecosystems are home to more than a thousand species of fish, dugong (similar to manatees), sharks, manta rays, whales, dolphins, and sea turtles.

      In 2013, I was in the middle of an unexpected monkey rescue at the Jayakarta Suites hotel on Flores Island (see chapter 2) when my friend Guy Warwick convinced me to take the day off so he could make good on his promise to take me to see Komodo dragons in the wild. Though Komodo dragons still live on Flores, the best place to see them is the national park on Komodo Island, which is a daylong roundtrip boat ride from Flores.

      We left from the seaside town of Labuan Bajo; the group included my husband, Jon; Guy and his partner, Natalie Bovill; and our mutual friend Gonzalo Sanchez Villa, who captained the boat, since he’d made the trip before.

      With bags stuffed with towels, snorkels, chips, sandwiches, and soft drinks, we climbed aboard a rented twenty-eight-foot runabout and were greeted by the moldy, rotting fish stench characteristic of a well-used, rarely cleaned boat. The smell was so putrid we considered asking for another boat but decided we didn’t have enough time. The roundtrip to and from Komodo would take all day, and we needed to get going. However, aside from the smell, the day was perfect: the sun shining, the temperature 95 degrees, and the water a spectacularly clear aqua blue. For two hours we sped among lush green, volcanic mountains jutting from the sea, passing only two other boats on our journey.

      At Komodo, we entered a bay lined with a white sand beach and beyond that a rocky landscape. As the boys tied the boat to the wooden pier, I scanned the long beach with its backdrop of rocky hills. The scene was eerily quiet and void of other people, like something out of a Planet of the Apes movie.

      Admittedly, I hadn’t done much homework before the trip. I had assumed, since Komodo is a national park, that there would be facilities, an element of structure, and safety measures. I was wrong. We were about to become live bait for one of humankind’s few predators.

      Guy relished the natural tension of the moment and began spouting unsettling facts designed to scare us, most likely details gleaned from a book by naturalist Sir David Attenborough that he’d read when he was twelve. Guy is the most well-read person I’ve ever met, and I’ve long suspected him of having a photographic memory. He was in his element, using his twisted sense of humor to set a hair-raising tone as we hiked into unfenced dragon territory.

      “They’ve eaten lots of tourists and attacked God knows how many others,” he said casually, as we walked a narrow dirt trail to a tiny building marked with a Komodo National Park sign.

      “People rarely survive attacks,” he added.

      A park ranger named Maday greeted us outside the building. Guy conversed with him in Indonesian, and he relayed that the fee, if it included a ranger escort, would be 1,150,000 rupiah, or about 120 US dollars. “It’s forty-five dollars if we want him to come with us,” Guy said. “Give it to him!” we responded.

      When Maday then grabbed a six-foot-long pronged stick as if it was a loaded rifle, my confidence in his protection was dashed. Jon and Gonzalo obviously had the same thoughts because they immediately took the two remaining sticks that were propped against the building.

      As we set forth on a guided nature tour to see Komodo dragons in the wild, four words kept repeating in my head: “Lions, tigers, and bears.”

      Guy took the lead with our guide, conversing in Indonesian and English; Jon and Gonzalo paired behind them; and Nat and I followed, clinging to each other.

      “Maday says not to go off the path alone,” Guy relayed. “Apparently, a Japanese tourist left his tour group on a photo-taking mission and was eaten. Also, he says a German tourist disappeared here. They can’t prove he was eaten because a body was never found, but they did find his glasses.”

      A minute later, after more conversing with Maday, Guy turned to us again, grimacing.

      “Sadly,” he said, his British accent dragging the word, “a native boy was attacked in 2009 and didn’t survive. He was only eight and had stepped into the bush to have a wee.”

      “Shut the fuck up,” someone said, and we all laughed.

      “There,” Maday said enthusiastically, pointing past a field to our right.

      Like a bunch of prairie dogs, we stood on our toes, peering into an area of scrub twenty-five feet away. The bushes were moving, and I could see a tail, but whatever was going on was just far enough away to be hidden from view.

      “Follow,” the guide said, stepping into tall grass.

      Guy, Jon, and Gonzalo did as instructed while Natalie and I stayed behind.

      “They’re nuts,” she said.

      “Absolutely nuts,” I said. “But are we more stupid standing here by ourselves? They’ve got the sticks.”

      “Good point,” she said, wincing before taking a step into the grass. I grabbed the back of her shirt and followed.

      One thing I did know about Komodo dragons was that they render their victims helpless by holding them down with sharp, curved claws and by piercing their bodies with knife-like teeth while depositing poisonous venom and deadly bacteria.

      I was petrified. My mother had often warned me of the dangers of following others, saying, “Just because Johnny jumps off a bridge doesn’t mean you should.” She was adamant I rely on my own intuition and common sense. As I followed the crowd directly into a den of prehistoric, two-hundred-pound, ten-foot-long, flesh-eating lizards, I instinctively knew I was being stupid.

      Ten steps later I witnessed a frenzy. The desperate, glazed eyes of a young deer were looking through me as three huge dragons ripped her body apart. The boys were intrigued by the sight, while Natalie and I were horrified. I never had the stomach to watch predator-prey nature