Colin Stafford-Johnson
Colin Stafford-Johnson is an award-winning cinematographer from Ireland and has a wonderfully quiet but perceptive view on life and the natural world. He specialises in wildlife documentaries and has worked on the film Mississippi Tales of the Last River Rat for the Discovery Channel, and the highly successful BBC series Planet Earth. For the last six years, Colin has presented Living the Wildlife, a very popular wildlife series for Irish television. His latest two-part film shown recently on the BBC is on Cuba and it's a masterpiece. If I'm honest I would have liked a little more science but that's just my preference and there's only so much you can cover in two hours. He talked about the fact that the indigenous Taíno people had been there for 5,000 years before Columbus arrived near Baracoa on 28 October 1492. The Taíno then became nearly extinct as a culture following settlement by Spanish colonists, primarily due to infectious diseases to which they had no immunity.
Columbus later wrote:
They traded with us and gave us everything they had, with good will. They took great delight in pleasing us. They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor do they murder or steal. Your highness may believe that in all the world there can be no better people. They love their neighbours as themselves, and they have the sweetest talk in the world, and are gentle and always laughing.
Columbus wasn't so charitable in return and later, on his second voyage, he began to require tribute from the Taíno in Hispaniola. According to Kirkpatrick Sale, each adult over 14 years of age was expected to deliver a hawks bell full of gold every three months, or when this was lacking, twenty-five pounds of spun cotton. If this tribute was not brought, the Spanish cut off the hands of the Taíno and left them to bleed to death. These cruel practices inspired many revolts by the Taíno and campaigns against the Spanish —some being successful, some not.
Columbus later wrote:
They traded with us and gave us everything they had, with good will. They took great delight in pleasing us. They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor do they murder or steal. Your highness may believe that in all the world there can be no better people. They love their neighbours as themselves, and they have the sweetest talk in the world, and are gentle and always laughing.
Columbus wasn't so charitable in return and later, on his second voyage, he began to require tribute from the Taíno in Hispaniola. According to Kirkpatrick Sale, each adult over 14 years of age was expected to deliver a hawks bell full of gold every three months, or when this was lacking, twenty-five pounds of spun cotton. If this tribute was not brought, the Spanish cut off the hands of the Taíno and left them to bleed to death. These cruel practices inspired many revolts by the Taíno and campaigns against the Spanish —some being successful, some not.
In his film Colin covered many of the endemic birds of Cuba with unique film and talked about the main reason for the decline of the Cuban Parrot being the illegal practice of catching and keeping these (and many other birds) at home in cages. The way they are caught is to cut down the dead palms in which they nest old woodpecker holes and then to collect the youngsters from the nest. This has the effect of not only reducing the wild population but also to destroy another potential nesting site which are few and far between.
Cuban Parrot - March 2020 Playa Larga © Felix Raul Figueroa
He also showed a unique piece of archive film of a pair of the now-extinct Ivory-billed Woodpecker at the nest. I say extinct because it hasn't been seen since 1987 despite there having been several expeditions to look for it. Having said that the terrain is steep, remote and very difficult to access, and animals that are officially declared extinct have sometimes been re-found shortly afterwards - so yes its definitely extinct!
Colin had visited Cayo Largo which is an isolated cay east of the Isla de Juventud and south of Zapata. Here he got wonderful film of a female Green Turtle laying her eggs in the sand and later the perilous journey that the hatchlings make to the sea being preyed upon by Common Black Hawks. He had beautiful footage of comparatively tame jutías but he didn't say which species they were. These are large rodents in the family Capromyidae and there are ten species on Cuba though several are restricted to the islands and cays and one or more of these may already be extinct.
Colin had visited Cayo Largo which is an isolated cay east of the Isla de Juventud and south of Zapata. Here he got wonderful film of a female Green Turtle laying her eggs in the sand and later the perilous journey that the hatchlings make to the sea being preyed upon by Common Black Hawks. He had beautiful footage of comparatively tame jutías but he didn't say which species they were. These are large rodents in the family Capromyidae and there are ten species on Cuba though several are restricted to the islands and cays and one or more of these may already be extinct.
Jutía sp. Gutisoft / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
Having never been diving or snorkeling myself, his underwater footage was a revelation especially Cuban Garfish Atractosteus tristoechus which is a top-level endemic ambush predator that lives in fresh or brackish water in the west of the island and grows to 1-1.5m long. This picture was taken just next to crocodile farm at Zapata.
Cuban Gar, Poleta33 / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
There are lots of other highlights including the Bee Hummingbirds at the nest - possibly the first time this has ever been filmed. And what is probably the smallest frog in the world, the tiny Monte Iberia Eleuth Eleutherodactylus iberia. But this is just a taster so do watch it for yourself.
Monte Iberia Eleuth Eleutherodactylus iberia
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