Timbers yield 329-year-old mystery
|  | Thursday, June 16, 2022 | | | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPHS BY BALAZS GARDI | |
Carrying riches from Asia, the Spanish galleon wrecked off Oregon’s wild Pacific coast 329 years ago, its sinking told by Native Americans who fished out distinctive blocks of beeswax that floated ashore. Those tales fired the imagination of Steven Spielberg, who had the idea for 1985’s film The Goonies, about treasure-hunting kids and the mystery galleon.
Today, Oregon officials said a dozen timbers from the Santo Cristo de Burgos have been recovered from sea caves in a risky emergency recovery mission involving archaeologists, law enforcement personnel, and several search-and-rescue teams (pictured above).
The discovery of the rare galleon thrilled historians and Native Americans, whose ancestors passed down the oral history of the wreckage. It “confirms that our ancestral people knew what they were doing,” Robert Kentta, a member of the Siletz Tribal Council, tells Nat Geo’s Kristin Romey.
Read the full story here.
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| Evidence: Bits of Chinese porcelain, such as one pictured above, that washed ashore off Oregon are likely remnants of the galleon’s cargo of porcelain, silk, and beeswax. In the image at top, Captain Frankie Knight of Nehalem Bay Fire & Rescue drives a jet ski while firefighter Levi Hill (left) and division chief Jesse Walsh secure a ship timber.
Want to go deeper? Here’s how modern hunters find shipwrecks—and who owns what they find.
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 | PHOTOGRAPH BY ALEX MUSTARD, MINDEN PICTURES
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| | Selfies with manatees: Photographer and Nat Geo Explorer Carlton Ward Jr. recently had the privilege of swimming with wild manatees in Crystal River, Florida, to gather underwater video for a project known as the Florida Wildlife Corridor. One afternoon, he was greeted by a baby manatee. “It swam straight at me, checked me out for a bit, then returned to the shallows where it had been entertaining a group of tourists who floated respectfully at the surface,” he writes. “After dazzling tourists, the baby manatee swam back to deeper water and found its mother to top off on milk.” (Pictured above, tourists taking a selfie with a manatee.) | | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY JOEL SARTORE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTO ARK | | | The humans of the bird world: Have parrots become too popular for their own good? They sing, dance, and steal our hearts. They’re so beloved as pets that international traffickers are stealing them from the wild. (Pictured above, a colorful Edwards’s fig parrot, photographed by Nat Geo Explorer Joel Sartore). | | | |
 | | The world we live in today has no space for sexism, racism, homophobia … These attitudes all stem from a hierarchical and unequitable mindset. … I was lucky to have strong women above me. However, I think that qualified women are still doing the majority of the grunt work and are still not recognized for their abilities to lead in many fields. | | | | Sheena Talma | | Marine scientist who recently became the first Seychellois to be named a Nat Geo Explorer | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY BRENT STIRTON | | | The world’s fastest animal: There’s a plan to save falcons. As several species are facing threats from habitat loss and the illegal wildlife trade, Nat Geo’s Peter Gwin covered a successful effort to breed peregrine falcons in captivity. Eventually, the breeders hope to reintroduce them into the wild. Gwin also got to see a just-born falcon cast its first gaze upon the world—and make its first sound. “Cheep,” it said. (Pictured above, Nat Geo Explorer Brent Stirton shows a female saker falcon guarding her chicks on the Mongolian plain.) | | | |
| This newsletter was curated and edited by David Beard, Heather Kim, and Monica Williams. If you want our daily newsletter, sign up here. Have a good weekend ahead. | |
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