Pat’s Wildways: The Rock

Like most everyone else here, I have long heard of “the rock” and when I was younger, lots of television commercials for Prudential Insurance featured the Rock of Gibraltar. And believe it or not, there is a 3000-pound piece of this rock that was transported to Jacksonville by the British Navy in 1955 to commemorate Prudential’s new office here. You can see this bit of Atlas Obscura’s recorded history on the Southbank Riverwalk.

But finally Bucko and I got a chance to see the real Rock of Gibraltar ourselves on a trans-Atlantic cruise ship stop. This amazing island mostly consists of this huge chunk of rock that includes a myriad of natural caves and many passageways and cannon ports carved throughout it over the years. The Strait of Gibraltar has always been a strategic gateway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea and one factor or another has vied for its control through the centuries. At present, it is a British overseas territory with about 34,000 residents packed in the narrow spit of land at the foot of this monolithic stone, although nearby Spain stakes a claim to it too.

Gibraltar is a fascinating place to visit, but “I wouldn’t want to live there.” Besides the rock and its hollowed out interior, there is not a whole lot to see there for a naturalist like myself. For instance, there are no natural lakes, streams, rivers, or swamps — no natural freshwater at all. Drinking water on the island comes from a desalination process that occasionally dumps excess freshwater from the top of the rock to the bottom, forming an artificial waterfall that is a favored hiking spot for residents and provides enough water for wildflowers to flourish nearby. Water for toilets, however, is saltwater straight from the sea, and the wastewater is put straight back in the ocean, contaminated and unsanitary as that might be. But right now, that’s the only functioning option they have, although plans for a better sanitation system have been in the works for years.

All the history and unique geography were interesting to me, but of course, my main focus was finally seeing the “apes of Gibraltar,” which are not even apes at all. DNA studies reveal that these primates are Barbary macaques, originally imported as pets from North Africa by residents as early as the 1600s, and the population has been added to over the years. These monkeys are protected by law and are managed by the Gibraltar Ornithological & Natural History Society, which provides them with food, freshwater, veterinary care, and population control.

So, Bucko and I dutifully joined a cruise ship excursion to view the monkeys and tour some of the extensive network of tunnels inside the rock itself. Sure enough, at the top of the rock, a group of monkeys was waiting for us. Nowadays, they are fed a bit away from the tourists and no longer have the motivation to climb on people, open their backpacks, and steal their belongings to get treats. It is totally illegal for anyone besides officials to intentionally feed them. The afternoon we visited, they were resting along the wall, grooming each other, and just generally relaxing close to the tourists, but not interacting with them. It was perfect.

The guided tour through some of the tunnels was interesting, but for Bucko, it became a labor of helpfulness. An older woman (about our age) was helping her balance-handicapped brother through the tunnels and desperately needed help as he kept leaning forward and nearly falling on his face a few times. Although there were lots of young people in the group who could have stepped up to help them, no one did, so Bucko took it upon himself — one old man helping two other old people. It was an ordeal for all three of them. The tour guide profusely thanked Bucko, as did the couple, but the other tour participants were oblivious.

At the end of our tour, the group was taken out to the airstrip, where we could duplicate an old photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono celebrating their marriage there in 1969. I’m sure we look just like them in our own photo, right? At any rate, it was an interesting day, but good to be back on the ship once again.

Pat Foster-Turley, Ph.D., is a zoologist on Amelia Island. She welcomes your nature questions and observations. patandbucko@yahoo.com.