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The Undiscovered Country: In Search of a Lost Bat in the Surinamese Rainforest

When Ted Genoways was growing up in Pittsburgh, his father, Hugh H. Genoways, was the Curator of Mammals at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. His crowning achievement was leading a series of expeditions to Suriname, including a trip to an unexplored region on and around Tafelberg — a tall, densely-forested plateau in the central rainforest. A number of unknown species were described as a result of those trips — including a new bat, Schulze’s round-eared bat (Lophostoma schulzi), discovered by Hugh Genoways. More importantly, the expeditions helped convince the government to conserve their rainforests.

Then, in 1982, a series of military coups culminated with Desi Bouterse's authorization of what have come to be known simply as “the December murders,” in which 15 opposition leaders — journalists, university professors, lawyers — were illegally executed. More than a decade of political chaos followed, and Hugh Genoways has never gone back.

In January 2008, Hugh Genoways will make his return to Suriname with his son, Ted. The pair hopes to look at the larger issue of how environmental protection is often dependent on political stability; more than a decade ago, the bats Hugh Genoways discovered were placed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened and Endangered Species, due to ongoing human-induced habitat loss, but have not been surveyed since.

But this is also the story of how an individual came to care about the conservation of a strange, unlovable animal in a harsh and remote place, because of its significance to his family. Twenty-five years ago, Hugh Genoways saw the protection of the Surinamese rainforests as his legacy to his children and grandchildren. Ted Genoways hopes to assess what that legacy has become — and to see whether he, along with his father, can find any trace of the bat the latter discovered only three decades ago.

Ted Genoways

Ted Genoways is the editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review,for which he received the National Magazine Award for General Excellence, and a contributing writer at Mother Jones. He is the author of two books of poetry and the editor of a half dozen other books of literature and history....

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