This is no world for an axolotl

Basilio Rodríguez casts his net with a masterful swing, launching it into the air before it falls, sinking into the water. He then smacks the two sides of the canal with a wooden pole. Fish emerge from their hiding places among the reeds and head straight into the net. When he pulls up the catch, his net reveals a tilapia and a couple of juvenile carp — not what he is looking for, which is axolotls, the strange Mexican amphibians teetering on the brink of extinction. The scientists accompanying him on the trajinera, or flat-bottomed boat, tally another zero in their field notebooks. Dawn is a magical time on the canals, suffuse with a fog reminiscent of Dublin that hangs over the water. An orange half-sun appears over the horizon. It is chilly here until light breaks over Mexico City’s southern sky. Again and again, the nets come up empty. Basilio Rodríguez, the boat owner hired by the National Autonomous University of Mexico to help carry out its axolotl census, casts his nets in Xo ... Read full article.