Survivors of Boat Tragedy Return Home
SACRAMENTO — University of California officials flew to San Diego on Thursday to accompany back to campus the survivors of a Sea of Cortes boating accident that killed at least four researchers.
Searchers off Bahia de Los Angeles, Mexico, on Thursday morning recovered the body of the expedition’s leader, world-renowned scorpion expert Gary Polis, 53, chairman of the UC Davis environmental sciences department.
The surviving researchers returned to Sacramento on Thursday evening after being interviewed in San Diego by U.S. Coast Guard investigators, university officials said.
The Mexican navy and the U.S. Coast Guard continued searching for Shigeru Nakano, 37, of Kyoto University in Japan, who was missing and presumed dead.
The researchers were part of a UC Davis-sponsored expedition of about 20 people studying the spiders and scorpions that inhabit small islands in the Sea of Cortes, also known as the Gulf of California.
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