The Mexican government had granted us permission to film, provided that we worked sensitively and did not cause undue disturbance. I had stationed myself in the water next to a huge, angular boulder and was getting good footage of the big dominant sea lion bulls when a four-thousand-pound male elephant seal appeared out of nowhere and charged at me with the obvious intent of inhaling me.
Strangely enough, while my face rested on the tongue of this animal, I remember recalling other stories of aggressive male elephant seals and that very little underwater footage existed of them. And, of course, there was the little issue of trying to figure out the proper response to this attack. There really wasn’t much else to do except let this enormous seal choke on me. I went limp. To my relief, the seal let go of my head. He was now looking at me with large, intense black eyes. Then his giant nose inflated, and he tried to swallow my head once more. This time, however, I gave him my camera instead.
Was he playing? Was this some kind of a secret elephant seal greeting ritual? Was he, gulp, aroused? And what was he doing in the Sea of Cortez? I knew that elephant seals are partial to the cold, rich waters of the Pacific Ocean. I had to wonder if this one was lost. My brain was running at high speed. Should I film this rare encounter, or should I flee to the safety of the boat? The giant seal appeared calm and friendly, and while he repeatedly tried to grab my head, he did so in a very gentle manner. So, what the heck, I stayed. When he came up from behind me, I wondered, yet again, if I had made the wrong decision. He wrapped his flippers around me in an elephant seal version of a bear hug from which there was no escape. But again, he let me go without even scratching the camera lens. Eventually, he grew bored with me, and after twenty-five minutes he took off. Chewing on a big camera must not have been much fun after all, I thought.
Back at the boat, I found my friend Seth basking in the Mexican sun. He had encountered the seal, too. He said it had caught him from behind in its customary embrace. Faced with the same set of decisions, Seth opted for swooning. Once he went limp, the seal let him go. Seth said that, at first, he had no idea what had gotten hold of him. He had never been hugged that tightly in his life. He said it felt like a scene from an old prison movie. “Not to mention,” he added, “that I was completely terrified.” We decided at that point to name the seal. For the rest of the trip, it would be known as Angus, from the Latin name Mirounga angustirostris.
Later that evening, we went over the footage of the big elephant seal swimming through the waters off Los Islotes. As he moved around the camera, it became clear that Angus was exhibiting curiosity, not aggression. This unusual behavior left us counting the minutes until our next encounter. The next day, Angus greeted us as soon as we hit the water, as fascinated with our heads as ever. While I could offer the camera in lieu of mine, Seth had no camera and thus had a harder time keeping his head out of the lion’s mouth, as it were. All he could do was offer up an arm and shadow box with Angus.
The giant seal took turns embracing us and dragging us through the water. He managed to totally dismantle my camera, sending floats to the surface and lights to the bottom. At one point, he grabbed Seth’s arm, shook him like a doll, then swam off with Seth tucked under his flipper for a tour of the rock. On the second lap, Seth managed to recover a little dignity by rolling onto Angus’s back for what looked like an elephant seal rodeo ride.
We returned for four more days. But to our disappointment, Angus’s attitude had changed. His enthusiasm was gone. He seemed to want nothing more than to loll around on the rocks, his eyes relaxed and drooping, barely responding to the crabs crawling over him. Apparently, he was going to enjoy the sunshine, and that was that. With the star of our show suddenly uncooperative, we packed up our equipment and left.
The next season, Jose Antonio informed us that Angus had gone shortly after we did. Elephant seals like Angus were driven to the brink of extinction at the turn of the last century. Fortunately, their numbers are growing, as are their rookeries. Perhaps Angus was a pioneer exploring the brave new world. Maybe he was testing the reception that others of his kind would find at this barren outpost. I hope he found the experience to his liking. If he did, who knows, maybe he’ll return to Los Islotes with more seals to establish the first elephant seal rookery in the Sea of Cortez.
Florian Graner
[email protected] © by UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
Sound Behavior
It wasn’t very often that I got to enjoy all of the public exhibits and presentations at the aquarium where I worked. My job was behind the scenes in the volunteer department, where I helped coordinate the schedules of over five hundred volunteers, all with very different schedules and lots of questions. So when I was at work, I was always busy.
To complicate matters, I was six months pregnant. I constantly needed to get up and move around throughout the day to keep from getting stiff. So in one of those rare moments when I wasn’t swamped with work, I took a walk to the public marine-mammal presentation. As I sat in the large amphitheater waiting for the show, I wondered why I didn’t do this sort of thing more often. Clamoring for a look at the otters, seals, dolphins and beluga whales in the three-million-gallon tank were groups of excited children, their parents, out-of-towners, lovebirds, the simply curious and me.
The announcer welcomed everybody and explained some of the more fascinating characteristics of marine mammals. He said, for example, that the dolphins had an amazing ability to detect size, shape, distance, texture and movement by sending out a high-pitched sound and waiting for the echo to return. He called this echolocation. Dolphins have refined this sense to such a degree that they could even recognize when another animal is pregnant by detecting fluid in the pregnant animal’s amniotic sac. When the announcer said this, he caught my attention immediately.
After the show ended, I headed straight to the glass of the exhibit for a close-up view of the dolphins. I wanted to see just how refined this sense of echolocation was. Looking cool and inconspicuous, I waited for the crowd to file out of the amphitheater doors. As the area quieted, I tried to gain the attention of the dolphins. I whistled. I coughed. I grunted. I groaned. I said, “Pssst!” Nothing worked. So I did what any attention-starved individual does when nobody is looking: I started to run from one end of the glass to the other, flapping my arms up and down. After ten sprints I stopped, my heart beating fast, my breathing heavy. Puffing and panting, I looked at the pod of dolphins, expecting them to be riveted by the commotion, their powers of echolocation focused on the pregnant woman on the other side of the glass.
Nothing.
Frustrated, I went back to my office, seriously doubting the so-called phenomenon of echolocation.
Later that day, a dolphin trainer came up to me.
“Abby?” the trainer said.
“Yes.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” I said. “Do you need a volunteer for something?”
“Actually . . .” She stopped. She seemed a little reluctant to continue. “I, um, was watching you by the dolphin tank this morning. I was just wondering if you’re okay.”
I felt my face flush. I tried to explain my little “experiment.” The trainer tried to look serious. Then, unable to hold back any longer, she erupted in laughter. She didn’t seem to be showing any signs of stopping, either. Other people around us began to stare. Finally, after she caught her breath, she explained to me that echolocation definitely worked. It just didn’t work like that. “You need to be in the water,” she said. “That’s the only way the animals can sense you.”
The next day I formally requested permission to assist with a cleaning dive of the marine mammal exhibit. You can probably guess what the exhibit manager’s answer was.
Abby Murray
Genesis
Original painting by Wyland © 2003.
2
THE POWER TO
HEAL
Look deep into nature, and then yo
u will understand everything better.
Albert Einstein
Anna’s Miracle
Each time the dolphins and trainers meet a new student, excitement charges the air. How will the dolphins react to the individual’s personality? To his or her disability? How will the child (or adult) react to meeting a dolphin eye-to-eye for the first time? And, the most important question, will this unique experience trigger something inside the student that will open his mind and allow new learning to take place?
When we met Justin, we all wondered how these questions would be answered during his first dolphin encounter. His parents had arranged a two-week visit to Dolphin Research Center (DRC) to participate in our Dolphin/Child Therapy program. Justin had cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder. Cerebral palsy is a serious condition, causing paralysis or muscle weakness as a result of trauma to the brain. Typical symptoms, which range from mild to severe, include partial or total inability to walk, little or no speech production, seizures and generally impaired coordination.
Justin had better motor skills and coordination than many children with cerebral palsy, but one primary difficulty he had was with speech. At three years old, he had not yet spoken his first word. We hoped that the interaction with Annessa (who we nicknamed Anna) would encourage Justin to speak at least some components of words.
Justin was a beautiful child, with blond hair and green-gold eyes. When he joined the therapist, his mother and Linda (the dolphin trainer) on Anna’s dock, Justin’s small face was devoid of expression. It was very hard to figure out what he was feeling. Anna tried to engage Justin in play while he was on the floating dock, but he would only glance at her briefly then look away. We decided to place Justin in the water with Anna to see what progress could be made in that environment.
Floating in the warm Gulf waters, Justin’s mother held him in her arms as Anna slowly circled them. Justin’s eyes locked onto Anna’s movement immediately. Anna offered her dorsal fin and towed Justin and his mother gently through the water. Anna then approached Justin head-on, very carefully, and he reached out a pudgy hand to touch her snout. Anna inched closer. Justin then raised his arms and gently hugged Anna’s big, gray face. They held this embrace for several seconds, then the eight-foot-long dolphin delicately eased herself backward, moving with incredible care, barely rippling the water’s surface. Linda watched in awe. This was not a behavior trained to Anna, but a spontaneous gesture and offering from dolphin to child.
Justin wore a solemn expression throughout the exchange, but immediately began vocalizing when Anna backed away. The therapist asked Justin to try to make specific sounds, such as the “B” sound in “baby,” promising Anna’s return if Justin attempted the new sound. Justin quickly caught on to the game and responded to the coaxing. After each sound he looked expectantly for his new friend Anna. She was ready and waiting with a kiss for him!
As the lesson time came to an end, Justin was much more animated than when he started. After getting out of the water, he smiled and pointed around with excitement as his mother dried him with a towel. Suddenly, he wrapped his arms around her neck and quietly said into her ear his very first word.
For any parent, hearing the first word from your baby is a magical moment. For the parent of a child with disabilities, however, that moment is much, much more. It is a miracle that brings hope for a brighter future. Most children’s first word is “mama” or “dada,” but Justin was different. Justin’s first word was . . . “Anna.”
Linda Schnecker Erb
Manatee Tranquility
It was the last thing anyone expects. I had rounded the corner on my motorcycle at fifty miles an hour. Unfortunately, so did the car coming from the opposite direction. I learned later that the collision had sent me flying a hundred and seventy feet. My legs, hips and internal organs—just about every piece of my body—had been crushed. Doctors said I would never walk again. Let me tell you, there are few more sobering words in life than that. Now the question was: What was I going to do? With little else to do over the course of my recovery, I began to examine my life. A friend suggested I try boating. Right, I thought. As if that was going to make a difference! But my friend insisted. And, yes, the spring-fed rivers around my home in Florida were beautiful this time of year. The channels were fringed with Sabal palms, live oaks and southern magnolia. I was skeptical, but maybe he was right. Maybe I could spend some quiet time on the river and perhaps even find the answers to some of my questions about life.
After I was discharged and feeling a little better, I bought a kayak and volunteered my time with a local organization to teach visitors about the endangered manatees that inhabited the rivers. Every day, I would paddle through the river with my dog Sky, a two-year-old red chow, perched at the front of the kayak. Pretty soon I was enjoying the sounds of nature and talking to boaters about rules regarding manatees.
The work was comforting and relaxing, but I still couldn’t escape the feeling that something was missing. Then one day while I was doing a manatee count for a local research group, I saw a tiny, wrinkled nose poke out of the river. A baby manatee, less than two weeks old, was swimming with its mother close behind. Sky’s ears shot up. As I paddled toward the manatee family, Sky moved to the front of the kayak, her black tongue hanging to the side. This was her first experience with a baby manatee, and I figured she probably wanted to get a close look. The water began to bubble. Sky barked. She wanted to know exactly what this thing was. It probably looked too small to be a manatee. For all she knew, it was some chubby, little alligator. When the baby manatee finally came up, it sprayed foam all over Sky, who, for the first time in her life, looked too shocked to bark. But Sky was nothing if not a trooper. She regained her composure, leaned in again and balanced carefully until she and the baby manatee were touching noses and greeting each other like visitors from different worlds. With the mother close at hand, I reached down and scratched the little manatee. I scratched and scratched. The manatee couldn’t seem to get enough. She was in absolute manatee heaven.
All that winter, Sky and I took the kayak out on the river. Pretty soon Sky and the baby manatee were greeting each other like old friends. That’s when I first noticed the change. My whole outlook began to shift. I had been undergoing physical therapy all this time, and slowly, but surely, I regained full use of my legs. Eventually, I could even walk without a cane.
There was something special about those days on the water. I think I was inspired by the affinity for life all these creatures had, even the baby manatee. She had a tranquility that I’d never seen before. She just moved around with the sure and certain knowledge that things were okay. Being out there with them day after day, I began to feel like that, too. Eventually, I became certain about life again and gained the understanding that, no matter how bad things got, life would take care of itself. And that feeling has never gone away.
Paul Dragon
As told to Steve Creech
Sacred Waters
Original painting by Wyland © 2003.
The Art of Healing
The sea fires our imagination and rekindles our spirit.
Wyland
It was Christmas Day 1984, and I began painting my first Whaling Wall in Hawaii. The giant blank wall, three hundred feet long and twenty stories high, faced Kaiser Hospital. Patients, many sick and dying, looked out of their windows and saw a depressing beige wall, the architects’ answer to saving costs. But I saw the wall as a perfect canvas to display life-size humpback whales and other colorful marine life.
As I began painting that first day, I noticed an old man with an IV attached to his arm sitting in a wheelchair, watching my every move.
Day after day this man would come out on the balcony of his hospital room and spend nearly every moment watching me paint my largest marine mural. I would wave to him each day, and he would wave back with all the energy left in his fragile body. Four months later at the dedication of the mural, I cut the ribbon with city officials and thousand
s of supporters and looked across the parking lot where, among the many hospital rooms, I caught a glimpse of the old man. He tipped his hand to me for what I knew would be the last time. I tried to hold back my emotion as I waved back. I found out later from his family that he had an incurable cancer and should have died months before, but had wanted to live to see the mural completed. The man died shortly after the dedication ceremony; his memory and spirit will live with me—and within that mural—forever.
Wyland
A Signal Is Worth a Thousand Words
On a bright, warm Tuesday afternoon, Alan met Merina. It was love at first sight! Twenty-four-year-old Alan, deaf and mentally challenged, was an excellent swimmer participating in a therapy session at Dolphin Research Center. He was thrilled with Merina’s ability to imitate his every move. He yelled with enthusiasm when Merina dorsal-towed him through the water and laughed when she splashed saltwater in his face! The therapist, Alan’s watching family and I, the dolphin trainer, all caught his enthusiasm, and everyone sported ear-to-ear grins.
As Alan climbed onto the dock after his swim, I showed him some dolphin sign language (hand signals). Since Alan speaks American Sign Language fluently, he loved the fact that dolphins understood sign as well, and he gave Merina several signals. She responded perfectly to all of his requests, until she saw an unfamiliar one. Alan presented the same sign over again to Merina, as he gazed at her with bright eyes. Merina kept touching her snout to his extended right hand, where his fingers formed a signal unfamiliar to her. Then she rose up and kissed Alan on the cheek.