That poor poor grouper…

Last Wednesday, while I was volunteering for husbandry, we went up to Tropical and got one of the big groupers from the Cleaner Wrasse exhibit and put him in a bin. That was fun to see. The aquarist was wearing this huge black plastic trash bag over himself so he wouldn’t get his clothes wet (although his sleeves were not spared). That grouper was a good size, probably about 20 lbs. The reason he was getting him out was so that we could acclimate him to Shark Lagoon that day so that he could put him in the big shark pool the next day. So we got him down to Shark Lagoon and pumped water into his bin and left him for the night.

Next day, I get there at about 10:30am and see that the grouper was put in Shark Lagoon already. Cool. The little guy is playing it safe, hugging the fake coral and rock structures, trying to keep away from the sharks. This grouper was the most aggressive guy in his exhibit, making it damn near impossible to feed the other fish and eels in there with his attitude. Now, he was at the bottom of the barrel. The little blacktip in the exhibit did not ignore this fish. It cruised behind it making that grouper just nervous enough to keep him on edge the whole time. Blacktip would close in, and the grouper would make a quick turn around, and the blacktip, unperturbed, just kept cruising in his loop around the pool as if nothing happened. This kept going at intervals, and then I had to go. I got back out there at about 2:30pm, right after the 2:00 big shark feed and yelled over to the aquarist, “So, how’s the grouper doing?!”. He just looked up from writing in his log and shook his head, not wanting to say anything in front of the guests. Then, he quickly muttered something to the effect of “he got nicked during the feed”. That is when I saw him and realized that yup, he had a few scratches and a little piece of flesh was hanging off his side (prob two inches). So then the husbandry people left. I don’t know what the plans were at this time, but you have to realize that in order to get him out of there, there has to be a big plan with a few people involved, because that grouper will not let himself be caught. I mean, it took like an hour to get him out of an exhibit that was prob 4x6x5 feet! So anyway, at this point, different staff members are just looking at that poor grouper wondering what the hell is going to happen to it. That little blacktip now really seems to think that the grouper is irresistible. He stays close on his tail throughout the pool. Then, out of nowhere, in the far corner, right in front of the small underwater viewing window, one of the sandtigers nails him! right by the tail, we saw the thrashing but we were watching from above, so it was in the completely opposite side. We watched in amazement wondering if the fish would be able to swim away because from where we were, we couldn’t really see the damage. Then we ran down to the window (there were guests down there), and saw the end of the ordeal. The sandtiger still had it in his mouth, then let go, and all we saw was the head that was left. It just floated there and a bunch of the other sharks came by for scraps. Even stupid Keith, our big pig of a nurse shark tried to get some, but he doesn’t have much tearing power, he just sucks, literally, so he wasn’t very effective. In the midst of this, security (one of the guys was watching this as well) calls husbandry and tells them to get over here quick. By the time the aquarist ran out with his net, he just pulled out the head, with it’s gills still pumping. O_O It was so freakin’ surreal. Then we had to deal with the people down there. There was this one guy with his family that was all excited. He was all like “That was a feeder fish, right?! I saw the whole thing right in front of me! It was amazing!”. Then there was this lady with her 2 year-old, “I didn’t know you guys did that sorta thing here…”. Sigh, so we had some explaining to do, but overall, things quieted down and everything but the fish was well.

Understandably, there were a lot of people upset about this incident, including other aquarists. The thing is, no one really knew what was going to happen to the guy. He was kinda like a guinea pig, going into a territory that no fish had ever been to before. They want to add a new dynamic to the exhibit by adding fish, but this isn’t exactly what they had in mind. We’ll see what happens from here. I feel sad for the fish, but like I said then, “If it was going to happen either way, I am glad I was there to see it.” Come on now, this is the marine biologist in me wanting to see these things in real life, not just from a video.

But still dude, poor grouper.

The day feels really awkward. As I looked out the window midday, it looks like the sun is about to set. There is an eerie orange glow coming in through the windows, and smoke fills the air. If you walk out right now and stand in the sun, you will get covered in a snowy ash. Everything outside right now is layered in it. All I can think about is that there are hundreds of families right now in despair. They have lost everything they owned, their homes, their photo albums, their memories. Some have even lost loved ones. I keep them in my thoughts, and say prayers for them. The weather seems to be doing nothing but making these fires worse. Already more than three-hundred houses burnt to the ground, and an end doesn’t seem to be anywhere in sight. We are very much out of the way from the fires ourselves, but my eyes are burning and my nose congested from all the ash in the air right now.

If you are a Southern California resident, especially in those foothills, or anywhere with the typical Southern California Chaparral, you know that these fires are all part of the awesome powerful force of nature here. That it is something normal, a rebirth of the earth.

But even then, that doesn’t seem to make it hurt much less when you see yourself surrounded by what looks like hell.