When Love Isn't Enough

When Love Isn't Enough

By Jessica Cohen-Kiraly

As an avid shell and rock admirer, I find myself constantly searching. Mindlessly and

habitually perusing the open beach. Looking down at my feet, scanning left, right, and back

again.

I was two weeks into a five week work rotation with a small boat company. The rest of

the expedition team had just made their way back to our boat, the Safari Voyager. I decided to

stay behind for a few minutes, soaking up some much needed solitude. We were at one of my

favorite beaches in Baja California, a remote pebbly beach called Agua Verde. 

I rarely had time to shell shift at my own leisurely pace, following my feet, trusting they would lead me to

treasure. I spent ten or so minutes picking up shells with the brightest colors or the smoothest

surfaces, turning them over in my hand and returning them to the beach. And then out of the

corner of my eye I caught movement. I reflexively glanced to the water line about 30 feet away.

I saw an arc of water being shot from the shore, three feet into the air and rainbowing back

down again. And then another arc. A perfect stream like those at a children’s splash pad.

Spending most of my year exploring Southeast Alaska’s rocky coastline, I instantly thought of

clams, buried deep below the surface, with only the tips of their siphons peaking out of the

earth.

I waddled down to the action, trying to avoid sharp shells getting trapped in my splitting

Teva’s. When I got there I saw a small, delicate shell, no larger than a golf ball, gently rocking

back and forth as the water lapped the sloping beach. I knew I recognized the shape. The tight

calcium coil forming a Fibonacci spiral leading into a wide opening with two delicate winged

ends, but I couldn’t initially put a name to the shell. I knelt down for further inspection. Spilling

out the opening was a rubbery, purple critter. I could see the very tops of big round eyes.

A slight adjustment on its part, it was now showing off eight tiny rows of suckers.

“No freaking way”, I though to myself. I knew exactly what this was. A brown paper

nautilus. Its rare enough to find a washed up nautilus shell, almost never intact. But here I was,

looking at not only a fully intact shell, but with the pelagic octopus still in it!

As I debated in my head whether to return it into the sea or refrain from interfering, I

figured a few minutes couldn’t hurt and I grabbed my camera. The rest of the expedition team

wouldn’t believe my find unless I showed proof. I began snapping pictures while the animal

attempted to keep itself right side up in the gentle waves. With every picture I took the

argonaut seemed to be inching its body further out of its shell.

The female brown paper nautilus, a type of pelagic octopus, form an incredibly thin and

delicate shell when she is ready to lay her eggs. This acts as a broodcase in which she will

protect her eggs until they hatch. Female octopi are known for being very attentive parents. So

much so, that once they lay their eggs they cease to feed, mate, or any other inkling of self

preservation. Their entire existence becomes protecting and oxygenating the eggs. When the

eggs hatch, her life is over. So why would this particular octopus be detaching herself from the

only task she had left on this earth to accomplish?

And then I saw why. One isopod at first, seemingly out of place. Then 10, 50, 100. Like

a disturbed ant hill they swarmed her. She was larger than the isopods, but their collective

mass dwarfed hers. Half way out of the shell, she was fighting. I could see flaps of loose flesh

now. She was being eaten alive. Her eyes appeared to widen, to beg, to stare into mine. They

showed what I can only identify as pain and fear. I can’t be sure I wasn’t projecting, but how

could she not be terrified?

We know that animals feel pain. A decade ago were weren’t so sure about that, or really

anything about their cognition or problem solving abilities. But in recent years it has been

proven they do. Cephalopods in particular have been subject to a large number of studies.

They have been seen using tools, like the coconut crab who carries around its own coconut and locks itself inside at the first sign of danger. They also have a cluster of nerve cells, referred

to as mini-brains, in each arm, acting independently of each other and the main brain.

Pain isn’t as straight forward as one may assume. The first part of a painful stimuli is

called nociception. It’s the firing of neurons in response to a potentially threatening stimuli. The

organism reacts without processing, in an attempt to keep itself safe and whole. This

mechanism is ancient. The perception of pain comes next. This is called neuropathic pain and

it is highly personal. 

In humans, we can try to categorize it with labels like throbbing, stabbing,

shooting, etc. When you put your hand on a hot stove the initial jerk reaction is nociception,

and then the neuropathic burning sensation sets in. The third part of this epic is the emotional

aspect. Your hand is now throbbing and you learn that this is not a pleasant experience. You

remember this pain and avoid repeating it in the future.

Nociception can be observed with imaging technology and watching behavioral

changes. Studies have shown vertebrates and invertebrates alike choosing analgesics when

given the choice to relieve neuropathic pain. We can also see animals, including us, fully

avoiding painful experiences. A dog stays in his yard when he learns he doesn’t like what

happens when he crosses the electric fence boundary.

But there’s more to emotional pain than just remembering an action that hurts.

Heartache is about as universal an experience as you can get. We’ve seen elephants return to

the death site of loved ones many years after they’ve died and carry their stillborn calves on

their tusks for days. An orca mom, Tahlequah, pushed around her dead calf on her forehead for

17 days after her baby died. And its not only megafauna who have demonstrated similar acts.

Sifaka lemurs give a high pitched, high energy “lost” call when they are looking for their family.

When a familial lemur dies, they give the lost call all together, but in a lower pitch. Birds have

been known to make special vocalizations only after a close companion dies. The list goes on.

All of these examples involve significant behavioral changes. When we, as humans, lose a

loved one, it can feel like the earth has shattered. It can alter the path of the rest of our lives.

Who is to say that emotional turmoil stops with humans?

Further and further out of her shell she struggled. Pushing herself or being pulled, its

hard to say which. There is no doubt she could feel her arm being chewed through by the

hungry isopods. We know this because of the nerve clusters she contains in each arm. But

what about emotional pain? Were her three hearts aching? Was she feeling fear? Longing and

mourning? Was she afraid of death or leaving her babies? Was she fighting through the pain to

stay with her babies as long as she could?

I now had all eight arms and mantle in full view. Just the tip of one arm keeping her

tethered to her young. And then she was cut loose. The isopods had eaten through that

appendage.

Like a cartoon scuffle, the isopods, free of any anchor, rolled her away from the brood.

The cluster of creatures getting smaller and smaller as her body disappeared. A foot or so

away now, I looked back at the broodcase, the shelter she had built. Her promise to her

unhatched children to keep them safe. Empty. 

In just a few seconds it had been wiped clean. I

looked back to mom again and all that was left was bits of flesh that escaped the corners of

the hungry, unrelenting mouths. It was over. The isopods were gone as quickly as they

appeared. 

The octopus was gone. The eggs were gone. All that was left was the empty shell,

still gently rocking back and forth on the sloping beach.

I felt very aware that I was alone. I had let the rest of my team return to our boat so I

could spend a few minutes in solitude. But now I felt a deafening silence accompanied by a

rush of gratitude towards my own parents.Its been months since I witnessed this encounter and it has stuck with me. 

The struggle of the octopus, the unyielding ambush of the isopods, the quick meal made of the eggs. This

octopus had one final mission in life. To love and protect her babies until she was nothing left.

And she did her best, I saw first hand. She loved until she was nothing left.