Monterey Bay Aquarium's giant octopus

Okay, I’m biased. I definitely have my favorite animal in the Steinhart Aquarium and I visit him often. The first time I saw him come out and swim around was magical. It was just before we opened to the public and it had been a long day. I was taking a break in the Aquarium and after strolling for a spell; I sat down by his tank. He was hiding just out of sight in the bottom of the tank squeezed between the glass and the rocky outcroppings. I saw a tentacle, red and furtive and then another one. His face poked up and then dipped down quickly. His tentacles stilled roamed, creating a beautiful line against the glass. He got braver and would peek at me for longer and then dip down yet again. Of course I would be biased –- considering I was able to play peek-a-boo with a red octopus!

That was almost a year ago and I still visit regularly. I can count on two hands the amount of time that I’ve visited his tank to find him out and exploring. Most often he is hiding within one of the corners of the tank. But I catch him out — hunting a crab or opening a jar the biologist gave him to play with. His elusive nature makes the times I get a glimpse that much more special. He has grown quite a bit over the course of the year and now when he comes, he spreads out and takes up much of the span of the tank. His red coloring, mottled skin and white suckers make him look like a dancing underwater firework.

I am in great awe of his shape and the intelligence he shows in manipulating his form. On the Red Octopus, the only hard substance on its entire body is its beak. These species are invertebrate cephalopods; most species lack either an internal or external structure. Most often them can squeeze into spaces no bigger around then their beak. Which explains why he can fit into such a small corner despite his large size.

Astro-turf is also carpeting the rim of his tank. It is a deterrent against him crawling out of his tank into another tank to feed. A previous octopus on display in the old Steinhart Aquarium did just that, much to the chagrin of the biologists caring for the tanks. There is also a weight on top of the octopus tanks at the tidepool. This is to insure they do not get out and eat the residents of the tidepool. The weight is a couple of pounds, and without it the small octopus could easily open its jewel tank.

Octopus species are considered the most intelligent invertebrates in the ocean. In captivity, they have shown play, problem solving and short and long term memory. In the wild, their intelligence, flexibility, camouflage, and problem solving makes them a formidable predator. They have even been known to prey on sharks! The best time to see an octopus “on the hunt” is at night. They are nocturnal and the octopus at the Academy is no different. The majority of the time I have seen him out is after 5pm. So if you visit during the extended hours in August, stop by the Octopus tank. The glimpse of red and dance of tentacles is well worth the visit.

Seahorses are sold as expensive ingredients used in
traditional Chinese medicine.

Not surprisingly, I jumped at the chance to produce the Quest "Seahorse Sleuth" story, but I will admit that the process of making this piece was demoralizing, to say the least. I spent days in San Francisco’s Chinatown trying to get shop owners who sell Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to talk to me about their trade, and specifically about seahorses. I must have visited 20 or so stores, multiple times, and I saw many hundreds of dried seahorses and thousands of shark fins, not to mention enormous piles of antlers, skins, penises, and whole dried animals. Though I tried many different approaches, no one would talk to me…I was clearly an outsider and not to be trusted. (Had I managed to garner the trust of one of the shop owners, I would have certainly included them in the piece). This experience made me even more impressed and appreciative of the hard work that the folks at Project Seahorse are doing, and exhausted at the thought of how far they still have to go to convince fisherman and governments around the world not to decimate their seahorse populations.

But whereas Project Seahorse must be measured and careful in their approach to these conversations about TCM in order to make headway, I feel that in this blog I can be more forthcoming about my feelings about the use of these animals, and all animals, in TCM.

Of course TCM has a rich history dating back at least 2,000 years, and at least a quarter of the world's population uses this form of medicine. I myself find acupuncture and herbal remedies to be very helpful and do not wish to debunk the efficacy of at least those two parts of the tradition. But I personally draw the line at the use of animals, because I'm a huge animal lover, and I am absolutely appalled at the use of endangered or threatened species for any use. This planet may have seemed endlessly bountiful 2000 years ago, but today we can no longer afford to take the survival of non-human species for granted. To add salt to the wound, it is my understanding that China does not, as of yet, perform the kind of rigorous testing of these products that we must perform for drugs in the U.S. to determine their effectiveness. (This is why we get products from China with arsenic in them, for example). One of the main uses of dried seahorses (and many other dried animals) in TCM is for male virility, though I do not believe there have been any studies that actually prove it has any effect on virility. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s dumbfounding that a country with an official one-child policy, which has led to female infanticide levels that have caused a significant gender imbalance in China, thinks they need to ingest threatened and endangered species to improve the potency of their male population. Let's put the pieces together here folks.

Ok, I'm going to get off my soapbox now, since I'm getting into territory that I am certainly not an expert in. But I did want to present this topic for open discussion – since that's what blogs are for. But before you get too riled up, let me suggest a few websites for further research.

First of all, learn what you can do to help save seahorses by signing on to the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seahorse Conservation Page. You can also brush up on the specific uses of Endangered Animals in Traditional Chinese Medicine with this informative paper on Encyclopedia's “Advocacy for Animals” site.

TRAFFIC (The Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network) has a new Chinese-language textbook aimed at raising awareness on how to best protect threatened species used in TCM. Lastly, check out The World Wildlife Fund’s FAQ page on Traditional Chinese Medicine.

And that’s just to get you started…the web has plenty of information on this topic…read it and tell your friends!

Watch the Seahorse Sleuths television story online.