There are tears in the eyes of the ichthyologist
pupfish collector who says he has witnessed an extinction
and when I ask him to explain what that means,
to witness an extinction, he can’t help it, he says,
he isn’t over it yet, and then he tells us about
Megupsilon who was an endling. Do you know
what an endling is, he asks, and when we say No,
he says, It’s the last of its kind.
Chris tells the story of the place where they dried up
the pond so they could plant potatoes for the
potato chip factory, And of course, he says,
this is a story much larger than pupfish, much older
than Megupsilon, who had lived for 500 million years
in that pond before they dried it up. Maybe,
he says, they didn’t know, because it was before
the internet, but by the time I got the chance
to try to save the species it was too late,
and now there is one less species of pupfish in the world.
Which maybe doesn’t sound like the kind of loss
you would read about in the New York Times, but
to a pupfish collector it’s the loss of an entire universe
of knowledge, not just the last Megupsilon. Because
now, Chris says, We can’t ask any more questions
that only Megupsilon could answer.
I’m not an endling in the literal sense, yet I am not
anyone’s mother either. My friend used to say that she and
her husband were genetic cul-de-sacs because they
didn’t want kids and had each been the last of their kind.
Technically, even they are not endlings, but I do wonder how many
endlings are dying without anyone ever knowing they are
endlings, somewhere in a different dried-up pond or in a
burning forest or under a drowned field. I don’t want to
think about it and I can’t stop thinking about it.
This morning I learned that the injured seabird I found
on Stinson Beach had to be euthanized because its injuries
were too severe to heal and it was already starving to death.
So it was the right thing, they told me, to have called
Marin Humane and to have helped bring it in to be
x-rayed and examined. It was a more humane death
for this Jaeger, which they explained was far from its Arctic home.
And I look up to see its long-dead cousin on the high shelf
of the conference room in which I’m writing this poem.
Parasitical Jaeger is what the woman on the phone called it,
a bird who steals food from other seabirds. Online it said
They lead a piratical lifestyle, which at first I read as practical,
and the idea of a seabird as a practical pirate is entirely odd
but also possibly comforting. Anyway, now I know there was
once a pupfish called Megupsilon that no longer exists
and can answer no more questions. I have so many questions.
The pupfish collector says he has euthanized thousands
of fish, and I love fish, he says, adding that even though they euthanize
with a chemical that’s basically like novocaine, he doesn’t insist
that his students all take part in the euthanizing.
For an ichthyologist these deaths are all in the name of the future,
though he also admits that the future is already written. So many
more extinctions are inevitable, no turning it around.
Yesterday I wasn’t really sure about calling Marin Humane,
I had to try several different numbers before reaching someone,
and the woman who drove out with her truck
at first couldn’t locate the bird until I showed her. We had to
climb over a construction site where I explained in Spanish
to the puzzled workers about the sick bird, and the woman
had to go back to her truck for her net. There were dogs
on the beach frightening the poor bird and I just kept
murmuring I’m sorry, I’m sorry, We’re just trying to help you,
and I think we really were trying to help. But now I’m
extra sorry about everything, and we all have tears in our eyes,
not just the ichthyologist, but also my friend whose husband
has dementia and can’t answer any of the questions that
he used to be able to answer. There’s a whole universe
of knowledge lost there too, even though he has
two daughters. It feels to me that he’s an endling too, maybe
each of us is the last of our kind. The thing is, I used to eat them
all the time, but nowadays I don’t even like potato chips.
—
Elizabeth Rosner’s newest book is THIRD EAR: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening. A hybrid of memoir and extensive research, it weaves personal stories of a multilingual upbringing with the latest scientific breakthroughs in inter-species communication to show how the skill of deep listening enhances our curiosity and empathy toward the world around us. She has also published three bestselling novels, a poetry collection, and the recent nonfiction book SURVIVOR CAFÉ: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory. Translated into a dozen languages, her work has won literary prizes in the US and in Europe. Based in Berkeley, CA, Rosner leads writing workshops and lectures internationally. www.elizabethrosner.com
