elodieunderglass:
It involves an Animal Involved in Research (the Salmon in Question and its Remarkable Journey) and many people find that sort of thing upsetting and may try to kill you for it. I am happy to tell you in private.
Basically, some salmon-related Science was going to happen. I was asked if I wanted to observe this Science, which promised to be interesting, and obviously said yes. The Science did not go as planned. A series of logical decisions were made, each one building sensibly on the last, but the final situation suddenly seemed very illogical.
And then one finds oneself explaining this to an Authority, who is sarcastic and judgmental. The Salmon is sarcastic and judgmental also.
To be fair, important knowledge for the benefit of salmonkind has been discovered as a consequence.
Also some unimportant knowledge.
Years later, we laugh about it.
Ok I feel like I should add that the Transported Salmon did not suffer in the story. Well, it had to suffer the company of fools.
However! I have thought of an aspect of Salmon Story that is appropriate to share in public because
A) it’s so utterly Pure that even an animal rights terrorist couldn’t argue, and
B) none of it was my problem,
so no Anxiety attaches.
Okay so you need a little background Science to appreciate this story. You need to know that salmon hatch in freshwater rivers and travel down to the sea, to live their adult lives in the ocean. Then they return to the same river where they hatched, to lay their own eggs and die of exhaustion. (This is oversimplified but you get the idea.) you’ve probably seen them on nature documentaries, flinging themselves up waterfalls, leaping from rock to rock, then finally reaching the top and getting eaten by a bear.
because Salmon are an important (tasty) commercial species, as well as being key parts of food webs, and also beautiful wild animals, we want them to continue doing this.
Damming rivers to generate electric power creates a rather big barrier to salmon laying their eggs. If you have seen a dam on a big river then you may have seen a fish ladder running up it. This looks like a rather brutal concrete staircase with water coming down it. The idea is that the fish can cross the dam by flinging themselves up the fish ladder, the way they climb waterfalls. Fish ladders are also useful where human activity has added other obstacles – diverted rivers, added water wheels or dead ends, steepened waterfalls, added flood barriers, drained estuaries, etc. They take different forms, including elevators that FLING the fish up to the next level, but the staircase design is the easiest to build. Ok now you’re all caught up
This part of the salmon story takes place in an indoor fishery, where one might go to obtain a young salmon. The fishery had many giant tubs, some of which had currents, so the fish swam around them in circles, really believing they were going somewhere. Anyway, we were concluding other business, and so I chatted to a local researcher, who seemed to like the attention.
“Would you like to see my new fish ladder design,” said the local scientist.
“Yes,” I said immediately.
It was a very nice prototype. Only a few steps of a full staircase but very attractive. He sold it to me – it was cheaper, more natural, less damaging, less intrusive. It was a very promising design of fish ladder. It was, the local scientist said, Fish Friendly. (That’s why this story is so Unproblematic, despite having Lab Animals in it – obviously you need to test a new fish ladder with actual fish.)
“Want to see a fish climb it?”
“Hell yes,” I said.
The scientist produced a fat young demonstration salmon from a nearby tank. We discussed the limitations of the demonstration. This was a baby salmon, not a tough old breeder; the conditions weren’t wild; the salmon had little motivation to climb the ladder. But, the scientist promised, the salmon was an expert and experienced demonstrator and had been carefully trained with snacks, which is why it was so fat.
He placed the fat young fish in the pool and stood back proudly and CHAOS!!! BROKE!!! THE FUCK OUT!
The man reeled back BLEEDING FROM THE FACE, there was a BANG, and the fish had VANISHED, it was just GONE,
Lights were reeling everywhere, everyone was stunned,
After determining that the guy was only stunned and bleeding because his glasses had been PUNCHED INTO HIS NOSE the question was WHERE IS THE FISH???? The question of “what the fuck had just happened” was a tertiary concern. THE FISH HAD VANISHED
Biologists love animals, so it was a case of everyone, including a stumbling stunned bleeding man, casting about wildly for the missing fish. Nightmare visions danced in our heads of this beautiful brave fish, this fat and beloved expert baby, suffocating in a dark dirty corner of the floor, or having perished in whatever the fuck just happened… we worked out that the fish had jumped up a step, then turned and used the fish ladder to push off in the other direction, and punched the guy in the face, so we followed that proposed trajectory.
Ok so we couldn’t find the fish, and then we all sort of looked up at the lights, and we all simultaneously wondered why the lighting had gone all chaotic. Everyone pieced it together at the same time. THE FISH WAS IN THE LIGHTS
we found it in a random direction, very far away, in an empty pool all by itself. It was swimming determinedly against the current, as happy as anything. It had somehow gotten into the fishproof overhead lighting, which had a kind of long cage over the bulbs, and had flipped itself along the ceiling until it dropped down into a pool.
We just looked at that fucker. It was happy. “Good puzzle guys,” it was saying. “It took me a while to crack it but the solution was worth it. I think I’ve definitely earned my snack.”
I’m not proud of this next part, but I turned to the guy and said “I think I’ve discovered a limitation in your study,”
this was so wrong of me, with my own filthy mouth I said this; to this good man, this sweet man, this gentle fish biologist with his face streaked with gore,
“You should use a species that can’t fly”
A Middleground 