Watching Our Water Ways

I really love this picture by Araminta “Minty” Little, a seventh grader at Fairview Junior High School in Central Kitsap. Her picture shows an octopus grasping trash that has been thrown into the ocean.

Apparently, the judges in the annual Marine Debris Art Contest also liked Minty’s picture. They named her one of 13 winners nationwide out of more than 600 students from 21 states who entered the contest, which is sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Minty’s drawing is a fine piece of work, but she also got high marks for her concept, which carries a message about the dangers of marine debris. As part of the contest, she was required to write a bit about the problem. As quoted on the Central Kitsap School District’s website, she explained:

“The picture I drew depicts a sea creature surrounded by garbage. The octopus … is wrapping its tentacles around stray trash preparing to throw it all back onto land. In the top right tentacle is a sign reading ‘S.O.S.’ in parody to … an old sailing term.”

To see all the 2012-13 winners, check out the slide show on the Marine Debris Blog.

The contest is open to students from kindergarten through eighth grade. The 13 winning entries will be used to create a calendar scheduled to be printed in a few months.

“You wouldn’t believe the talent of some of these students,” said Dianna Parker of NOAA’s Marine Debris Program, which has conducted the art contest since 2010.

The next contest opens to entries in September.

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A giant Pacific octopus with 4- to 5-foot tentacles washed up dead this week at Elandan Gardens in Gorst. Diane Robinson, who owns the gardens with her husband Dan, called to tell us about it, and I went by and took a few photos.

Marine biologist Jeff Adams of Washington Sea Grant, who writes a blog for the Kitsap Sun, says there are probably plenty of places for the creatures to live in Sinclair Inlet, including rocky shores and sunken boats. Jeff wrote about octopuses in his blog Sea Life in February of 2010.

Diane Robinson with an octopus that washed up dead at Elandan Gardens near Gorst
Photo by Christopher Dunagan

Some facts about the giant Pacific octopus, taken from the blog Wild Pacific Northwest by Ivan Phillipsen and the National Geographic website:

• The record size of a giant Pacific octopus is about 30 feet (9.1 meters) from tip to tip with a weight of more than 600 pounds (272 kilograms).
• They live to about 4 years old, and both males and females die soon after breeding. Females usually live long enough to take care of their eggs and watch them hatch.
• They hunt at night. living mostly on shrimp, crab and fish. Their suckers can taste and capture their prey, which is brought to a sharp beak, the only hard part on its body.
• They can change colors to blend in with their surroundings.
• They are highly intelligent with a brain that encircles the throat and extends down to each tentacle. In laboratory tests, they have been been able to distinguish shapes and patterns, solve mazes and twist off jar lids.
• During sleep, they demonstrate brainwave patterns that suggest dreaming.

One of my Amusing Monday pieces focused on a video of a battle between an octopus and a shark. I later learned that the video was taken at the Seattle Aquarium, and I told the story behind the video.

Amusing Monday: Battle of the Depths

Update on share-versus-octopus battle

If that’s not enough, check out the videos I posted during Octopus Week at the Seattle Aquarium:

Amusing Monday: You’ve got to love an octopus

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Note: I’m on vacation for the next 10 days, so I’m repeating an “Amusing Monday” entry from Aug. 4, 2008, which features a “National Geographic” video dramatizing a battle between a shark and an octopus.

When I first ran this item, I did not know for sure where this action took place. I later got the full story of the shark-versus-octopus battle from staff at the Seattle Aquarium. See “Amusing Monday” for Aug. 12, 2008.

As for my vacation, I’m sticking around home, so I may post a few blog entries if I get a chance.
—–

This might not be the kind of story that triggers the normal kind of laughter.

In fact, now that I think about it, this video ought to come with a warning. “Caution: This video contains violence of the animal kind.” OK, it’s really not that bad.

I’ve been trying to figure out where this event took place. The animals involved are Northwest natives, but the video does not say which aquarium was involved. I’ve put in an inquiry to National Geographic, but they have not checked back yet.

An Internet search reveals several comments linking this event to the Seattle Aquarium, but none of them are official sites. At least one site mentions a connection with the Oregon Coast Aquarium. If anybody knows more, please let me know.

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If this week’s film “Fish from Hell” is any indication, Americans’ view of life in the ocean has changed considerably since 1945. (Scroll down for video player.)

I found this film in the Prelinger Archives, a large collection of old films and television commercials started in 1983 by Rick Prelinger in New York City.

It’s a longer video than I usually offer for Amusing Monday. But if you pick any point on either of the two video segments you will find something interesting, if not shocking. If you are limited on time, check out Part 2 at 2 minutes, 50 seconds, where the fear of a large octopus is truly amusing, knowing what we know about these creatures in Puget Sound. The storyline of “man against nature” seems quaint from a modern scientific perspective, but I wonder how many people still hold this world view.
(more…)

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In recognition of Octopus Week at the Seattle Aquarium, I’m putting up a few videos for your entertainment and education. I’m posting this “Amusing Monday” early, so you can review the list of events at the Seattle Aquarium beginning this weekend.

First, before getting to the serious stuff, I’d like to start with an animated short film, “Oktapodi.” The film started out as a graduate school project by a team of French animators from Gobelins L’Ecole de L’Image. The production was nominated for an Academy Award during last year’s presentation and won numerous honors at film festivals.

The YouTube version here is OK, but if you want to see the film in full quality and can wait for the video to download, visit the official Oktapodi Web site and view the QuickTime version.

Back to the real world, check out this BBC video showing a diver up close with a giant Pacific octopus.

Elsewhere, the so-called mimic octopus is a fascinating creature, as shown in this video shot in Indonesia.

Finally, completing the tour, here’s a video from the Seattle Aquarium Web, which includes this sea creature as well as others.

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Last week’s “Amusing Monday” entry was indeed shot at the Seattle Aquarium — and there’s more to the story than meets the eye.

The announcer in the video doesn’t say where the scene was shot, so I put out a request for information. Thanks go to Susan Berta of Orca Network for putting me in touch with folks at Seattle Aquarium, which ultimately led to an interview with biologist and lead diver Jeff Christiansen, who was involved in shooting the video.

Photo courtesy of Seattle Aquarium

Before 1987, the dome exhibit often included three octopuses — the number required to almost guarantee that people would see one, Christiansen told me. The octopuses would hang out in a recessed area under the lower windows inside the tank, he said. That was before the rocky reefs were installed.

Also in the tank were a number of dogfish sharks, another native of the Puget Sound region. But not all the dogfish survived.

“If you were lucky enough, you could see it happen,” he said. “They would wait for fish to swim by, then you’d see the arms flash out and a bit of a struggle. Whatever the octopus didn’t eat was chucked out.”

Frequently, aquarium workers would arrive in the morning to see the remains right in front of the viewing windows. The middle of the dogfish carcasses were completely eaten down to the bones, but the head and tail were intact.

“It was considered bad to have dead animals sitting down there in the tank when you opened up (the exhibit) in the morning,” Christiansen said.

Divers, who normally went into the tanks in the afternoon, had to put on their gear and make a special trip into the tank, he said. Today, divers are in the tank several times a day.

Although the sharks were easy to replace, especially in those days, aquarium managers were worried about losing rare and valuable fish, he said. In fact, once an octopus was able to eat a sizable salmon before the decision was made to take the octopus out.

Anyway, about 10 years ago, Mike DuGruy of National Geographic Films was doing a feature on octopuses when he heard the story about the shark-eating creatures.

“He came to us and asked if we could recreate the situation,” Christiansen said. “Being the film-whores we are, we said ‘sure.’”

The details of the recreation are somewhat proprietary, Christiansen said. But that’s how the dramatic battle of the shark and the octopus came to be a National Geographic story.

Today, with the recent remodel of the aquarium, octopuses have their own space. With divers in the tanks several times a day, they could feed the octopuses enough so the animals wouldn’t go after fish, Christiansen said. Still no decisions have been made to put octopuses back in the big tank.

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This might not be the kind of story that triggers the normal kind of laughter.

In fact, now that I think about it, this video ought to come with a warning. “Caution: This video contains violence of the animal kind.” OK, it’s really not that bad.

I’ve been trying to figure out where this event took place. The animals involved are Northwest natives, but the video does not say which aquarium was involved. I’ve put in an inquiry to National Geographic, but they have not checked back yet.

An Internet search reveals several comments linking this event to the Seattle Aquarium, but none of them are official sites. At least one site mentions a connection with the Oregon Coast Aquarium. If anybody knows more, please let me know.

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