Chicken Soup for the Ocean Lover's Soul by Jack Canfield Read Free Book Online Page B

are their rookeries. Perhaps Angus was a pioneer exploring the brave new world. Maybe he was testing the reception that others of his kind would find at this barren outpost. I hope he found the experience to his liking. If he did, who knows, maybe he’ll return to Los Islotes with more seals to establish the first elephant seal rookery in the Sea of Cortez.
    Florian Graner

ADAM@HOME © by UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

Sound Behavior
    It wasn’t very often that I got to enjoy all of the public exhibits and presentations at the aquarium where I worked. My job was behind the scenes in the volunteer department, where I helped coordinate the schedules of over five hundred volunteers, all with very different schedules and lots of questions. So when I was at work, I was always busy.
    To complicate matters, I was six months pregnant. I constantly needed to get up and move around throughout the day to keep from getting stiff. So in one of those rare moments when I wasn’t swamped with work, I took a walk to the public marine-mammal presentation. As I sat in the large amphitheater waiting for the show, I wondered why I didn’t do this sort of thing more often. Clamoring for a look at the otters, seals, dolphins and beluga whales in the three-million-gallon tank were groups of excited children, their parents, out-of-towners, lovebirds, the simply curious and me.
    The announcer welcomed everybody and explained some of the more fascinating characteristics of marine mammals. He said, for example, that the dolphins had an amazing ability to detect size, shape, distance, texture and movement by sending out a high-pitched sound and waiting for the echo to return. He called this echolocation. Dolphins have refined this sense to such a degree that they could even recognize when another animal is pregnant by detecting fluid in the pregnant animal’s amniotic sac. When the announcer said this, he caught my attention immediately.
    After the show ended, I headed straight to the glass of the exhibit for a close-up view of the dolphins. I wanted to see just how refined this sense of echolocation was. Looking cool and inconspicuous, I waited for the crowd to file out of the amphitheater doors. As the area quieted, I tried to gain the attention of the dolphins. I whistled. I coughed. I grunted. I groaned. I said, “Pssst!” Nothing worked. So I did what any attention-starved individual does when nobody is looking: I started to run from one end of the glass to the other, flapping my arms up and down. After ten sprints I stopped, my heart beating fast, my breathing heavy. Puffing and panting, I looked at the pod of dolphins, expecting them to be riveted by the commotion, their powers of echolocation focused on the pregnant woman on the other side of the glass.
    Nothing.
    Frustrated, I went back to my office, seriously doubting the so-called phenomenon of echolocation.
    Later that day, a dolphin trainer came up to me.
    “Abby?” the trainer said.
    “Yes.”
    “Can I ask you a question?”
    “Sure,” I said. “Do you need a volunteer for something?”
    “Actually . . .” She stopped. She seemed a little reluctant to continue. “I, um, was watching you by the dolphin tank this morning. I was just wondering if you’re okay.”
    I felt my face flush. I tried to explain my little “experiment.” The trainer tried to look serious. Then, unable to hold back any longer, she erupted in laughter. She didn’t seem to be showing any signs of stopping, either. Other people around us began to stare. Finally, after she caught her breath, she explained to me that echolocation definitely worked. It just didn’t work like that. “You need to be in the water,” she said. “That’s the only way the animals can sense you.”
    The next day I formally requested permission to assist with a cleaning dive of the marine mammal exhibit. You can probably guess what the exhibit manager’s answer was.
    Abby