Great White

In 2011, my wife and I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  We were excited to see the recently caught juvenile Great White Shark.  We pushed through the human lemmings and planted ourselves in front of the thick tank glass.  Before long, the Great White cruised past us.  The shark was beautiful, streamlined like a torpedo, teeth sharp as a saw blade.

We expected to see the shark swimming in an empty tank.  Instead, the tank was teeming with tuna, manta rays and pilot fish.  Most of the fish kept their distance but a few dared to pass a few feet in front of the Great White's mouth.  The Great White ignored them.

"Aren't those other fish scared," I asked my wife.

"They like it," the aging docent in the corner said.  He had soft white hair, a white suit and a hand-scrawled name tag that read "Clifford."

"What do you mean," I asked.

"We used to have a tiger shark in there.  After it died, the other fish started fighting and acting erratically.  They didn't know who was in charge so they didn't know how to behave.  As soon as we introduced the Great White, they all calmed down.  Animals need to have an alpha dog around.  So they know the pecking order.  People are the same way.  We need someone with bigger balls than us.  Otherwise we start acting like assholes."

A couple standing nearby with a young child gave the docent a dirty look and walked away.  They didn't appreciate his salty tongue.

"Does the shark have a name," I asked.

"I call him Morty because he doesn't chew his food.  He swallows it whole like my brother Morty."

My wife and I laughed.

"He also shits like Morty--all over the place and when you least expect it."

The Great White propelled itself forward in a side-to-side motion.  It's eyes were black, it's snout covered with scars, a chunk gone from the back of it's dorsal fin.

"How long do Great Whites live," I asked.

"In the wild they can live up to 90 years old.  In captivity, they're screwed.  If we don't get this bastard back in the ocean he'll be hanging on someone's living room wall by Christmas."

"What do you feed him?"

"Something live.  Great Whites don't like dead fish.  They need the thrill of the kill, lots of thrashing and blood and guts all over the place.  The aquarium feeds them after hours.  They don't want little kids crapping their pants from fright."

"Like your brother Morty."

"Yeah, like Morty."

The docent was on a roll, his patter a kind of spontaneous geezer rap interspersed with quirky bits of trivia.

"In the past ten years, there have been 66 great white shark attacks on humans.  14 fatal.  You know how many sharks we killed in that same period?"

"How many?"

"More than 300 million."

"I didn't know there were that many sharks in the ocean," I said.

"We kill them because we're scared of them.  In a fair fight they'd tear us apart.  I keep waiting for somebody to fall in the tank and give us a real show.  Broadcast the whole thing live on the internet shark cam.  That'd be great for business, don't you think?"

"The Romans and the lions," I said.

"You ever hear the joke, 'What do you do if you're attacked by a great white?'"

"What?"

"You hit him in the snout.  If that doesn't work, try hitting him with your stump."

Suddenly, two security guards pushed through the crowd toward the docent. "Clifford," one of the guards said.  "How many times have we told you, you are not allowed in the aquarium."  They each grabbed one of the docent's arms and escorted him away.  (5" x 7", black ink print)

The River Horse

"Is a hippopotamus a hippopotamus or just a really cool opotamous?"--Mitch Hedberg

Hippos are responsible for more human deaths in Africa than any other wild animal. A full-grown hippo can weigh up to 3 1/2 tons. Hippos are herbivores that live on grass and shrubs. They have no sweat glands but they produce a red viscous fluid to keep themselves cool. This led to the myth that hippos "sweat blood." Their Latin name means "river horse" even though hippos are more closely related to whales than horses.

Hippos rarely breed in captivity.  As a result, most zoo hippos have been caught in the wild. The cost to capture a hippo and transport it to a North American zoo can exceed $250,000. The process is difficult and dangerous. Even though young hippos are selected, they can still weigh up to 1,500 pounds.

Targeted hippos are shot in the neck with a tranquilizer dart causing temporary paralysis. (Prior to 1966, a crossbow was used to propel the dart.) The hippo must be on dry land otherwise it can drown. The capture team has 15 minutes before the drug wears off. If the drug dose is too large, the animal can suffer cardiac arrest.

Once the drug takes effect, the hippo is covered with a net and dragged through the mud with a road grader. A noose is thrown around the hippo's neck and the animal is secured with ropes. The animal is then lifted with the road grader and put in a wood crate in the back of a larger truck. When the animal awakens, it starts to bellow and thrash. This can cause the bull male from the nearby herd to charge the truck in an effort to free the beast. The engine of the road grader is "revved" loud to scare off the bull.

The captured hippo is driven to a holding facility. Handlers continually douse the animal with water to keep it cool.  The hippo is given a thorough medical examination. The hippo will typically endure a long train journey before being transported overseas via plane or boat.

The first hippo kept in captivity was displayed at the London Zoo in 1850. The 2-day old calf named "Obaysch" was caught on the White Nile after its parents were killed by Egyptian hunters. The hunters transported the animal 1,200 miles to Cairo feeding it with cow milk and maize. Abbas Pasha, the Viceroy of Egypt, agreed to trade the hippo, a lioness and a cheetah to Great Britain for a pack of greyhounds. The young hippo arrived at the London Zoo weighing over 1,000 pounds. The animal became an instant hit attracting 10,000 people a day (including Queen Victoria).

In the 1980's, Colombian druglord Pablo Escobar obtained four hippos from a New Orleans zoo. He kept the animal on his ranch in Colombia. After Escobar's murder in 1993, the hippos escaped. Local farmers complained when the animals destroyed their crops. Three of the hippos were tracked down and killed. The fourth was never found.

Hippos were considered a female deity of pregnancy in ancient Egypt.  Hippo ivory tusks are valued more highly than elephant tusks because they do not turn yellow with age. George Washington's false teeth were carved from hippo tusks (not from wood as commonly thought). The attached woodcut was inspired by a French zoo poster from the late 1800's. (5" x 7", black ink print)

Genus Equus

On the day I proposed to my wife in Central California, we saw a pack of "wild" zebras running in an open field next to Highway 1. We later learned these animals were the progeny of William Randolph Hearst's original San Simeon zoo collection. Since that day, zebras have been my favorite animal. This woodcut depicts this beautiful beast. According to African folklore, zebras were initially white until a baboon tossed a zebra into a burning fire where the resulting burn marks became their distinctive stripes. (4" x 6", black ink print)