The Dive Evangelist

A year ago the New York Aquarium was blessed to help bring Akituusaq into this world. On Sunday the joy of the bouncing baby walrus was counter-balanced by the loss of his father, Ayveq. Sunday, a week ago, he was suddenly struck down by some mystery illness and despite the best efforts of the Veterinary staff, so far, the cause has not been diagnosed.

It had been Ayveq who brumfed snot all over me during my initial orientation walk, demonstrating that working at the NYA was just about the coolest thing possible. My fondness for him grew with every visit. Each time I passed in front of his enclosure to get a bucket of food for the fishdudes or to get to the cylinder shed I couldn’t help but stop to vie for the attention of that hulk.

In the quiet of the park before all the school trips and families show up it was easy for a single person calling his name to rouse his curiosity. Often he would swim up to a spot in the tank where he could amble onto a bit of structure and lean close up to the fence to inspect this anomaly of a person. His behemoth face only a few feet away, inspecting this tiny thing before him. Now, for those of the three readers of this blog that don’t know me: I am not a small dude. Chances are very good that I am significantly taller than anyone you know. But reflected in Ayveq’s eyes was humility. At more than two tons the gravitas of his gaze made me feel very, very small.

One morning, as I was cooing to him and asking him who was a handsome walrus, as though he might answer… he did. Ayveq started to whistle. Sure, it would have been neat if he started whistling that part from Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, but the long, mellow tone he let out of those massive lungs stunned me just the same. Did you know a walrus can hold their breath for about ½ an hour to make better-than-200 foot dives? With pipes like that, it was a long, impressive whistle.

“The walrus can whistle!” I reported excitedly to the keepers, as though I had just made an extraordinary breakthrough in marine science. They laughed.
“Yeah,” explained one, with a wry smile, “It’s mating behavior. He likes you.”

While I was and am flattered I’m sure Ayveq knew that it just wouldn’t work out.

It’s hard to imagine that each and every one of the volunteers lacks some sort of story and similar affection for the big fella; and I don’t want to imagine the grief that the staff of the Aquarium are going through. The animals at the aquarium become very dear to you very quickly when you are among them so often. They aren’t displays, they aren’t even like pets, they are friends.

They don’t even have to be gigantic and furry to capture your heart as they do. For example, a few months ago a big, ancient green moray named Eli finally went off to the reef in the sky. Not knowing it wasn’t yet common knowledge I stupidly blurted this fact out, causing instant tears to be shed. Similarly in Glover’s Reef, the main reef display, there is a goatfish who, at some point, got an o-ring wrapped around his little head. As he’s grown, the o-ring has started cutting into him. I admit the goatfish, so far as I know, does not have a name, which makes the sight no less heartbreaking. Unfortunately, he has thus far proved impossible to catch and free of the ring, but the divers will keep trying.

I am going to miss Ayveq badly. I am sure he will be missed badly by very many. It is going to be hard for a good, long time to walk past his underwater windows and not get to smile at the denizens of excited, little kids marveling slack-jawed and wide-eyed at his truly awesome girth. I don’t even know what I’m going to do about walking past the front fence.

The ray of sunshine is still little Akituusaq. I say little, but that isn’t really so. He already outweighs me by more than double and is only going to keep turning mackerel and clams into more walrus. Ayveq’s tank may be a big one to fill, but one day it will be Aki’s immensity that the visitors marvel at. He’ll make kissy-faces at them with a head the size of an ottoman. Kids will reflexively step back from the window as two and a half tons of animal swims straight at them and presses his blubbery cuteness against the glass. The volunteers and the staff alike will have stories upon stories about him.

I am sure more than one will include, “You shoulda seen his dad.”