|
|
|
| Sunday, 15 January 2006 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Different
Outlook
Steller's Sea Cow by Arefa Tehsin The enormously powerful winds roused the untamed ocean waters and the storm that followed swayed the ship St Peter to an isolated piece of land rising above the wild sea. The damaged ship, on its way to Kamchatka in November 1741, carried in it naturalist Georg W. Steller.
During that time Steller, guided by the probing instincts of a naturalist, even in the harshest and most adverse conditions, discovered a number of new animals. One of them was the sea giant Steller's Sea Cow. These creatures were descendents from land animals which adapted to water, their relative being the elephant. Sadly, the other three genera of the order Sirenidae to which Sea Cow belonged are all endangered today. These herbivorous gentle giants looked like upturned boats when in the beginning Steller saw them grazing on seaweeds around the nearby bays in herds. Weighing six to seven thousand kilograms and measuring 20-30 feet, these massive sirenians were toothless and possessed short stump-like forelimbs. Seagulls would leisurely come and sit on their backs feeding on vermin infested skin. After their bellies were stuffed some would sleep on their backs. This animal fascinated Steller and he took considerable interest and effort to elaborately describe it and its habits. St. Peter's crew killed a sea cow only 6 weeks before they finally escaped in 1742. But this started vicious killings by ships and fur hunters that followed after the word was spread and it ended with the last sea cow being slaughtered in as short a span as 27 years. Their meat was indisputably delicious and comparable to corned beef and that of young ones to veal, not forgetting their excellent fat. Their meat could be kept for long and would not putrefy even in hot weather. Their killings brought to light their feelings of compassion. Steller wrote that other animals would come to rescue if one of them was caught by hook and they would try to upset the boat and endeavour to remove the hook by blows of their tails. In spite of the beating given to the male, he would relentlessly try to free the caught female following her to the shore, which was a proof of their conjugal affection. Several times even after she was dead the male would be found for days standing by her mutilated body. The herd was quite protective towards the young and the juvenile during pasturing and travelling, always keeping them in the middle. Fresh water seemed to be their favourite and they would spend time near the mouths of gullies and brooks. Their outer skin was quite tough like 'the bark of an old oak'. But alas, it could not protect them from the iron hooks and spears. One sea cow was sufficient to feed 33 men for one month! However, their meat was criminally wasted. In the killing of one sea cow, 4-5 were critically wounded and died later on in the ocean. Steller described how they killed it when they were on that island. He wrote that 4-5 men carried an iron hook in a boat towards the herd. The other end of the hook was fastened by a rope held by 30 men on shore. As soon as the hook was struck, the men on shore pulled the desperately resisting animal towards them. Meanwhile the men on boat continually attacked it with bayonets, knives and other weapons and pulled it up on land. "Immense slices were cut from the still living animal, but all it did was shake its tail furiously and make such resistance with its forelimbs that big stripes of the cuticle were torn off. In addition it breathed heavily as if sighing. From the wounds in the back the blood spurted upwards like a fountain..." The year 1769 saw the last of Stellar's Sea Cow. Tides come and recede, seaweeds grow and flow, sea gulls soar high and low, waves splash in the bay and ships pass by...what no longer catches the eye is the Stellar's Sea Cow, which has sunk into the invincible depths of extinction... "There is no survivor, there is no future, there is no life to be recreated in this form again. We are looking upon the uttermost finality which can be written, glimpsing the darkness which will not know another ray of light. We are in touch with the reality of extinction." |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
Stranded on the Bering Island (later named after the ship's captain) in
the freezing artic waters in Bering Sea, the crew struggled to rebuild their
ship, which took them almost 10 months. 
