Nonmilitary personnel were ineligible to receive a security clearance to travel on the military aircraft. KP2, on the other hand, was considered less of a threat in terms of revealing Navy secrets, as long as he could fit through the small side door of the plane. Despite the size of the cargo hold, the aircraft would be crammed with dolphins and their containers. Thus began the first creative task of the seal’s journey. How do you move a marine mammal that typically spends its life in the sea (and weighs more than a Great Dane) through the small accessory door of a C-17 for a transoceanic flight? Fortunately, seals are not like fish: they do not need to stay in water in order to breathe. Nor are they like the dolphins on the same flight as KP2, which required large fiberglass tanks partially filled with water and stretchers so that the animals could float while traveling. Instead, a dog carrier would do, if we guaranteed that the seal couldn’t break out in the middle of the flight or defecate on the floor and into the electrical wiring. The cargo master was emphatic about that.
On November 24, pilots from the 446th Airlift Wing division of McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, Washington, landed an enormous C-17 at Hickam Air Force Base on Oahu. The plane, loaded with four mine-detecting dolphins fresh from working in New Caledonia, was stopping only for fuel and KP2. The dolphins at the center of the military transport had been part of an international team of mine hunters on a mission called Lagoon MINEX 2009. During World War II, the Australian military had seeded the waters surrounding New Caledonia with minefields to prevent Japanese ships from reaching island ports where the U.S. had positioned military bases. Almost seventy years later the specially trained Systems dolphins were enlisted to find and destroy more than two hundred contact mines abandoned in the waters around the island. These were professional marine mammals.
The McChord 446th was no newcomer to moving large pieces of military equipment or unusual cargo. Although helicopters, Humvees, and people were the norm, the same group had also provided transport for a wide variety of marine mammals. Their largest and most famous animal passenger was the Humvee-sized Keiko the killer whale (of Free Willy fame) on his way to release in Iceland in 1996. Transporting a young monk seal would be comparatively easy, but was given no less military precision. KP2’s itinerary was orchestrated to the minute, and involved more personnel than a presidential motorcade to Air Force One.
On the dark edge of dawn, NOAA and NMFS personnel arrived at the Waikiki Aquarium to prep the seal for travel. The motorcade formed by KP2 and his many well-wishers was given a Honolulu police escort to Hickam Air Force Base, and by eight a.m. KP2 was airborne.
Mark Xitco spent the next five hours in the noisy cavernous body of the C-17, shivering and recording the seal’s vital signs. For the sake of the marine mammals on board, the cabin temperature was lowered to a chilly 67°F and the cabin pressure maintained at less than five thousand feet. After years of flying Dolphin Systems on military missions across the globe, the U.S. Navy had found that these cabin conditions were critical for transporting animals anatomically designed for ocean living. Because dolphins and seals are built to withstand high hydrostatic pressures when diving, placing them in an airplane at altitude, where pressures were lower, affected their breathing. Just as human divers risk decompression illness on flights immediately after diving, marine mammals were vulnerable to bends-like symptoms during air transport. To avoid any potential respiratory problems, the 446th Airlift Wing from McChord adjusted the cabin pressure to just above “sea level” for their live cargo transport.
• • •
A TAILWIND HELPED to slip KP2 across the Pacific Ocean an hour earlier than expected. Awaiting his arrival at the Naval Air Station North Island, in Coronado, California, were Traci, Beau, and me, accompanied by an undergraduate student volunteer and a little yellow Penske rental truck. We had made the 468-mile journey from Santa Cruz to Coronado the night before, and formed a shabby welcome committee compared to the royal Honolulu police escort and send-off on the other end. What we lacked in glamour, we hoped to make up in enthusiasm.
Mark Xitco stepped off the plane with a sheaf of papers in his hands. In his usual brisk, professional manner Mark took me aside and explained the NMFS and Endangered Species Act permits, interstate health certificates, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) transfer documents that would allow KP2 to enter California. Walking around the cage, Mark took one last inspection of KP2 while the San Diego–based USFWS agents curiously eyed the paperwork and the tropical animal.
“One last thing,” he said. “This seal’s official DOD name”—Mark’s demeanor suddenly softened with a wide grin—“is Smoodgey.”
My lab companions gave each other a series of sideways glances. Apparently, “Smoodgey” had nuzzled his way through Mark’s and the transport crew’s hardened military shells over the five-hour flight. Unlike the practiced mine-hunting dolphins, the little seal had bounced around his cage, calling to everyone in his throaty Marlon Brando rumble. He had smashed his whiskered muzzle into any offered hand that passed his way. For those on the transport, it had been like traveling with a large, wet Labrador retriever puppy.
Even the most practiced military personnel were not immune to KP2’s charms.
8.
LA Landings
With the help of the Navy crew, my lab loaded our rambunctious cargo into the yellow Penske rental truck. Taking a big breath, we headed with dread into the greater metro San Diego and Los Angeles commuter showdown. In the back of the truck, traveling alongside KP2, were Beau and Christina Doll, an aspiring veterinarian in my lab who had volunteered to assist on the transport. They’d set up two plastic Adirondack chairs, a lantern, blankets and tarps, a deck of cards, and a computer with iTunes to while away the hours. Every fifteen minutes they measured KP2’s breathing rate using a stopwatch and his skin temperatures using an infrared temperature sensor. The pair was also responsible for dousing the seal with his garden sprayer and jotting notes about the animal’s behavior, from sleeping to scratching to rumbling vocalizations. Periodically, they would offer the seal a thawed herring from a red picnic cooler that had been filled with fish and ice from the U.S. Navy dolphins.
Traci drove while I took the comparatively easy role of navigator. Until now, Traci had reserved comment on the arrival of KP2 in my lab. She loved training sea lions and sea otters, was ambivalent about dolphins, and had never thought much of seals. In comparison to other marine mammal species, seals were slow and boring to her. There was a reason that California sea lions were the pinniped of choice for animal shows: they could be trained to leap, hand-stand on their front flippers, salute, balance balls on their nose, and do somersaults in the water. Seals were not that flashy, barely managing to roll over lengthwise like a plump sausage.
While strapping KP2’s aluminum cage to the inside truck wall, Traci had taken her first long look at the 120-pound seal that was going to be under her care for the next year.
“Hmph, he’s too skinny,” she concluded.
“He’s sleek,” I countered.
KP2 was streamlined and a beautiful silvery gray after molting his puppy coat. His new fur would have been perfect had it not been for two cigarette pack–sized marks on his back. These were the remnants of the satellite and radio tags that had been glued onto his fur by NMFS researchers to track his whereabouts in the waters around Molokai. There was one additional unique feature on KP2’s coat that Traci noticed. He had a small white patch of fur on his left thigh. In humans such a light patch of hair would have been called an angel’s kiss or a wisdom mark. In keeping with KP2’s Hawaiian heritage, Traci called it a tattoo.
• • •
THE TIMING OF KP2’S ARRIVAL could not have been worse: we were driving into the heart of commuter hour on Highway 5 heading into Los Angeles on Thanksgiving Eve. Almost immediately, our yellow truck began drowning in a sea of brake lights on the most congested highway in the nation on the most notorio
usly congested travel day of the year. Despite the absurdity, everyone in my lab had learned to take such events in stride. Driving with an endangered marine mammal in the middle of Los Angeles was not any odder than putting cameras on Antarctic seals, training mountain lions to run on a treadmill, or carrying the carcass of a stranded dolphin or road-killed coyote in the trunk of a car. Comparative physiology was adventurous and messy. I loved it, and the students and staff working with me accepted the unusual as part of the job.
The animals awaiting us at the marine lab were also unique, although deemed failures in their earlier lives. Puka and Primo from my postdoctoral days at the Navy Dolphins Systems program were afraid to hunt mines. Three resident sea otters, Taylor, Wick, and Morgan, had been expelled from a Monterey Bay Aquarium rehabilitation program when it became clear that they preferred to hop on kayaks rather than sleep in kelp beds. My quirky staff and volunteers who took care of them empathized more with animals than people. Dogs factored big in all our lives. A Saturday night date for the people on my staff as often as not was a drive-in movie snuggled in the back of an SUV with their dogs. My own fit into Santa Cruz was just as implausible. I was a button-down East Coast preppie, educated by nuns, now living among the hemp-smoking West Coast Hare Krishna vegans. A nearly blind, orphaned tropical seal that thought he was human would fit right in.
Fortunately, we had all found each other in the freethinking coastal town of Santa Cruz.
There was one rule in my lab. As heart-wrenching as it could be, I was never so bold as to disobey nature’s law on my expeditions or in my research. Over the years, we had to leave orphaned Weddell seal pups to face certain death in Antarctic blizzards. I had stood helplessly by as Adélie penguins bled out from bite wounds inflicted by leopard seals. Neonatal dolphins that were stranded after their pod mates attacked them were euthanized on the beach. Sometimes Mother Nature was an exceptionally harsh taskmaster and I knew better than to question her.
As we navigated through Southern California traffic, I realized that for the first time I had broken my own lab rule. I had relented in the case of KP2 and the Hawaiian monk seals. Instead of abandoning the young seal or his species, I found inspiration in their tenacity. These seals had endured hunting to near extinction during the 1800s, when men sought their oily blubber. Generations of human activities had polluted the monk seal’s habitat and fished out their coastal prey. Now the fragmented species was literally rubbing shoulders with humans in the main Hawaiian Islands in order to survive. We owed it to their species to bring their numbers back. KP2 was the first step.
“Hey, we’ve got a blind endangered species here!” I shouted at the silver Mercedes that cut off our rental truck. The sudden braking had initiated a series of loud crashes on the fiberglass wall behind me. Traci quickly got on a walkie-talkie.
“You guys okay back there?”
“Mmmph,” was the muffled, static-filled reply.
“They’re fine,” Traci concluded confidently. My trainer was young and unflappable, and could read animal behavior better than anyone I knew. Without a doubt, Traci was one of the best marine mammal trainers in the business. She took no guff from animal or man alike. Few crossed her after seeing how she was able to humble the three snappy, snarly sea otters into kittens. On this adventure I was quickly learning that she was fearless on the road, as she maneuvered our boxy truck into the commuter lane to the honking displeasure of the frazzled LA-bound drivers.
“What if the commuters surrounding us knew that there was one of the last Hawaiian monk seals on the planet edging past them in the diamond lane?” I asked Traci.
“I doubt they would drive any differently.”
As commuters aggressively swerved, braked, cursed, and honked, KP2 remained nonplussed, yawning and sleeping to the music of Taylor Swift, Garth Brooks, and Carrie Underwood in the back of the truck. Beau and Christina had discovered that the twang of country-western tunes caused the seal’s large brown eyes to begin drifting, and soon set him to snoring.
Although the truck bed was rapidly cooling as we headed north, Beau, like any self-respecting NorCal surfer, would not succumb to wearing long pants. He had weathered Antarctic blizzards in his board shorts and T-shirts—even if they were under a down-insulated parka and coveralls. He was not about to abandon the uniform of Santa Cruz while barreling down the highways of his home state. Despite her suntanned blond surfer girl looks, Christina had no such reservations and wrapped herself in a wool blanket to ward off the chill night air during the long drive north. They draped a blanket over KP2’s cage to keep his Hawaii-acclimated body warm.
• • •
WE INCHED OUR WAY with thousands of other pre-Thanksgiving travelers along the highway. Signs for San Diego, La Jolla, Del Mar, Encinitas, Oceanside, and Camp Pendleton drifted by. Eventually, Traci pulled into a rest stop less than eight miles from the highway border patrol checkpoint so we could check on our passengers. Undoubtedly, this was the last bailout stop for illegal immigrants who had been smuggled across the U.S.-Mexican border.
“How’s it going?” I asked Beau and Christina as Traci rolled up the back door of the truck. The stench of wet seal and fish was overpowering.
“No problems here,” Beau responded cheerily. Despite the lack of sleep, the trainer was as bouncy as the seal.
“Pretty smelly ride, eh?” I observed, sheepishly aware that at least Traci and I had fresh air in the front cab.
“What smell?” Beau honestly seemed incredulous. Thank goodness for the hardened noses of animal trainers, I thought as we relocked the truck door and slipped back onto the highway.
Traffic was now at a complete standstill. We rolled forward at a snail’s pace past the state weigh station, and the San Onofre and San Clemente exits. It was not until we had passed the exit for San Juan Capistrano, fifteen miles past the normal border patrol stop, that Traci and I suddenly realized that there had been no checkpoint. The border patrol had taken mercy on the holiday travelers; there would be no inspections this evening. We were spared the awkwardness of explaining our immigrant cargo to suspicious border agents. Our seal was safe.
• • •
DINNERTIME CAME AND WENT as Traci bulldogged our truck through the tangle of freeways bisecting Los Angeles. While KP2 had been able to dine alfresco, our stomachs began to rumble. In desperation, Traci maneuvered the yellow truck into the bastion of fine California highway cuisine, In-N-Out Burger.
The parking lot was packed with highway-traveling dog owners who’d had the same idea. Unbeknownst to us, the lawn of the fast-food establishment was a favorite pit stop for people traveling with pets. While the owners slid down burgers and fries, dogs of all sizes and shapes squatted and leg-lifted on the landscaping.
I took up seal guard duty in the back of the truck as the others went to order food. It was the first time that I was alone with KP2. We gazed at each other with uncertainty in the awkward silence of a first date. The seal watched my hands and eyes. I studied him, too. If I moved the garden sprayer, he automatically rolled over for a dousing. If I looked at the red cooler, he followed my gaze and blinked expectantly for a fish. He responded to my subtle moves, almost predicting my next act before I even knew I would make it. I instinctively responded to his behavior in the same way as if caught in a dance.
From a distance, I heard a low thumping and immediately thought, “Earthquake!” However, KP2 would not fool me a second time. I ignored the steady rumbling and the thumping buildup, and prepared for the final outburst of “Brrawwrrrr!” Turning to the passing dog owners, I smiled and secretly wished that KP2 would quiet down.
“Rraaaughhrr.” The seal pup called loudly in his Brando growl. In all of the hours on the road, I had never heard the seal make a sound. Now he wouldn’t stop. KP2’s renewed activity soon caught the attention of the dog owners in the parking lot.
“Rraaarugh!” KP2 repeated. T
he throaty thumps were unlike any marine mammal sound, unlike any seal vocalization I had ever heard. He crawled around his cage and was not interested in the fish I offered from his cooler. In the yellow and red neon glow of the In-N-Out Burger sign, I had the distinct feeling that the seal was testing me. He waited expectedly for a hand to smash his muzzle into. Instead I kept my distance, refusing to give in to his cuteness.
A moment later the others returned. As the four of us ate our meal on the Penske tailgate, in the dark of the autumn evening, people and dogs streamed by, gawking at the interior of our vehicle, not sure what to make of our peculiar pet. The seal’s rumbling “rrrraaaaughhs” were most un-canine. We ignored their stares and ate our dinners nonchalantly, as if our legless, earless companion were some type of weird pit bull.
• • •
SATIATED AND OUT OF THE CITY, we hoped for smooth sailing for the remaining 350 miles to Santa Cruz. The last challenge was a rugged, twisting segment of Interstate 5 known as the Grapevine connection. This section of highway rises out of Los Angeles into the surrounding Tehachapi Mountains. Notorious for snow, fog, and car pileups, the Grapevine is 4,183 feet at its peak and has a dramatic, tortuous 6 percent grade on the descent into the vineyards and agricultural fields of California’s Central Valley.
The veterinarian at Long Marine Lab, Dr. Dave Casper, had insisted that we monitor KP2’s breathing as we made our way through the pass. More curious than concerned, he wanted to know the lower limits of altitude that marine mammals could travel without a change in breathing patterns. Dr. Casper had read about respiratory complications experienced by sea otters and sea lions transported in small aircraft over these same mountains. Was it the speed of altitude change or the actual altitude level that instigated faulty breathing? Besides curiosity, the veterinarian was also not taking any chances with our Hawaiian cargo. He did not want KP2’s first breaths of mainland air to be his last.
The Odyssey of KP2 Page 7