a little tied up

I was tied up yesterday (helping a friend move out of her house and away from her marriage) so I didn't get to see Shawna's entanglement. Even so, just viewing the aftermath - the exaggerated, artificial smile cut into her cheeks, the deep fleshy gash in the back of her neck, the tangle of netting that half filled a kitchen trash bag - made my vagina hurt. You know the feeling. It's the female equivalent of what guys experience when they see another guy get kicked in the balls. It's that twinge triggered by empathy that's followed by an ache born of cellular memory. It's a physical protest to life's many injustices.

It wasn't just the obvious wounds that made my cervix wince. Entanglement affects more than just the surface of a seal. Shawna, though 2.2 kg heavier than Famous, was significantly more emaciated. Famous was scrawny but scrappy. Shawn was the saggy and sorry. And no wonder. In addition to the difficulties of being recently weaned, Shawna was forced to dive while wearing a green plastic afro. Even if she had been fortunate enough to catch a fish, it would have been impossible to swallow as the netting stretched across her mouth like a horse's bit. Dehydrated seal eyes are often described as gummy; Shawna's were downright crusty. She was so depleted she didn't even have the energy to be tube fed last night. Her breakfast, 300 ml of electrolytes, was the first thing to reach her stomach in a long while.

Shawna isn't nearly as cute as Thornberry, Marciel, and Cranny (who are all, by the way, faring quite well in the company of nearly 20 others of their kind), but in many ways her rescue is much more satisfying. Fur seals are warm and fuzzy, but entangled animals we know we owe.