Of Fish Roosters and Life

Animal Story, Blog, Other Animals | January 25, 2011

In Banty the Rooster’s story of healing I shared my perspective that all life is precious and to be respected, including chickens. Livingness itself is a total wonder, something beyond our powers to understand, much less create.  Many people think of chickens as a lower form of life not worth serious consideration, let alone fish. But the mystery of life and death is as true in a fish as in any other living creature.

We have a well-established tank in the office cabin filled with colorful tropical fish who have become a peaceful adapted community. One of the denizens is a kuhlie loach. With its long slender agile body and gentle behavior it is a delight. Entering the office we look forward to seeing its brightly colored black and yellow stripes as it wiggles along the bottom feeling for food with its tiny sensitive whiskers. The other day I looked at the fish tank and saw him very uncharacteristically shooting up to the surface. I wondered briefly but was distracted by a very full office of people. In the evening, when I had time to sort impressions from the day, I remembered, and also realized that the recirculating pump in the tank was very quiet. It had stopped working and the oxygen content of the water had dropped. The loach had been trying to breathe. Now it was on the bottom in distress, belly-up, but periodically turning over, so we had hope. Jean and I pulled out the pump and tried to find out what was wrong. It took us a while but we finally got it working. Meanwhile we added fresh oxygenated water to the tank hoping that would help. We went to bed worried.

In the morning, while scanning the tank for him, I saw a pale bleached lifeless bit of flotsam floating just above the gravel, looking like a bit of stem. It was the loach. I didn’t realize it at first, the difference was just so striking: from vibrant colorful inquisitive energy to an almost invisible limp little white bit of organic material, the mysterious animating life force gone.

Where we live we are surrounded by the pulsating energy of life, a finger of the vital Yellowstone to Yukon Wildlife Corridor coming right through our property, full of thriving trees and plants, hawks and owls, moose, deer, grouse, fox, and other wildlife all adding their energy to the area. But the passing of that little loach left an emptiness in the fish and office community. It reminded us to take constant joy in the privilege of being alive, and being among life in all its myriad forms.

• 4 Comments