Visiting the Alaska National Marine Sanctuary website, I saw a link about being good stewards of our oceans. Always wanting to practice good stewardhip, I clicked on the link and came to a page with basic advice on what that entails. The page was broken down in sections for visitors, mariners, and commercial fisherman, each section listed the issues relevant to those categories, with a cute “Peter T. Puffin says:” note for that audience making a salient point. After listing for commercial fisherman points like: be kind to seabirds, release them carefully, keep your oil onboard til you get to port, etc. their marketing team added “Peter T. Puffin says remember not to throw live rats overboard, they are good swimmers and may make it to a nearby island.” I’m not sure what puzzled me most:
1. that the powers that be felt that fishermen would respond well to Peter T. Puffin;
2. that a rat could swim to shore up there, I mean how long does it take for a rat to get hypothermia? A human would have to be pretty close to swim to shore within the 5 minute window frigid waters offer before hypothermia sets in.
or 3. that someone added the word “remember” in Peter’s message, can you picture the fisherman thinking, just as he releases the tail of a squirming biting rodent, “oops, I forgot…I’m not supposed to throw the live ones over.” My own experience with fishermen and rats has been that they prefer their rats dead, instantly, as fast as possible. Then they deal with disposal.
This of course brings to mind a Frank fishing story. When he was on one campaign, they acquired a stowaway at the dock in Saamoa. After many unsuccessful attempts to trap the rodent on their way to the roaring 40s, his captain pinned a hundred dollar bill next to the fridge for whoever caught the rat. The crew went wild, they hunted, and stalked, and chased, and schemed, all to no avail. Then the fishing distracted them from the hunt, and they didn’t see the rat anymore. After weeks at sea on the return trip, Frank was sent up the crows nest when they got near land, usually a place they only used while seeking fish. He was greeted by a faint unpleasant smell, and discovered the leathered body of the dead rat up there, the only safe place from the crew, poor guy. Frank did not get the 100 bucks, the captain said you had to kill the rat, the crew probably all went for a night on the town since their collective effort chased him up there. That was back when 100 bucks could buy a night on the town for 6 crew in a seedy San Diego fisherman’s bar
xoxomo
Remember: Al B. Tross says “Gimme da fishguts!”
Stella C. Lion says “Oaurk oaurk oaurk” which I think means “Have a nice day,” or “Get off my rock,” depending on which dialect she’s speaking.
and
Scurvy says “Lies all lies, Rats are people’s friends.”