It was some 10 years ago, back in the day when record companies would take music journalists on weekend junkets to fun places like Key Largo to see their new acts in exotic showcases. You'd fly down on Friday, see a showcase Friday night, participate in recreational activities on Saturday, see another showcase Saturday night, fly back on Sunday.
I can't remember who they were showcasing, though it might have been Billy Ray Cyrus. But I do know I was the only one to choose Snuba on Saturday, from a menu also including golf, snorkeling, spa, shopping or snoozing on the beach. Snuba, I learned, was a poor man's scuba, requiring an hour in the pool to learn how to breathe through a mask and clear your ears, then boating out to John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park and go diving, breathing through a 30-foot hose attached to an oxygen tank floating above on a rubber raft.
Like I told T, I can't tell one fish from another, except, that is, for a shark. A shark is a shark. There's no mistaking a shark. Any shark.
Sure enough, I got lucky. I got three feet from a nurse shark, itself no more than three feet long. It was probably more scared of me than I of it, for it raced away when I turned towards it. I told T my bad joke about how even though it was a nurse shark, it didn't bring me any meds.
But I told T my one memorable realization from that moment. All those fish in the ocean, and the shark in particular, are supposed to be there. You aren't. What happens to you in that moment, unless you have a speargun, is really up to them.
Here T related how for pretty much that reason, he doesn't like going to zoos anymore, where kidnapped wild animals are kept in captivity. He'd completely missed out on the Bronx Zoo Cobra, so I quickly brought him up to speed on the deadly baby Egyptian cobra that had escaped from its cage and inspired a Twitter account and merchandise line--and captured the country's imagination during its five days on the lam.
"Bronx Zoo Cobra found. All hope gone," I myself tweeted yesterday upon word of its recapture. What was I hoping for? a Facebook friend wondered. "Freedom!" I replied. I told this to T via cell phone as I approached the AMC Lincoln Square IMAX theater for a screening of the extraordinary IMAX 3D documentary Born To Be Wild 3D, which opens April 8.
The film follows world-renowned primatologist Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas through the rainforests of Borneo, and celebrated elephant authority Dr. Dame Daphne M. Sheldrick across the rugged Kenyan Savannah, as they and their teams rescue, rehabilitate and return orphaned orangutans and elephants back to the wild.
Orphaned, of course, because of irresponsible if not outright evil human behavior. Galdikas notes that orangutans are on the verge of extinction as their habitat continues to be disrupted by poaching, illegal logging, and palm oil plantations whose ubiquitous byproduct--cheap vegetable oil--is used in everything from junk food to soap, cosmetics and bio-fuels. Elephants likewise continue to be poached for ivory.
"They [Galdikas and Sheldrick] are heroes of the earth in the truest sense,” says director writer/producer Drew Fellman in the production notes (Fellman previously worked on IMAX’s Under the Sea 3D). Says narrator Morgan Freeman: "When one out of a million people steps up and says, ‘I’ll take responsibility, I’ll do this,’ it shows an enormous amount of courage and a real dedication to life. And any life is all life on this planet.”
The documentary is simply fabulous. Toddler elephants seem to walk right over, within hand's reach, to be petted. A baby orangutan appears to be two feet away as it looks straight at us, its bath water practically dripping into our laps. Jungle vegetation extends over the heads of the viewers in the row in front while you jerk your head to dodge a bug flying out of the screen.
But when you get past the spectacular 3D effects, you're essentially left looking into a mirror--a severely cracked mirror.
Elephants, we learn, value family as much as we do, hence it takes a virtual herd of people to care for the orphans. We watch these remarkable people slather sunscreen onto the ears of the baby elephants, whose slain mothers would otherwise have protected them with the shade of their bodies. One orphan's tail is missing, bitten off by hyenas when it stayed with the corpse of its mother. We watch another being lured away from a herd of huge bull elephants, any one of which could turn over a truck, but are powerless when it comes to providing the milk the baby needs in order to live.
I left the theater thinking back on the horrific video of GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons' recent "problem elephant" hunt three weeks ago in Zimbabwe. "Of everything I do, this is the most rewarding," he boasts in the video.
And the problem? Elephants, apparently, like to run free. And being big creatures, they tend to trample the sorghum fields that encroach upon their habitat.
"They've been here three nights in a row and we hope they come back for a fourth--and if they do, well, we're gonna be here to greet 'em," says Parsons in the graphic clip, and by "greet 'em," he doesn't mean gifting them with a fruit basket and key to the city. No, he and his "team" of brave men with their high-powered rifles open fire on three bulls in the middle of the night. We see Bob fire twice, sparks flying out of his gun.
But I told T my one memorable realization from that moment. All those fish in the ocean, and the shark in particular, are supposed to be there. You aren't. What happens to you in that moment, unless you have a speargun, is really up to them.
Here T related how for pretty much that reason, he doesn't like going to zoos anymore, where kidnapped wild animals are kept in captivity. He'd completely missed out on the Bronx Zoo Cobra, so I quickly brought him up to speed on the deadly baby Egyptian cobra that had escaped from its cage and inspired a Twitter account and merchandise line--and captured the country's imagination during its five days on the lam.
"Bronx Zoo Cobra found. All hope gone," I myself tweeted yesterday upon word of its recapture. What was I hoping for? a Facebook friend wondered. "Freedom!" I replied. I told this to T via cell phone as I approached the AMC Lincoln Square IMAX theater for a screening of the extraordinary IMAX 3D documentary Born To Be Wild 3D, which opens April 8.
The film follows world-renowned primatologist Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas through the rainforests of Borneo, and celebrated elephant authority Dr. Dame Daphne M. Sheldrick across the rugged Kenyan Savannah, as they and their teams rescue, rehabilitate and return orphaned orangutans and elephants back to the wild.
Orphaned, of course, because of irresponsible if not outright evil human behavior. Galdikas notes that orangutans are on the verge of extinction as their habitat continues to be disrupted by poaching, illegal logging, and palm oil plantations whose ubiquitous byproduct--cheap vegetable oil--is used in everything from junk food to soap, cosmetics and bio-fuels. Elephants likewise continue to be poached for ivory.
"They [Galdikas and Sheldrick] are heroes of the earth in the truest sense,” says director writer/producer Drew Fellman in the production notes (Fellman previously worked on IMAX’s Under the Sea 3D). Says narrator Morgan Freeman: "When one out of a million people steps up and says, ‘I’ll take responsibility, I’ll do this,’ it shows an enormous amount of courage and a real dedication to life. And any life is all life on this planet.”
The documentary is simply fabulous. Toddler elephants seem to walk right over, within hand's reach, to be petted. A baby orangutan appears to be two feet away as it looks straight at us, its bath water practically dripping into our laps. Jungle vegetation extends over the heads of the viewers in the row in front while you jerk your head to dodge a bug flying out of the screen.
But when you get past the spectacular 3D effects, you're essentially left looking into a mirror--a severely cracked mirror.
Elephants, we learn, value family as much as we do, hence it takes a virtual herd of people to care for the orphans. We watch these remarkable people slather sunscreen onto the ears of the baby elephants, whose slain mothers would otherwise have protected them with the shade of their bodies. One orphan's tail is missing, bitten off by hyenas when it stayed with the corpse of its mother. We watch another being lured away from a herd of huge bull elephants, any one of which could turn over a truck, but are powerless when it comes to providing the milk the baby needs in order to live.
I left the theater thinking back on the horrific video of GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons' recent "problem elephant" hunt three weeks ago in Zimbabwe. "Of everything I do, this is the most rewarding," he boasts in the video.
And the problem? Elephants, apparently, like to run free. And being big creatures, they tend to trample the sorghum fields that encroach upon their habitat.
"They've been here three nights in a row and we hope they come back for a fourth--and if they do, well, we're gonna be here to greet 'em," says Parsons in the graphic clip, and by "greet 'em," he doesn't mean gifting them with a fruit basket and key to the city. No, he and his "team" of brave men with their high-powered rifles open fire on three bulls in the middle of the night. We see Bob fire twice, sparks flying out of his gun.
"Both shots hit home," we are informed. A skilled marksman, Bob has indeed killed an elephant the size of a barn from maybe 15 feet.
I'll leave the rest of the slaughter and butchering to the imagination--especially as the video is easily accessible. Besides, I had a different image in mind as I boarded the No. 2 train downtown: The face of an orangutan, old enough to be put back into the wild, being released from its transporting steel crate into the Seruyan Forest of Borneo, with an unforgettable look of wonder.
Freedom!
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