Walking along the beach with my dad usually was an activity comprised by lots of sun, business conversations, life advice, and a nice cold beer (legal drinking age in Nicaragua is 18…). However, this walk brought a small surprise. As we made our way back to the beach house, we saw a small creature squirming over the wet sand… it was a baby octopus. As fishermen and seafood-fanatics, our first instinct was to see if it was edible; after all, we loved eating octopus. However, as I carefully analyzed it, for some reason, the ruthless seafood eater became a compassionate person and grew empathy for the poor thing. It became impossible for me to even consider eating it anymore. We carried the baby octopus back to the house, placed it in an oxygenated fish bowl, and fed it fish. As the night settled in, we became increasingly interested in analyzing the octopus’ biological complexities, setting it behind many backgrounds varying in colors, seeing how effective it’s color-changing skin really was we quickly discovered that even baby octopi are masters of camouflage.
The sun rose again, and it was now time to head back to the city. With the octopus now well fed and ready to be released, we headed down to the beach and dipped the fishbowl into the water, but it was reluctant to leave its newfound home. We had to pull on it’s tentacles to release the suckers’ surprisingly strong grip, and he was quickly carried away by the waters. It’s release made me realize that I had made the right choice, when considering to eat, or not to eat.
