In his post, Dr. Clifford tried to clarify the difficulties in ownership of octopus. Costs, lack of sleep, and serious water damage to his home required major renovations. “I didn't want to make my baby permanent or romantic while still being kept,” he told me.
Despite these efforts, he was overwhelmed by the demand to adopt hatching.
“If you put it there, people would want it,” said Vincent Nyman, a wildlife trade expert at Oxford Brooks University who studied the role social media plays in the exotic pet trade. “And if you say, 'Don't get it,' it's a bit like 'As I say, don't make me do that', right?' ”
Life-saving
Still, Dr. Clifford conscientiously decided that he could not send the baby to a private home. There he arranged for them to go to a reputable aquarium or university as soon as they were strong enough and strong enough to travel. On April 21, he announced that he had found a home for everything hatching.
The next day, Terrance died. The family buried her in the backyard. Beside a herd of trees whose trunks reminded me of the octopus tentacles.
Now they had to keep their babies alive until they were shipped to their new home. The odds opposed them. In the wild, only a small portion survives.
Dr. Clifford said about 20 hatches died in the first month alone. (Caused death included cannibalism and temporary loss of power.)
He began to worry about what his huge, invested audience would think if he lost more hatching. “The pressure to keep the baby alive was quite choking,” Dr. Clifford said.
The local reptile expert and breeder who Dr. Clifford became a friend became a lifeline and helped him take care of and even house a baby octopus when Clifford's home was renovated. Despite their joint efforts, hatching continued to die.
