Spinning Pinfish, Wailing Rocks, and the Suicidal Sawfish of the Florida Keys

A plea, a poem, and a painting on how ecological apathy is spiritual silence

Sounding Call: Pinfish Spin and Sawfish Leap Under the Solar Eclipse, painting by me

A few months ago, right around the time of the solar eclipse, pinfish in the Florida Keys started spinning themselves to death. News footage captured the little creatures with wild eyes whirling in the water without explanation. At the same time came reports of sawfish inexplicably thrashing in the shallows and leaping to their deaths on the shore. Tourist videos showed the rare smalltooth sawfish in distress or dead. Locals voiced concern about the economic impact. Fishers were most perplexed by this phenomena they had not witnessed before.

It spooked me. I couldn’t shake the image of the fish, spinning themselves to death, leaping from the world that sustained their lives. The idea of compulsive suicide haunted me. It didn’t seem conceivable that creatures with no measurable sense of self awareness would willingly end their lives. And if it wasn’t willingly, the mystery was even darker. What would compel a sentient creature to flout a primal instinct of survival? What would prompt a sawfish to leap to a world  that could not sustain it? What was it fleeing? 

There seemed to be an invisible cruelty in control of creatures whose sole existence is survival. I began to research explanations, and, as is my want, I suspected humans. Water pollution created by ever increasing ways to invent new waste. We are creatures of invention aren’t we? A more sinister idea was a form of Havana syndrome, a medical condition suffered by a number of government employees as a result of sonic weaponry. I went down a rabbit hole of self devised conspiracy, shocked to find the number of reports of acoustic weaponry used in both Cuba and Florida, geographically located on either side of the waters of the suicidal fish. 

I woke one night, unsettled by the eyes of the creatures spinning and writhing in broad daylight.  The haunting images compelled me to put the crisis to verse and the nightmare to canvas. (See above photo of my painting.) The event ominously merged with the solar eclipse and all the universe seemed to cry out: Shame. Shame. Shame. These are the creatures who rely on your tender care. These are the creatures who share your desire for a simple pure existence. These are the creatures who feed your belly. How much more should you care for their environment, which is your own environment.  

Scientists have since discovered a toxic algae that is likely the cause of the bizarre morbid behavior.  Parasite, algae, bacteria….it doesn’t much matter. The creatures are in distress, and the SOS cry has been overshadowed by news stories of celebrities, politicians, and criminals.  

An ancient affirmation of this haunting came to mind. Scripture recounts a moment during Passion week that Christ was publicly criticized by the religious establishment for not silencing a crowd of loud cheering disciples. His cryptic and chilling response: “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Wailing rocks seemed a hyperbolic metaphor until April of 2020 (curiously a month into the pandemic) when scientists recently discovered life in rocks. It seems the warning against spiritual silence was a prophecy, not a parable. If you doubt the connection between spiritual silence and ecological apathy, just ask the spinning pinfish of the Florida Keys. You could ask the sawfish, but they are nearing extinction and their absence will be the echo chamber of our apathy.

Nature has a voice. And it is calling, calling, calling. And we answer, answer, answer with the silence of ignorance, of apathy, of sleep. 

Below: A fever dream poem on the plight of the pinfish in the shape of a sawfish written in the wee hours. Full text below the image, as Substack doesn’t have center formatting options. At least it looks like the profile of a sawfish? Pair with painting for most potent experience.

“Sounding Call”: my concrete poem on ecological mystery and moral responsibility

Sounding Call

“And in those days, 
The seas will turn thick green,
Small fish will churn like whirling dervishes,
Large fish will throw themselves at the mercy of the shore.” 
Book of In-Verse

Last night I woke to the sound of pinfish spinning, spinning in the waters of the Florida Keys,
And on the shores, still the night of day, the sound of sawfish thrashing,
Thrashing with a look of possession in their eyes, 
Of delirium, 
Of dissociation.
Of terror, 
Of…..madness.
A look no creature of primal innocence should know,
A look only the human creature has taught itself to know.
A consequence of our eagerness to
Disrupt the natural order, 
Take what isn’t ours,
Eat more than we can digest,
Discard the rest--
All in the name of progress, 
Hurtling through space in metal eggs to visit other shores, other orbs,
Creating more space for the stuff we create,
Perfecting the art of exponential consumption, 
All without a trace of compunction,
All without a trace of even a blush. 
We eat, and shit, and smile, and sleep. 
As the pinfish spin, 
And the sawfish leap, 
And ocean weeps, 
And still we sleep,
We sleep
We sleep
spin
zzzzzzzzz
spin
zzzzzzzzz
spin
zzzzzzzzz
spin
zzzzzzzzz
spin
zzzzzzzzz
spin