Guest Column: Poor Hunting

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By Susan Jacob
By Susan Jacob

Celia was delivering a baby when most of her community left. The hunting had decreased progressively, they had to leave or starve. Celia was weak herself from inadequate food. She feared for her infant daughter who was small and had some difficulty nursing. Many infants had not survived a major factor in her community’s exodus. Mostly young mothers and children remained along with the aged. This was for the best because the hunting that remained fed fewer.

Among Celia’s community it was custom to hold off naming an infant until they were likely to survive. Her sister Sandra remained with her infant son but he was older and larger more likely to survive if enough food was available. The weather had become warmer with little rain the last few seasons. The community did not concern themselves with why their hunting grew more and more difficult, they just hunted farther and farther away. Some did not return and their fate, would not be known to those who remained.

Celia’s daughter had progressed to eating food in addition to nursing, however she began to fade, and it appeared that she was becoming ill. She felt too warm; Celia knew that sickness came easily to the weak. Celia had to either take the risk and leave with her child or go farther to find food to feed them both. She would hunt farther but was pulled back by her child’s cries. It was unbearable to leave her.

The option of taking her daughter to find food was no longer possible, she was too weak. Celia knew her sister would help tend her niece as best she could but needed to keep her own son alive. Celia consulted with her sister and steeled herself to travel beyond her daughter’s cries. When she could no longer hear them she was stricken with the reality that she may never hear them again. She became more focused on finding a source for food and eventually a safer place to live once her daughter regained her strength.

Days went by and Celia did not return. The child slept more, and failed to thrive. When the moon was nearly full, Sandra knew that she must act, taking the most desperate action possible. She awoke her tiny niece whispering gently that the child must go to a place they all feared. The child was now old enough to have learned what spots were forbidden.

The child refused to believe her aunt when she instructed her to go forth into danger. Her aunt insisted that the new moon was rising and the child’s mother had instructed her to send her daughter where she herself would never go. The little girl sobbed until her aunt agreed to take her close in the darkest of night. She was forced to leave her to her fate and return to her son. Thankfully, the child soon fell asleep in spite of her fear. She was too weak to move or hide and when the dangerous ones came for her, she was barely breathing.

Celia returned soon after to the community that no longer kept her daughter. She grieved in defeat. Celia continued to call to her child a full month after she had been taken. On the morning after the next full moon she heard something and stood tall peering toward the place of danger. The dangerous ones came forth in a group with something large and difficult to move. Suddenly she thought she heard a familiar cry. Celia looked around thinking she had confused the sound of another child crying out for its mother but a mother never forgets the sound of her own child’s voice. The volunteers set the container down on the beach and let the now healthy baby seal free to swim to the rock that was home to her mother.

The Pacific Marine Mammal Center on Laguna Canyon Road has rescued over 120 sick baby seals in Orange County since January 2015 and has returned them healthy to their communities

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