This is a true story of the big “fish” that got away.
It starts out with a week-long very successful collecting trip to Bonaire to acquire live and flash-frozen samples of the box jellyfish Alatina alata for my dissertation research and ends with a tough lesson learned: even the best laid plans are not fool-proof.
Arjen van Dorsten assists in collecting Alatina box jellyfish at Karel’s Beach Bar Pier, Kralendijk, Bonaire (The Netherlands).
Saturday night (April 26), my last night in the field, I spent another all-nighter in the CIEE Research Station Bonaire processing my box jellyfish catch, thanks to the help of colleagues there. As Sunday morning arrived, I had successfully packed all of my specimens – live Alatina polyps in a cooler, and flash frozen tissue samples in the dry shipper – to transport back to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). I was elated that my field work had gone so well, and with Alatina spawning one day earlier than expected on the 7th day after the full moon, instead of the usual 8th day, I had four evenings to collect my target species. I made new collaborations (left), and gave a public lecture entitled “Marine biodiversity: through the eyes of the box jellyfish” that was well received by an audience of coral reef ecologists and enthusiasts.
I also discovered new things about Alatina spawning behavior and timing, and early embryonic development using my new digital microscope camera/video.
Video: Fecund male (large, white box jellyfish) and female (smaller, yellowish box jellyfish) Alatina medusae in the lab at CIEE Bonaire. The male is preparing to release sperm into the water which the female takes up, effectuating internal fertilization. Video by Cheryl Lewis Ames. (Sorry about the vertical video.)
Video: Microscopic Alatina larvae (planulae) move about a petri dish. Video by Cheryl Lewis Ames.
Later Sunday morning at the Bonaire airport, I checked my luggage containing live and frozen samples along with the rest of my bags. All appropriate documentation was attached to the outside of the containers, and copies were provided inside just in case Customs agents in either the United States or Bonaire wanted to review the contents of the container. The documentation included approval by both governments to collect and export my samples from Bonaire into the United States.
United Airlines ground staff handed us our boarding passes and we thought we were ready for a relaxing flight home, but as we watched the containers slowly careen down the conveyor belt the dry shipper, filled with valuable specimens, tipped over. I reacted quickly and regrettably without thinking, uttering five seemingly harmless words: “Can you stand it upright?”
The ground crew’s response was immediately suspicious as if I had uttered that forbidden word, no longer acceptable at an airport.
At once, the cooler and dry shipper were brought back from the luggage holding area, and suddenly treated as potentially hazardous “cargo.” I was asked to produce every piece of documentation I had related to the two pieces of luggage. My papers were whisked off to the airport manager. The messengers returned, but never the manager, stating that “United Airlines does not ship jellyfish”—it goes against the embargo on cargo by passenger airlines. (My import documents included a statement that the material (frozen and live jellyfish) was cleared for a United Airlines flight.)
On multiple occasions I asked to speak to the airport manager directly to clarify her ruling, but I was told she was on the phone…During the two and half-hour wait until my flight was boarding for take-off, I tried desperately, to no avail, to figure out a way to make it all work. I called United Airlines and was told the ultimate decision was left to the airport authority, and therefore a human resource issue. When I finally contacted the head of the ministry of transit for Bonaire and adjacent islands, he told me that he could not make a decision based on the limited information provided, so when in doubt he had to go with the ruling made by the airport manager. During our conversation, I sent him copies of all the supporting documentation. It was apparently unpersuasive.
Sadly I boarded my plane leaving behind the very specimens for which I have worked so hard over the past two and a half years to obtain…
Thankfully my new collaborator and field assistant retained the dry shipper until we can determine how best to return the specimens to the biorepository at the Smithsonian MSC.
Almost two weeks have passed and we are still exploring many possibly ways to get my frozen samples, and the dry shipper, back to the NMNH. We have talked to Carole Baldwin’s colleague Bruce at the Curacao DROP program and our collaborator at Iridian genomes has contacted Cryoport as a possible solution.
Unfortunately, the live larvae (planulae and polyps) I worked so hard to rear in the lab at CIE cannot be sent back to the museum quickly enough. They will be lost. For now, our new aquarium room in IZ will have to wait until I find another way to obtain live box jellyfish polyps for my dissertation research and museum outreach purposes.
Now what? Well, despite all this, I am not abandoning Bonaire as my study site. There are too many great things about it – our connection with the lab at CIEE Research Station Bonaire; good relations with STINAPA and DROB (the Government of Bonaire), and our local collaborators are invaluable. Finally, the predictability of obtaining the box jellyfish, and ease of getting to the island are all factors worth taking my case to a higher level so I will have samples for my research here at NMNH.
Sunset on the water in Kralendijk, Bonaire (the Netherlands) (Photo: Cheryl Lewis Ames, digitally enhanced)
I share this story not to seek pity, but rather to illustrate the unknowns that will always occur when travelling around the world in search of answers to the questions that keep us up at night – the reason we have entered the field of biology. I will keep you updated, but for now please enjoy this beautiful “peace” of Bonaire.
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