Our story begins in an aquarium supply store in Stuttgart known as the Willhemina Zoo. They are looking for a hearty aquarium plant to decorate tanks with. Most marine plants don’t do well in an artificial environment.
Somehow, they find… or create this unique specimem which thrives in aquariums. It is called Caulerpa Taxifolia. It has several unique properties. It does not breed sexually, but rather clones itself. It spreads extremely rapidly. It concentrates a poison that makes it inedible. It also looks nice in aquariums.
I say “or create” since they can’t seem to find the original plant in nature. Scientists speculate that either the Willhemina zoo took the one example of this mutated plant in nature purely by chance, or somehow they accidently mutated it.
Anyway.
The plant is rapidly disseminated through the aquarium community. Some of it finds its way to the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco in the late 70s or early 80s. The curator of this museum is the noted Oceanographer and conservationist Jacques Cousteau. The plant gets used in the Museum’s tanks.
During Jacque’s tenure, the plant is apparently dumped into the Meditaranean sea adjacent to the museum.
Marine Biologist Alexandre Meinesz finds the plant in the Meditaranean right in front of the museum. He notes that the plant appears to be an alien invader, that it carpets the seabed and destroys and kills the entire ecosystem.
Unaware of the origin of the plant (nobody was,) he figures the museum will help him research this deadly infestation and sound the alarm. He is told that it is undoubtedly natural, no cause for alarm, no big deal.
Meanwhile ships lay anchor and travel around the Meditaranean. When they drop anchor, they spread the infestation.
Pretty soon it is a major emergency. The Meditaranean is being smothered, the ocean is being killed by what the media calls “the green terror,” “the green death.” Infestations have been found in California, Australia and several other port sites worldwide.
Nobody is sure how to deal with this catastrophe which is spreading rapidly, can wipe out the entire ocean’s ecosystem, and throwing us over an ecological precipice that could destroy us through our dependance on the ocean.
At this point, I would like to nod sagely. Didn’t you always know that the French would end the world?
Are you surprised at all to learn that it’s Jacques Cousteau who killed the ocean?
To be fair to Jacques, it appears that he took this very seriously when others were dismissing it before his death.
Sad and ironic.
Read about it here:
http://www.sbg.ac.at/ipk/avstudio/pierofun/ct/caulerpa.htm
This really sucks.