I was reading a list in Time Magazine of the “Top 10 Scientific Discoveries of 2007,” and stopped at number nine, posted below:
In October, researchers from Bangor University in Wales were trawling an ocean shelf off the coast of north Iceland when they stumbled on what is believed to be the world’s oldest living animal: a 405 year-old clam. Or it was living, until researchers had to kill it (bold emphasis mine) to determine the clam’s age by studying rings on its shell. The clam species, the Arctica Atlantica, is particularly long lived — it has been known to survive some 200 and 300 years — and this particular specimen spent its protracted life burrowed in the sand 262 feet under water. When it first lodged itself down there, Shakespeare’s Hamlet was on stage at the Globe Theater, and the English were setting up camp in North America.
That line in bold chilled me. The callousness of human inquisition seems spectacular to me at times. Since researchers were uncertain that this creature was, in fact, the oldest living animal on earth, they had to kill it to ensure that it could rightfully be given that honour. I realize we are talking about a clam. I realize that, by human standards, it probably never accomplished a whole lot in life. Still, it managed to live almost four times longer than the oldest human being ever did. Isn’t that an accomplishment in itself?