Divorced man finds solace in the many arms of pet octopus
WHEN a newly divorced man wants to cheer himself up, he may, if stereotypes are to be believed, buy a new wardrobe, new sports car, or even a drink for a new woman.
For one marine ecologist, the route to happiness was rather more unusual: he moved a large octopus called Heidi into his living room.
Professor David Scheel, from Alaska Pacific University, spent a year in the company of a big blue octopus, a fearsome predator that can grow to up to 80cm (31.5in) long, after his wife moved out. The results, which led Prof Scheel and his 16-year-old daughter, Laurel, to form a bond with their slimy housemate, will be broadcast tonight on BBC Two, as Heidi plays, dreams and watches TV.
Prof Scheel said the project became possible after “I got divorced and the ex took most of the living room furniture”.
While Laurel was in favour of getting a dog, her marine biologist father, who had been studying octopuses for 25 years, eventually moved a huge salt-water tank into the house for a very different kind of pet. “It’s something I had in the back of my mind for a long time,” said Prof Scheel, over the phone from Alaska, where he lives. “But because it was linked to a project it changed from something you could think about idly to something you could actually try and do.”
While some keen marine hobbyists keep smaller octopuses at home, accommodating Heidi was “not a trivial thing”.
He hoped to find out if octopuses, long known as solitary creatures, could have meaningful relationships. Heidi, an Octopus cyanea, arrived in the spring of 2018, after Prof Scheel took six months to design the aquarium system and plumbing. When Heidi arrived, in a coolbox on an overnight flight from Hawaii where it was bred for educational and scientific purposes, the animals was, in Prof Scheel’s words “this cute little thing”. “We had a nice routine of getting up,” Prof Scheel said of life as Heidi settled in. “I’d get up in the morning and sit down to do my email, next to the aquarium.
“The lights would come on in the tank and she would come out and do her morning grooming. “I always enjoyed watching her for a few minutes there and she’d be watching me and we’d say good morning to one another before I had to go about my day.”
When Laurel came home from school, she too would play with Heidi, lightly tapping on the glass and waving her fingers in the tank. Heidi would respond, clambering up Laurel’s arm and making her shriek by squirting water down her sleeve.
The documentary shows how Heidi learned to play games: holding a Rubik’s Cube, pushing a floating pill bottle into the airstream of the tank to make it spin around in a circle, and learning to use a plastic ball to set off a light and a buzzer that would summon him or Laurel into the room at any time.
She would also join in the family’s evening television routine.
“Laurel maintained that Heidi liked comedies the best but obviously the
‘When we would watch TV, she would position herself where she could see the screen’
BBC’S Blue Planet II has to be right up there,” said the professor.
“When we would settle down to watch TV she would position herself on the glass near the television for the first 15-20 minutes before moving to her den. She would stay where she could see the screen, then she would tuck herself into bed and go to sleep.”
Natural World: The Octopus In My House, will be broadcast on BBC Two at 9pm on Thursday.