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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2019
Armed with affection, octogenarian is an ‘octopus whisperer’
A retired engineer
By RODRIQUE NGOWI
Associated Press
BOSTON — Wilson
Menashi palmed a squid in
his left hand and extended
his arm into an aquarium
tank, watching as a giant
Pacifi c octopus stretched
out arms to greet him like a
friend.
Freya latched some of
her 2,240 suction cups onto
Menashi’s arm, using their
powers of taste and smell to
gather information around
the 84-year-old man known
as the octopus whisperer —
and the seafood treats he
was bearing.
“She’s just contacting me
and she’s saying, ‘You come
to me,’” Menashi said of
Freya, a 3-year-old predator
weighing 35 to 40 pounds.
Her arms span 14 feet and
pack enough strength to kill
sharks and other enemies.
But this afternoon’s gen-
tle interaction left no doubt
that Menashi has a special
way with the cephalopod,
whose body includes a large,
sac-like head and eight pow-
erful arms.
More than 25 years ago,
Menashi retired after a
career as a chemical engi-
neer and began volunteering
at the New England Aquar-
AP Photo/Steven Senne
Wilson Menashi, of Lexington, Mass., interacts with an octopus at the New England Aquarium
in Boston.
ium in Boston. He’s spent
7,800 hours — the equiv-
alent of about four years
working full time — hang-
ing out with octopuses, the
aquarium said.
“I’ve been able to interact
with them from the begin-
ning. I do not know why.
I cannot explain it, but I
can connect with them,”
Menashi said, standing in
front of the Olympic Coast
Sanctuary exhibit that is
home to Freya and Profes-
sor Ludwig Von Drake, a
younger male giant Pacifi c
octopus living in a separate
tank.
Menashi’s eyes twin-
kled with mischief as he
acknowledged that encoun-
ters with octopus have left a
mark on him.
“I will come back home
sometimes with hickeys all
over my arm and my neck,”
he said.
So how did he explain
them to his wife?
“Not too diffi cult when
you have about 10 or 15
marks next to each other,”
he said. “It did not take too
much. She also knew where
I was, anyway.”
Menashi’s
volunteer
work has included design-
ing puzzle boxes for octo-
pus as well as rubbing their
backs and wrestling their
arms, all intended to ensure
that the highly intelligent
animals receive the men-
tal stimulation to thrive and
stay healthy.
Two decades of working
with the largest members of
the octopus species has not
dulled his sense of wonder at
the animal’s adaptability and
mysteries.
Experiments have shown
these animals to be color
blind, but they are supreme
masters of camoufl age. A
complex system of pigment
cells, nerves and muscles
allows them to change skin
color in the blink of an eye
to match their surroundings.
“What I fi nd totally sur-
prising is how they could
tell different people and
react differently,” Menashi
said. “I’ve also made them
a few toys, made up some
boxes and ... I put different
latches so they could get in
and fi gure out how to get the
food that I put in the boxes.
However, I’ve had some that
said, ‘It’s too much time to
fi gure out how you do the
latch.’ So they just crushed
the box.”
That eye for detail,
patience and willingness to
experiment makes Menashi
a perfect octopus whisperer,
said Bill Murphy, a senior
aquarist.
“Every octopus is differ-
ent. So then you can’t use
the same rules for every
octopus,” Murphy said.
“You need to change it up.
And Wilson does that.”
Menashi said spend-
ing time with octopuses
and other animals gives his
life a whole new purpose in
retirement.
“Just being here has been,
to me, a lifesaver,” he said.
“Gave me something to do.
Gave me different interests
and showed me the world is
a wonderful place to be.”
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