Murder by Intelligence, Honor by Art

Finally, we have a statue symbolizing the lack of human intelligence and humanity, or Freya’s Story

Photo by Jonathan Cooper on Unsplash

A little over nine months ago, Norway decided to murder a lone walrus in a marina because it was getting attention from local people and being harassed by them. People were harassing the walrus, and people decided to euthanize her. Now, they have a walrus statue.

Our dumbassery knows no bounds. And still, I’m glad to have the statue.

Freya girl, you were too good for this world and too much for us. We never deserved you. And I am so heartbroken that we stupidly cut your life short. You’re in a better place with Nakai, Tilikum, Ula, Amaya, Zeus, Apollo, and many others. I know you’re all swimming-free.

This is beyond us not deserving beautiful creatures. This is about us, about humanity. About how righteous we are, and how twisted, how disconnected we’ve grown from everything around us. How our ways are so dangerous to ourselves and to our only home, planet Earth. This entire debacle is a tragic portrait of where we’re at as humanity.

The walrus is an endangered species primarily found in the Arctic. One of them, Freya, swam to Norway last year. She wouldn’t have been there was it not for us. She’s there because of what we’ve done. Her reality is changing at least as much as ours. Melting ice sheets mean less shelter and disappearing fish species mean less food.

We are free to relocate when faced with consequences of human-caused disasters — like fires and tainted waters. We don’t grant the same freedom to other creatures.

She was searching for food and shelter because we’re right down her channel causing much of her distress in her home environment. We’ve devastated the amount of food she can find while we continue to drill the crap out of it. We can’t fathom the marine noise pollution in her neighborhood. She fled for better ground, and little did she know she wouldn’t find the refuge she was looking for.

She landed in a marina where rich people kept their toys surrounded by gawkers. One damage to a super-privileged white man’s expensive toy, and you will be hunted down. Unfortunately, Freya wasn’t trained in our human dumbassery. She couldn’t know she wouldn’t be allowed to breathe anymore because the wealthy couldn’t comfortably start their noisy engines.

Freya missed the memo that she couldn’t be near the two-legged creatures because they lacked common sense. They’d get dangerously close to her where she’d be sitting in the sun on dry ground. Even though she never touched any of them, she scared the mindless parents, who signed Freya’s death order just as their ignorant ancestors gawked at the guillotine centuries ago.

We’ve disconnected ourselves from our natural world so much we don’t have a problem ordering the death of an innocent creature. We even righteously announce that we can do this because we are a proud Nordic maritime nation, and since we’ve made dumb decisions before, we can continue doing so again.

It was the right decision since people cannot control themselves or their “free” population from doing dumb things. What with this nonsense that they aren’t supposed to be throwing things at a wild walrus?

Yes, indeed, it was the right decision to kill Freya so that we can see how our dumbassery isn’t without consequence.

This is a world where we can brilliantly announce that relocating the wild animal wouldn’t have been as good a decision as killing her. A powerful “world leader” decided to demonstrate humanity’s superior erect intellect by killing a single endangered walrus. Our species is capable of uttering this with a straight face, proudly erect in our modern 2023.

With this attitude, it was of course the right thing to do to free Freya from suffering our existence.

And today, nine months after our species decided to end her life for no good reason, our good hearts came up with a statue to honor Freya.

Let the statue symbolize our loss and our dumbassery. Let us remember Freya, her loss, and our detachment from Mother Earth, nature, and all the wildlings. Let it symbolize our part in disappearing and extinct species. Let’s grieve for our humanity every time we see this statue.

We always have a choice. And this moment can be yours. Take the pact to educate yourself about nature and wildlife and the importance of each species to our health as well as our environment.

I’m beyond saddened that she’s no longer on this planet, yet very happy that those who don’t deserve her can no longer harass her. I’m also hopeful. Hopeful that her unjustifiable slaying would catch the media’s attention. Hopeful that people now know Freya. We have lessons to learn about ourselves in her demise.

If we continue on this path, there will be many more Harambes, Freyas, and Tilikums in our hands. Well, at least until we run out. Until we no longer share this planet with any of them, only their statues.

I hope never to see that day.