During the second it took me to write this sentence, a pilot whale was born. After 15 months of gestation, Her mother pushed her out, surrounded by her family, in the same spot they have always been born, here in Tenerife, where 200 years ago, Her great grandmother was roughly described by a weird looking bearded man from a boat. After She opens Her eyes, Her mother will push Her to the surface to take Her first breath. Her species has evolved for thousands of years to swim the oceans, navigate the cold and the dark, to be born and not take the first breath right away. Her family has been waiting for Her arrival for months and Her grandmother, sisters and aunts will be the most important persons in Her life next to Her mother; they will teach Her everything they know, how to navigate the sea, how to catch giant squid, how to produce Her own clicks and be able to find them even from kilometres afar. She will drink Her mother’s milk for the next months or years, swimming right behind her, using the current her body produces to catch up. She will learn to always swim parallel to the others, so She can always keep an eye on her family.

We have learned to divide the self from the other, with the latter juxtaposition the first. For Her, self is the Other. She is her family and Her family is Her. She will sleep, swim, eat, breathe when they do. For the rest of Her life. A life in synchrony.

She will be alive for the next 50 years. Kids born today might get a glimpse of her in the next 5 decades. And for that to happen, the multiple threats Her and Her family face today, are our responsibility to tackle.

By Darwin Leader: Iro Tsarmpopoulou-Fokianou