Summer Shorts 48: Jonathan of the Seychelles at 190

Back in July 2012, I started some quick blog musings for the lazy, hazy days of summer, called “Summer Shorts”, where I take a look at more light-headed subject matter featuring historical and whimsical icons of longevity, some current ones too. So to start this summer, it can truly be told that there are living beings that have literally bridged the centuries, one such being Jonathan of the Seychelles.

As the world’s oldest living land animal at 190 years old, Jonathan the tortoise led me to muse on how he has spanned five lifetimes on my father’s side of the family going back to my great, great grandfather Nathaniel who was twenty five at the time Jonathan arrived in 1832. I’m also musing on that bedtime story about the tortoise and the hare that still has some merit. Or is it maybe life in the Seychelles has some magic of its own merit.

In a Live Science web article, Joe Hollins, Jonathan’s veterinarian is quoted as saying that Jonathan “is a local icon, symbolic of persistence in the face of change.” In addition to biological research data, what could we take from this and apply to the human experience with change, and what can we say about the soulful humans who have helped Jonathan over these 190 years?  Worth a conversation over a glass or two of Riesling this summer.

David Miller, one of the co-authors of a recent Penn State research study on longevity and aging in reptiles states that – “If we can understand what allows some animals to age more slowly, we can better understand aging in humans, and we can also inform conservation strategies for reptiles and amphibians, many of which are threatened or endangered.”

Therein lies one of the melancholy thoughts for all of us in the celebratory narrative of Jonathan of the Seychelles – with life in our contemporary precarious times such as it is; with climate change and other destructive human activity we can only hope that in our future, humans can find a way to protect ourselves and our animal friends. After all it seems we are all in different ways – threatened or endangered on this miracle planet.