After a few weeks of feeling under the weather it’s good to be back, ready and able to finally focus on the more important things in life like FUZZY FRIDAY!! Yes, happy Fuzzy Friday everyone, this week’s Fuzzy Friday Feature comes to us from the wonderful world of walruses with this walrus in particular being quite near and dear to my heart. Although it seems like news stories of our fuzzy friends can be found pretty much everywhere this week, the headlines this wacky walrus is making struck me as too wonderful for words making him the perfect choice to be named this week’s Fuzzy Friday Feature.
E.T. enjoying his special three tiered birthday cake!
Meet E.T., a fantastically not so fuzzy friend that is incredibly special for so many reasons and believe me when I say that he is one walrus that has tongues wagging all over town. First off his name is E.T. which I think puts him ahead of most walruses in the coolness bracket because, lets face it, E.T is an awesome name. Secondly, he sings, and not just one or two tunes, E.T. has a plethora of medleys that he performs not only on command but sometimes when he is just kicking it with his aquarium peeps after zoo hours. How do I know this you ask? Well I will tell you. I know this because I happen to have a special tie to E.T. as this wonderful walrus hails from The Point Defiance Zoo which just happens to be the zoo I went to pretty much EVER year when I was a wee one growing up in Washington State. You may recognize the name from my past post on Zoo Lights which was an event I posted on over the holidays that is held at the Point Defiance Zoo during the Christmas season. My brother-in-law actually used to volunteer at Point Defiance Zoo and was always telling tales of E.T.’s extra curricular activities, including whistling and wailing his walrus songs whenever the mood would strike him. If all of these reasons aren’t enough to illustrate what a wonderful choice this walrus was for this weeks fuzzy Friday feature, E.T. also celebrated his 30th birthday last month.
E.T. as a young pup
OK so lets recap, E.T. is a singing walrus from Washington State who just last month turned 30 years old who yours truly went to see every year as a wee one growing up…. Well, I bet you are thinking there can’t possibly be MORE to this Walrus’s story that would make him such a wonderful choice for this week’s Fuzzy Friday Feature but guess what, there IS. A warning now, prepare for the sad back story. Of course we friends of the fuzzy want the best for all of our fuzzy and not so fuzzy friends and often that doesn’t include living their lives in captivity. However, that is of course unless their residence in a zoo is the result of them being rescued from certain death which, you guessed it, was exactly how E.T. came to live at the Point Defiance Zoo. It was in 1982 that oil workers in Alaska discovered the walrus pup wasting away from starvation after being orphaned by his mother. According to The News Tribune the workers, “spotted the baby wandering alone. They watched him walk three miles across Arctic tundra in search of his family.” After the pup remained on his own for days the workers decided to rescue him, and named him E.T. before sending him on his way to first the Alaska Zoo, and then to the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, Washington where the walrus would call home for the next 30 plus years.
Congratulations E.T. on being named this weeks Fuzzy Friday Feature and we would also like to wish you the most wonderful of walrus birthdays!!. With your wonderful walrus song, wacky walrus face, and wily walrus ways you have put and continue to put countless smiles on the faces of all those who come to see you and there is no doubt that you will always be the most wonderful walrus to those of us in Washington who watched you grow up over the past 30 years. Check out E.T. in action in the video below!!
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