SEATTLE—Saying that the species has thus far defied all scientific projections, stunned officials from the Marine Conservation Institute announced Tuesday that the past half century of climate change and habitat loss somehow hasn’t managed to take down the goddamned parrotfish.
According to conservation biologists, rising ocean temperatures, increased runoff of chemicals into coastal waters, and the decimation of coral reefs haven’t even come close to putting these vibrantly colored tropical sons of bitches on the endangered list, let alone succeeded in wiping them out completely.
“Considering the unprecedented disruption to their ecosystems, the parrotfish should have been eradicated years ago, but remarkably, these little bastards are still around,” said Dr. Elliott Norse, the institute’s chief scientist, noting that overfishing alone ought to have done in the shallow-water ocean dweller “10 times over.” “I’m just shocked that with all the oil spills, greenhouse gas emissions, and God knows what else we’re throwing at them, we haven’t finished them off yet. Not by a long shot.”
“Our statistical models predicted they would all be long gone by now,” he continued. “But these suckers just keep hanging on. Every couple years we check, and they’re still fucking there. It’s unbelievable.”
While population estimates indicate that the fish’s numbers are not as high as they used to be, scientists confirmed that the aquatic creatures are nonetheless flourishing like you would not goddamn believe. Additionally, researchers acknowledged that even though pollution from fertilizers, pesticides, and wastewater is helping to kill off the reefs upon which parrotfish depend for survival, these resilient foot-long fuckers can still be found, scraping by, throughout the Indo-Pacific and Caribbean regions.
According to marine scientists, you would think that widespread habitat destruction—a phenomenon that only took a couple decades to absolutely obliterate the now-extinct Tecopa pupfish—would have put the parrotfish out of commission too, but nope, it sure hasn’t.
“Seriously, what’s it going to take to kill these things?” said Norse, who explained that parrotfish must have some serious balls to have survived the devastating effects of global warming and ocean acidification. “Every piece of evidence we have suggests they should be belly-up, washing up on the goddamn shore. Years back, we looked at these fish—which, by the way, don’t even have the benefit of protected status—and immediately thought, ‘Okay, these guys are goners.’ Seemed like a no-brainer, you know?”
“Well, don’t we look like a bunch of idiots now?” he added. “I gotta hand it to ’em, though. They’re persistent little shits.”
At press time, scientists confirmed that despite the rising sea levels, marine debris, industrial effluents, climate stress, natural predation, and hurricanes, those little cocksuckers are still plugging right along and will probably outlive us all.