Sea Cow Sestina

The stupid, lethargic Hydromalis gigas 

Sustained the swarthy population

Of arctic sailors with manners extinct

Shipwrecked during Bering's exploring years.

These beasts, unable to submerge, easily discovered

And docile, with plenty of meat on their bones.

Malnutrition and scurvy plagued castaways' bones,

While their naturalist, Stellar, first studied H. gigas.

Numbered 1.5 thousand when they were discovered

Threatened by a dwindling kelp population 

Caused by sea urchin hordes left uneaten for years

Since men's hunting of otters nearly drove them extinct.

Bering died there, and half of his crew went extinct

They called it Bering Island and buried his bones

Built a ship from the wreckage, which took them years

Surviving by hunting Hydromalis gigas

At thirty feet long, it sustained their population

As they hoped all the while that they would be discovered.

Just 27 years after being discovered

Stellar's sea cow was hunted, becoming extinct

Not a single one left in its whole population

Remaining today as a memory of bones

A museum display labeled Hydromalis gigas

Not seen now for 233 years

There were rumors of sightings in subsequent years

By sailors on Northern routes Bering discovered

Near shorelines once teeming with Hydromalis gigas

In evenings as dusk was becoming extinct

Huge sirenians floating, all meat and no bones

Gave hope to a calloused population

With the exponential growth of the world population

We have seen this repeat itself over the years

Once marvelous species reduced now to bones

Cursed by our species by being discovered

There is no technology to fix what's extinct

To bring back Stellar's Sea Cow, Hydromalis gigas

Make no bones.  The whole population

Hydrodamalis gigas, Twenty-seven years.

Discovered, hunted, extinct.