During my trip to One Tree, I was lucky enough to take a midnight snorkel through a spawning. The scene resembled a blizzard in the Alps, only upside down. Even in a bucket, spawning is a marvel. First, just a few polyps release their bundles; then the rest follow suit, as if prompted by some secret signal. The bundles rise through the water in defiance of gravity. On the surface, they form a rosy-colored slick. “This is one of the real miracles of nature,” I overheard a scientist on the gene-editing team say, more to himself than to anyone else.
