Fast Fiction

It’s only April but this is not a good year for marine mammals.

About 80 rough-toothed dolphins beached themselves in Florida, and though these are sometimes through natural causes like disease, this one seems suspiciously timed following naval sonar testing. Of the 80 that beached 26 were rescued and taken to the local Marine Mammal Conservancy. Of those 26, only 11 have survived.

Of course there’s been widespread coverage of the return of the baby seal hunt in Canada. Now check me on this, but when most wildlife experts talk about hunting they approve (or at least go along with) hunting the large “trophy” males. Same goes for fishing. No one says, “hey, we’ve got too many catfish, let’s start taking fry!” So how is it that this particular hunt to reduce the numbers of these seals is specifically aimed at the small ones? Because it’s about their pelts, plain and simple.

Japan is not only still whaling under the guise of scientific study, but today I saw this article that they’re planning on doubling the number of minke whales they take and adding two new species. Now I understand that the International Whaling Commission is just a formality. Japan doesn’t need to belong to it, they can just do whatever they want. And they’ve slowly been adding to their quotas. And threatening to abandon the IWC altogether and resume factory whaling. The added species would be Humback Whales and Fin Whales. Fin whales are the second largest whale species (just a smidge smaller than the Blue Whale) and of course Humbacks are the songbirds of the sea and commonly seen here in the Santa Barbara Channel (I’m going on a trip next month to see them in the summer feeding grounds).

On another note, go visit the IWC website. The splash page is great and shows the majesty of these great mammals and none of the slaughter. Of course when you go to a beef website it doesn’t show you the slaughterhouse either.