Save the Dolphin?

[lawrocket 3]

There's a dolphin making big news right by my old stomping grounds. The Bolsa Chica Wetlands is a nature refuge on the coast between Long Beach and Huntington Beach, where flora and fauna peacefully coexist with the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station.

The dolphin went into the wetlands. We don't know whether it's an idiot retarded dolphin who got lost, whether it's a dolphin who got bullied by others in a pod, or whether it's simply a depressed dolphin looking to escape the stress of conformity and looking for its own Walden Pond experience. Perhaps dreamdancer will boast that the dolphin counts as a protestor in an “Occupy Bolsa Chica Wetlands,” and that even the dolphins are anti-corporate.

Whatever the reason, something in nature has dictated that this dolphin should be there. It appears people, good natured naturists and wildlife experts, have the desire to get the dolphin out of the wetlands. I find it odd myself that no environmental impact report has been done with this activity.

But it’s got me wondering. Should we be trying to unbeach whales? Should we be trying to get dolphins out of places where they either went willingly or they stumbled into it? The dolphin didn’t ask for our help. The dolphin is just someplace where we think it shouldn’t want to be. And maybe putting that dolphin into the ocean will cause problems for the dolphin, kill the dolphin, or result in the dolphin going next door, stealing a few mines, and going nutter on a pod of dolphins or, more horribly, a “school” of fish.

In all seriousness, though, should be we messing with nature this way? Or just let it run its course?

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[airdvr 197]

Funny you shouold bring this up. Was watching a PBS report on the restoration of the San Joachin River. Back in the 30's, in an effort to irrigate arid lands the SJR was dammed off, to the detriment of the Chinook salmon population. Now, after almost 60 years we need to spend millions to undo the damage and put the burden on farmers to find a way to be profitable with less water. I now have a better understanding of why the State of California is broke. Every time we get involved in trying to affect change in nature we make it worse.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[lawrocket 3]

Dude - don't even mention that. I live in Fresno, and the devastation that this stuff has had to the economy here cannot be overstated. It's disgraceful and really sad.

I want to drain the Hetch Hetchy and restore it. But I don't think the Bay Area liberals think that nature is so important that they'll jack up their OWN water supply. Just those redneck farmers.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[JohnRich 4]

When wildlife finds itself in situations where it can't survive, we ought to do what we can to help them out.

Another example is the whales trapped by arctic ice. They even made a movie out of the multi-national effort to free them. Many years ago there was a movie called "A Whale for the Killing", from a book by Farley Mowat, about a while trapped in a fiord. How about the salmon spawning - we do what we can to get them upstream around the obstacles we've built in their way. And the hatchlings returning to the ocean are being protected from hordes of cormorants that would eat the new generation. We should especially help when it involves endangered species. We protect sea turtle nests from raiding raccoons, and sea-going turtles from fishing nets. A breaking controversy is a desert solar energy plant that will impact a rare desert tortoise - if we have to choose between the two, I say move the plant, save the turtles.

When an drop zone Otter pilot found a bird's nest, complete with chicks, inside the wing of the plane, he pulled them out by hand and threw them on the ground. A few of us skydivers gathered them up with their nesting material, and made them a new home adjacent to the boarding area, hopefully where mom would continue to care for them. They may have died anyway, we don't know, but giving them another chance was preferable to just letting airplanes run over them.

Even if this particular porpoise is suffering from some ailment that made it go astray, and it ends up dying anyway after being freed, as sometimes happens with beached whales, at least we gave it another chance.

I suppose you could draw a line between things that endanger animals beyond their own control, like man-made dangers, versus things that happen naturally. And it may be that beached porpoise are diseased or something, and therefore it's just nature's way of culling the weak. Fair enough. But without knowing for sure, I say give them another chance, and then if they die anyway, at least you've done what you could to help.

[jclalor 12]

Quote

reply]There's a dolphin making big news right by my old stomping grounds. The Bolsa Chica Wetlands is a nature refuge on the coast between Long Beach and Huntington Beach, where flora and fauna peacefully coexist with the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station.

The dolphin went into the wetlands. We don't know whether it's an idiot retarded dolphin who got lost, whether it's a dolphin who got bullied by others in a pod, or whether it's simply a depressed dolphin looking to escape the stress of conformity and looking for its own Walden Pond experience. Perhaps dreamdancer will boast that the dolphin counts as a protestor in an “Occupy Bolsa Chica Wetlands,” and that even the dolphins are anti-corporate.

Whatever the reason, something in nature has dictated that this dolphin should be there. It appears people, good natured naturists and wildlife experts, have the desire to get the dolphin out of the wetlands. I find it odd myself that no environmental impact report has been done with this activity.

But it’s got me wondering. Should we be trying to unbeach whales? Should we be trying to get dolphins out of places where they either went willingly or they stumbled into it? The dolphin didn’t ask for our help. The dolphin is just someplace where we think it shouldn’t want to be. And maybe putting that dolphin into the ocean will cause problems for the dolphin, kill the dolphin, or result in the dolphin going next door, stealing a few mines, and going nutter on a pod of dolphins or, more horribly, a “school” of fish.

In all seriousness, though, should be we messing with nature this way? Or just let it run its course?

[jclalor 12]

***Was watching a PBS report on the restoration of the San Joachin River.


I watched that too, great show.

[lawrocket 3]

True. There are the right animals and then there are the...

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

The dolphin went into the wetlands. We don't know whether it's an idiot retarded dolphin who got lost, whether it's a dolphin who got bullied by others in a pod, or whether it's simply a depressed dolphin looking to escape the stress of conformity and looking for its own Walden Pond experience. Perhaps dreamdancer will boast that the dolphin counts as a protestor in an “Occupy Bolsa Chica Wetlands,” and that even the dolphins are anti-corporate.

I'm going with that one. Maybe he read about the decades of fights over developments on the bluffs and decided better late than never. That was the only beach I knew where you could frequently surf with dolphins.

Seems like a case for letting nature take its course, since this wasn't a man made trap. Or perhaps it's the one strike method - give him open ocean once and if he insists on going back into the wetlands, so be it.

[normiss 620]

Dammit.

I was thinking mahi mahi.

Now I'm hungry.

Thanks!

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

I'm aways perplexed why so many, will spend so much time and money trying To save dumb shit animals. (99% being whales and dolphins) There are so many humans who are much more deserving of the resorces.

I'm sure that there is VASTLY more money spent on taking care of humans then there is on animals.

And if people want to spend their own money on saving animals, that's their freedom to do so.

And we can actually do both - it doesn't have to be one to the exclusion of the other.

[Marinus 0]

Quote

I'm aways perplexed why so many, will spend so much time and money trying To save dumb shit animals. (99% being whales and dolphins) There are so many humans who are much more deserving of the resorces.

OTOH, people can't survive if the ecosystem collapses (too much). If the time comes we've to choose between saving the bee and saving 1.000.000 people, we better have our priorities right and save the bee. But I agree that animal right lobbies can by completely moronic. I've seen protests against the hunt of wild boar during periods of wild boar over-population.

"Because of the cute piglets..."

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

Quote

I'm aways perplexed why so many, will spend so much time and money trying To save dumb shit animals. (99% being whales and dolphins) There are so many humans who are much more deserving of the resorces.

OTOH, people can't survive if the ecosystem collapses (too much). If the time comes we've to choose between saving the bee and saving 1.000.000 people, we better have our priorities right and save the bee.

whales, dolphins, turtles all die on their own accord when they get stuck in a cave or a tiny body of water. This isn't about a collapsing ecosystem. Often these are sick or inferior individuals. We're not helping the species by protecting the ones that should be termed out. (leading to the subject of human de-evolution)

[Andy9o8 0]

Tax the dolphin. I'll bet he's from Mexico anyway.

[wayneflorida 0]

I'm very carefull about messing with animals.

Probability of getting charged with some kind of felony by an out of control fed or state wildlife official
is highly likely no matter what your intent.

[Shotgun 1]

I want to bring him home and cuddle him and call him my Squishy. I might need a bigger, saltier pool though . . .

Sounds like he may have been bullied:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/dolphin-wetlands-may-chased-rescuer-says-215446049--abc-news-topstories.html

We mess with nature in all kinds of ways. I don't see a problem with un-beaching whales. It sounds like they've tried to move this dolphin back to the open ocean, but for whatever reason he didn't go, so they're going to leave him alone for now. Well, not really "alone," with the massive amount of attention he's getting from people around there.

[Andy9o8 0]

Anyhow, if we save the dolphin, it's social engineering. Does that make it right? It's all about personal responsibility. Let him un-strand himself. Otherwise it's like welfare. Flipper, the welfare queen. It's sickening.

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

Quote

Anyhow, if we save the dolphin, it's social engineering. Does that make it right? It's all about personal responsibility. Let him un-strand himself. Otherwise it's like welfare. Flipper, the welfare queen. It's sickening.

Meh. We put them in an attraction, make them earn their herring.

And before anybody starts screaming about exploitation, the dolpin can leave anytime it wants to...

After it's earned enough to pay off the rescue costs.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[Namowal 0]

Quote

Well, not really "alone," with the massive amount of attention he's getting from people around there.

He's probably in negotiations for a reality show as we speak.

My blog with the skydiving duck cartoons.

[Zenister 0]

Quote

I'm aways perplexed why so many, will spend so much time and money trying To save dumb shit animals. (99% being whales and dolphins) There are so many humans who are much more deserving of the resorces.

perhaps the "dumb shit animals" are just trying to get anywhere where it is FUCKING QUIET for the first time in the last 100 years...

imagine living your entire life in a machine factory.. that is what whales hear all their lives in the industrial age.

and no just because you are human does not make you "more deserving of resources". A good portion of humanity is doing little more than stealing oxygen.

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[nanook 1]

Quote

Anyhow, if we save the dolphin, it's social engineering. Does that make it right? It's all about personal responsibility. Let him un-strand himself. Otherwise it's like welfare. Flipper, the welfare queen. It's sickening.

Now that I think of it. . .Ive noticed a bit more cadillacs on the I15 lately, with their turn signals permanently switched to the right, despite never changing lanes from the left-most lane.. I blame PETA.

_____________________________

"The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

[lawrocket 3]

Quote

perhaps the "dumb shit animals" are just trying to get anywhere where it is FUCKING QUIET for the first time in the last 100 years...

So why's the dolphin going where the waves are. That place is loud! Not to mention the animal had to swim under PCH to get there.

Trying to get away from noise? By swimming right AT the Naval Weapons Station?

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Zenister 0]

no idea why any particular animal does anything, but underwater the distances you are talking about do very little to change the 'volume'

beaching is another matter.

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[Shotgun 1]

Quote

He's probably in negotiations for a reality show as we speak.

And I would watch it! He's probaby more interesting than most other reality show stars . . .

[Namowal 0]

Quote

Quote

He's probably in negotiations for a reality show as we speak.

And I would watch it! He's probably more interesting than most other reality show stars . . .

And smarter too, even if he isn't the brightest dolphin...

My blog with the skydiving duck cartoons.

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

no idea why any particular animal does anything, but underwater the distances you are talking about do very little to change the 'volume'

How much time (any at all?) have you spent underwater?

Your above statement is quite false.