Okay, so call me geeky, but here I am National Audubon Society Guide to Marine Mammals Of The World in hand (thanks sis!) ready to explain to you why I find these creatures amazing. This coudl result in a call for help or of anger.....not quite sure. Its a ramble, so pull up your chair settle in and feel free to take your time reading this, but please don't ignore. I'm going to be nice and limit my rant to dolphins. Now, I have a question. When someone says dolphins, what pops into your mind? Flipper? Those dolphins you saw smiling at six flags? Nope. Wrong answer. Commonly, Bottlenose Dolphins are the showcased dolphins. There are around thirty-five species of dolphins. And, though its not common knowladge, they all look different. For example, I'll give you a comparison between the bottlenose and a hectors dolphin. Bottlenose Dolphins are grey, hectors dolphins are light grey, dark grey, black and white. All at the same time. Another common error is the idea that a dolphin is a big fish with a beak. First of all, I'd like to say a dolphin is a MAMMAL and not a fish. Secondly, not all dolphins have beaks. Its about an even split between beaked (meaning their faces end in a pointy long nose, aka bottle nose dolphin) and dolphins with rounded heads. Now, to finish off the Hectors dolphin analysis, they live near New Zealand and their lifespan is about twenty years. And guess what? In the entire world, there are less the two thousand of them. That has decreased by fifty percent since the 1980's, or so it is estimated. Wonder what will happen in the next twenty years.....
Okay, so your saying "woo-hoo the hectors dolphin is dying. And you're a nerd. I get it. Whats your point?" My point is that in the greatly uneducated and immoral generation where ignorance is used as an escape, I'd like to at least attempt to instill in you some sense of the horrors that is the death of our marine mammal population, not just dolphins. Don't your kids deserve to wake up in a world where there are real polar bears and they arn't something grandpa or grandma talk about? Good luck with that. Studies show that the polar bear habitat could reasonably be wiped out totally by the end of this century, maybe less. If we're lucky a few years more. Yet what have our news stories been? "War In Iraq" and "Explosion of an Appartment Building". Our world is dying around us, but we'd rather cause more death instead of help the death already occuring. Does it make a difference if its animal or human? Oh, okay, humans can talk and complain. They can also produce things like the Holocaust and September Eleventh. An animal is as much God's creature as a human, in fact they were here before us if you want to get down to bible-beating. And at the moment, I am inclined to find them a more respectable form of life then this generation who would let them die and focus on killing themselves. Okay, I'll bring another species of dolphin to the table. Actually, though still dolphins, classified in a seperate catagory. These are freshwater dolphins. One such species is the Amazon River Dolphin. These dolphins swim through the amazon river and even through the trees of the surrounding rainforest when the rain floods the banks of the river. Another River dolphin is the Yangtze River Dolphin. I'd like to introdunce Qi Qi. Qi Qi is a Yangtze that has lived in captivty since 1980. He was saved from fishing hooks which tore him up and now is the only surviving dolphin in captivity. Or was. If he is still alive I am not sure.....not much has been learned through my research since the publication of this book in 2002. However, the number of yangtzes left in the world is only in the tens. Thats right. The maxium amount of dolphins left on this Earth is around 99. Thats it. But thats if we're lucky. The saddest part of this slaughter story is that we did it. Thats right. You and me and the rest of our human race. These dolphins are dying from pollution and careless fishing methods. Also, boats have heartlessly plowed through them and torn up the areas in which they live. Basically, humans have been destroying and killing off the species. The only effort to save them resulted in the opposite effect. A relocation by the Chinese Government to the "seminatural reserve" for protection resluted in ineffective catching and death of more dolphins. Exactly one dolphin had been caught as of 2002 and she died within six months of relocation. Now we hear murmors of the only river they inhabit being damed and I ask you, how can the world be so heartless? (Did i mention these dolphins are cute??)
I know that this may not have hit you as ahrd as it hit me, but please rethink your quick habit of saying you didn't do it and you don't plan on changing it. Don't leave it for someone else, because if everyone leaves it for someone else who ends up doing it? Also, you may not have been the driver of those boats or the bulder of the dams, but did you stop them? Did you even care to look? Or did you just rely on our society's method and seeming religion, one that is killing the world around us human and animal alike. The method and phrase that we base our lives on simply because its what those around us do? Did you honestly let yourself believe that our society is correct? The method i speak of is simple. Ignorance is bliss. But when it all comes down to it, tell me. When your children grow up in a world of poisoness air and non-exsistant animals then you come find me and tell me how blissful your selfish ignorance was.
