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Introduction - Cetacean Circumstances |
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It was bright and cool when the world came into being. I knew only
three things; A deep love for my mother, freedom happiness, and
a need to breathe. Soon there was the first pain of hunger. As I
grew, I learned this pain could be concealed by the joy of play,
at least for a small time. |
Gliding
through reefs and food shoals with my family is busy fun. The big
light passed over many times before I grew knowing the many dangers
of being. Knowing what floaters do to our space took great time
and difficult understanding.
Long the family remembers, we have flowed with the deep blue. It
changes. Flavours surround us that offend. The wise say, it was
not always so. They tell; many ages the blue was clear and clean.
Always were the muddy places, more when the grey falls too long
on the green. Rare times, when mountains above or in the deeper
blue burn. We leave. To stay, is to be sick or die.
Now many spaces like this. Spaces to avoid. Desolate, sick spaces.
Once happy growing, we played there. The taste of sickness spreads.
Floaters come, bad flavours come.
Each cycle we glide further, find less food. Shoals disappear. The
wise say; floaters take more, then more. Soon there will be none.
Don't floaters grow understanding, this cycle of life?
Gliders play busy fun, rejoice the living, the being. Having never
played with a floater, I know only what my family tells. Some floaters
come to play and glide with us in the shallows. Floaters are slow,
loud, awkward and not very smart. How can it be that they are now
so many? Still we play, we share, always busy fun.
Since the world came into being, three times I have felt the great
loss. The first, when I was still new, I watched as a brother became
trapped in the almost invisible threads of a floater's drifting
shoal catcher. He left the blue and did not return. Starving after
eating the empty jellyfish another of the family left us slowly.
A sister playing with floaters was wounded by a floater's wave-ripper
only a cycle ago. The wound was large, like many shark's teeth,
we all felt her pain. She passed into the black depths before the
world came into being for the new one.
The wise ones say that I am young, and that I still grow my knowing.
I remember love those gone and still play busy fun chasing shoals
among the reefs. Gliders watch the changes, treasure the moments
of living, the happy being, the now. |
Some
Lifestyle Hazards for Dolphins
(and other Cetaceans) |
- Driftnet
and other forms of commercial fishing kills thousands of dolphins
annually.
- Dolphins
are still killed by fishermen in some parts of the world to
prevent them from interfering with, or diminishing catches.
- Pollution
in the form of untreated sewage, oil spills and toxic chemicals
can directly effect the health of dolphins also indirectly by
poisoning the marine food chain.
-
Storm water drains discharge plastic bags and other potentially
hazardous waste into the marine environment.
- Direct
and indirect human interference can disturb dolphin populations
and disrupt breeding. Every year numerous dolphins are injured
through human leisure (boating) activities.
- Dolphins
are still held in captivity for entertainment and research.
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