And now the bad news. The first picture I've seen of a dolphin killed by the BP oil spill has hit the internet. A warning: this picture is graphic and may at the very least ruin your day. Click here.
The Australian government says it will lodge formal proceedings at the International Court of Justice in The Hague next week.
The move comes ahead of a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Morocco next month, where agreement is being sought on a new approach to whaling, which would allow commercial hunting but with strict quotas.
Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett and Attorney General Robert McClelland said in a joint statement that the move underlines their "commitment to bring to an end Japan's program of so-called scientific whaling".
Finally, Ann Weaver in Tampa wrote an article a few days ago about the effects of the spill on local dolphin populations. She reviews what little we know about the devastating damage the spill has done to the food chain, and speculates that dolphins will not be able (or willing) to leave the area.
From the article:
Couldn’t our adult dolphins just move, just head north or south where there was less oil or more food? Possibly. But even if the waters were unequally disturbed by the oil, and there were healthy waters to go to, dolphin psychology could keep the dolphins from fleeing the meltdown.
One, dolphins are pretty free-form but they do have habits. Changes during construction on the John's Pass Bridge further suggest that their habits die hard. They may stick to their habits despite diminishing food and water quality.
Two, dolphins live in home ranges, which are where they’re found most often. They may stick to their home ranges despite diminishing food and water quality. About sixty of the dolphins we’ve seen are residents who would stick around John’s Pass.
Finally, there’s the glaring psychological difference between humans and other animals: Humans move. Animals don’t. Granted, some animals migrate to another troop at maturity. But animals become endangered or extinct because, when humans destroy their habitat, the animals either have no place to go or don’t know to go.
Randy Wells of Mote Marine described our coastline as a mosaic of overlapping dolphin home ranges.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, our local dolphins found John’s Pass untenable and decided to move. They would encounter dolphins already living in every area they went. There are no free waters where “our” dolphins could go.
Another major concern of mine is the expansion and potential connection of dead zones. A dead zone is an area of water that is so depleted of oxygen that no sea creatures can live in it.
The Gulf of Mexico already has a dead zone the size of the state of Massachusetts, created by the fertilizers that get into the mighty Mississippi from America’s breadbasket and end up in the Gulf. Lesser dead zones (if there is such a thing) pock the Western Florida shoreline. God forbid these all get together.
A bleak forecast.
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