*Contains graphic images*
It has been a few weeks of sadness but then again this often comes with the territory in the marine conservation world. The images and videos you see not only can be upsetting, but they can make you question humanity as a whole at times. However, as with all campaigns the trick is not to get mad, or emotional, the trick is to fight with quantifiable facts and details that will help you win…. no matter how difficult that may be.
In the UK several whales have beached themselves recently and there is no reason why which is quite frightening in itself, not to mention the UK is not equipped for this, as their survival and rescue rate is not successful. Then again, it would be nice if they actually tried to get these amazing animals back into the water rather than stand there, watch, take pictures and take part in interviews. Marine conservation is not all about standing and doing nothing â ask Paul Watson.
This week, the whale world lost another because humans didn’t help the situation, they were just hoping that it would rectify itself â remind you of another situation where a Northern Bottlenose whale made it’s way down the Thames years ago? This whale made the news and even has it’s own website, but unfortunately didn’t survive.  Maybe it was to do with the water conditions, or perhaps that it had been spotted two days prior to it’s rescue attempt and no one did anything about it, until the final hours before its death. I would like to say that 10 years later the rescue attempts have improved, but it doesn’t look like it – I could be wrong though.
When you have an animal this big who has beaches themselves, is starving, dehydrated and exhausted it needs every help it can get. Waiting for the tide to rise, is not going to solve the problem.
Here are some details of what has happened recently:
Beached whale in Norfolk â February 2016
Whale found on Skegness beach â January 2016
Beaches whales are sprayed with inaccurate graffiti â January 2016
In other news, âPennyâ from The Big Bang Theory (Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting) is now fighting for the seals, which is awesome. Further details can be read here.
In Taiji, the dolphin hunt continues and while we have been seeing more blue coves than red, it is still not enough. The fact that pods are being driven into a cove, only the prettiest are selected for captivity and then the rest of the family is slaughtered in front of each other is unacceptable.
We often hear the old chestnut of eat a whale, eat a cow. Well while no animal should really be placed above another, cattle is bred for slaughter, their numbers are heavily monitored, how can anyone possibly know how many whales or dolphins there are in the world. You can record what comes out of the water, but how can anyone truly know how many there are in the oceans at this point in time? With a gestation of 13-15 months (for whales) how can these animals hope to repopulate in time for the next âslaughter seasonâ from those who defy the international ban on whaling either for commercial reasons (Japan) or due to some sort of a ritual (Faeroe Islands), especially as these animals only normally give birth to one calf at a time.
Letâs also look at what we can learn from these creatures. Perhaps we should be concentrating on the size and functionality of their brains, rather than the price their carcasses can fetch.
According to the WDC Research and observations in recent years have revealed that whales and dolphins not only have the ability to learn as individuals, but those individuals can then pass their new knowledge onto others. This is a rare intelligence in the animal kingdom.
If anyone has seen Blackfish they would have seen how strategic a pod of orcas can be, especially when hunting, it is like watching a military exercise.
These animals are an unnecessary delicacy and it is a simple case of take the fish out of the ocean, the oceans die. We gain 60-70% of our oxygen from the oceans – we cannot do this if the oceans are dead.
The oceans die, we die â itâs very simple.
In an attached segment, there is light on the horizon with regards to Ric OâBarry and his release from Japan. Japan are deporting him, it was discovered on 5 February 2016, but not before he was detained for 19 days and lost nearly 22lbs in weight.
You can read the full story here.
I would hate to think what this man has gone through, but he will be back, he was the first to uncover the atrocities of the cove and he has not given up. Along with the cove guardians, Sea Shepherd and countless celebrities such as Holly Marie Coombes and Shannon Dehorty, the world is watching â and their eyes are opening wider by the second.
The cove days are numbered.
Here is a reminder of what the international ban on whaling details.
In the UK the Marine Conversation Society is continuously supporting the establishment of marine protection zones (MPZ), and they also are a good source of information with regards to what is sustainable. You donât have to eradicate meat completely from your diet to be a marine conservationist, but you do need to know what is in danger of going extinct.