Showing posts with label dolphins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dolphins. Show all posts

South Australian Beaches are Ecologically Toxic

Dead fish on South Australian beaches gives bad conservation image.
When marine animals wash up on the shore dead what does a state government do about it? It tries do deny it and cover it up! Maybe it will stop in time - unfortunately it continues. The thousands of small fish dead on the beaches are bad enough, but dolphin corpses are found as well, even some penguins.
Dead fish on beach Port River Adelaide.
The location is on the South Australian coast near the Port River, Adelaide.  Recently, a grieving female dolphin was seen nuzzling her dead baby, a terrible sight. A concerned PHD student, Nikki Zanardo, is investigating the issue. There is a worrying mystery here. Why has the state government sent dolphin samples to New Zealand? Tests could have been done in South Australia. If herbicides or industry poisoning is at fault, it will all come out eventually. You cannot hide anything today.

It is not right that consumers are allowed to eat seafood when there is a possibility that dangerous biological toxins are the cause. If dolphins can die so can humans. We are both mammals after all. Apparently test results will take up to a month. Tests should be done on fresh fish at the markets immediately to make sure it is safe to eat. The South Australian government will be liable in the event of a medical emergency.
 Ecology by Ty Buchanan 
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Whales Continue to Beach Themselves

Why do Whales beach themselves? The theory is that some coastal regions are shallow so sonar does not bounce back to the animals to tell them to keep away. This is only a theory. There seems to be no way of stopping the mammals from laying themselves on the sand to die a painful death. Dragging them out to sea is an attempt to save them, but they continue toward the beach again within hours.

A few days ago killer whales beached themselves on sandbars near Fraser Island. Three of them died. Fishermen have been told to keep their boats well away from the animals. They are trying to find deeper water. The hope is that open sea will attract them and they will move away from the shallow sand.

Apparently when a whale beaches, the whole pod panics. The presence of boats, particularly motorized ones, stresses them more. One would have thought that evolution would have "bred" out the beaching trait. The numbers who die each year on beaches is obviously not high enough to affect the breeding population so those with the trait pass it on to the next generation.

It is feared by many people that beaching could lead to extinction of species. There is no possibility of this as the number who swim safely along the coasts remains very large. It is good for people to try to save them. Unfortunately, humans cannot change nature.

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Conservation
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Dolphins Practice Whale-Talk at Night

Dolphins and whales are related. When dolphins are sleeping they show this. In the day they are quite unlike whales. Dolphins show off by jumping, swimming and catching balls. At night, however, they appear to "speak" a whale language.

The sounds they express closely resemble the humpback whale song. They only do this after they have heard the song. The song was in a soundtrack played during a performance for the public. This is an indication how all mammals deal with new things. The brain works on new things below the level of consciousness.

So well imitated were the whale sounds that tests done on them by volunteers showed people thought they were real whale sound. Dolphins mimic other types of sounds during the day, but they tend to zero in on whale sounds at night showing the evolutionary link.
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Marine