I’ve been meaning to post this for several moths now. Clearly I’m not very good at the blog thing yet. Anyway, as promised in April, here is the companion video to the Whale Rally/Kristin Bauer piece. This video encompasses the the rest of the events that we covered on our trip to DC.
In this piece, IFAW’s CEO and President Fred O’Regan recounts his experience attending the Earth Day Network’s Climate Change Rally and what it was like to tell some 200,ooo people about the Obama administrations efforts to legalize whaling. Afterwards, Fred was fond of telling people that he opened for Sting.
Since I’m so late with this update, there is good news to report. The IWC conference has come and gone and the proposal was indeed defeated. Good news for IFAW and great news for whales. The bad news is that Japan, Norway, and Iceland will continue with whaling business as usual in defiance of the whaling moratorium. Lot’s more work to be done.
So I spent the last week in our Nation’s Capital celebrating Earth Day with IFAW. OK, maybe celebrating isn’t exactly right since IFAW is protesting the Obama Administration’s position on commercial whaling.
Turns out that the US is the strong arm behind a secret push to re-institute, (read legalize), commercial whaling in the 21st century.
To be fair to the administration, they inherited the agenda. At least that’s what I hear. But it looks like they are in full support of a measure that would end the moratorium on whaling and allow Japan, Norway, and Iceland to continue to “legally” hunt whales. There’s lots more I could say about this, but far more educated people than I have illuminated the subject. Here’s a few links.
On March 11th and 12th, I had the opportunity to document the efforts of IFAW’s Marine Mammal Rescue team while they attempted to rescue and release a reported 16 dolphins in two separate locations from the nastiest, deepest, quicksand-like mud I have ever stepped in. I have to say, I don’t want their job. Let me set the scene.
Thursday morning a call came in around 5 AM from a home owner in Wellfleet stating that he had seen a number of dolphins swimming in the cove off his house. The tide was going out and it looked like these animals were disoriented and confused.
When IFAW’s Marine Mammal Rescue team arrived at low tide, around 10 AM, they observed a number of animals stuck in the mud. It turns out that there were 8 white-sided dolphins stranded in Drummer Cove and another 6 to 8 at Lt. Island.
A pelagic species, the Atlantic white-sided dolphin is accustomed to open water. Apparently the dolphins get trapped by the unusual topography of the Cape. They follow their food in around the hook of the outer Cape. The coves of Wellfleet are like a hook within a hook. The dolphins swim in following the fish they feed on but can’t find their way out. They strand when the tide goes out from under them, leaving them stuck in the mud on the bottom.
This was the first time I’ve been out on a dolphin stranding. I’m acustomed to chalenging working cinditions, but this was unique, even for the experienced MMR team. The responders were literally in the mud up to their chest. And this wasn’t ordinary mud. This was a tar like suck-you-in-and-keep-you-forever type of substance. Mind you, I didn’t wade out in the stuff myself, it was too dangerous for anyone but a few responders to slog out to the animals that could be reached. But even the muck I stood in closer to shore was threatening to give way at any moment. At one point a soft spot pulled me in over my ankle and sucked the wadder right off my foot.
Only 2 of this group of eight could be reached safely. The other six had to be left. The hope was that they would be able to free themselves at the next high tide.
At Lieutenant Island another six were stranded. When we arrived to join the team already on site, two of the dolphins were already dead, but the team as able to save the other four.
With all of the rescued animals loaded into the trailers, we headed off to Herring Cove beach outside of Provincetown, the eastern most part of the Cape. As night fell, all six rescued dolphins were released back to the open waters of the Atlantic.
The following day at first light, the team headed back out to see what could be done about the animals that had been left the day before. But that’s a story for another post.
March 14, 2010 — Filed under: Personal — Tags: Personal, welcome — by The Management @ 6:52 PM
Hi,
Thanks for dropping by. I’ve finally gotten around to joining the bloggerati, albeit reluctantly. You see, I don’t really have anything to say. And if I did, I probably wouldn’t want to tell anybody. So this is some what of a conundrum for me.
I have been sick of my old site, languishing as it had been for a decade or so, and have been meaning to update it for years. Since WordPress has become so ubiquitous and easy to use, it made sense to revamp in that format. But now I have to use it to say stuff.
And who really cares what I have to say? Not me. So I’ll try to keep things interesting as we move along.
Most of what I’ll be posting will be related to the current state of filmmaking tech. and the random interjection of personal asides, as well as some domestic family stuff.
Hope you are mildly entertained and perhaps I’ll stumble on the rare nugget that enlightens.