Save Them? Or Let Them Suffocate?

February 19th, 2009 · 1 Comment

Dear Department of Fisheries and Oceans,

Canada is watching you…do not disappoint us.

UPDATE: Looks like good ol’fashion Canadian free will saved these dolphins!

Although the Mayor asked for the Fisheries Department to send an icebreaker, the department said that there were none available and their “experts” claimed that the icebreakers would stress the dolphins out too much. In other words, they weren’t going to do a damn thing about it. How sad! Now, don’t get me wrong, I fully understand that this is one of those natural occurrences - kind of like when a mother bird pushes the weak out of her nest - but just like humans have the power to destroy dolphin populations through hunting we also have the power to rescue…so why not interject and save them?

I love the conclusion to this story…

A local fisherman and a 17-year old boy, Brandon Banks, will be telling their rescue story for generations to come; when the government failed, they stepped up to the plate and emerged as heroes.

The cries of distress kept residence awake at night and on the evening of the 19th 2 guys decided to do something about it! Using the 18-foot trawler boat theys managed to cut a path out for the dolphins to swim to freedom. Reports say that 2 of the dolphins followed them immediately, but the 3rd one was too weak and tired…so the 17 year old wearing “a survival suit, jumped into the water and the dolphin just kind of attached to him and wrapped his flippers around him, like a friend or a mate,” the mayor’s wife told The Associated Press. Brandon then lead the dolphin to freedom.

“In the end, it wasn’t experts or the government, it was us, the people, who made the decision to rescue them,” said May. “In Newfoundland, you don’t think about yourselves, you think about others and this time, we were just thinking that we couldn’t let these dolphins die.”