Surfing With Friends

What's small, black and white, and enjoys surfing with friends? No, not a baby zebra on a surfboard. (Please ignore the picture. It's a mistake. The answer is not a dolphin.) Unfortunately. Can zebras even surf? Are there even zebras living by the sea? Hmmmm... There should be, even if there aren't.

But anyways, let's leave such essential questions of the universe for later. The answer to the riddle wasn't penguins, either, in case you were wondering. Though they fill the requirements a bit more thoroughly than baby zebras. The asnwer is the most endangered dolphin in the world: the Maui's dolphin. (Fooled you, didn't I?) There are fifty five of them left hanging around New Zealand's West Coast, and the number steadily decreasing due to the use of nylon fishing nets, which entangle them, strangle them, and eventually kill them as they sturggle, every movement just entrapping them further...
Cheerful, right?
Many researchers predict an unhappy future as well. It's likely they'll go extinct in 20 years unless we use one of the most cliched lines of all time: unless we do something about it. The New Zealand government has proposed plans for a ban on these fishing nets within a 450 km range, but conservationists have lashed back violently, saying that these plans merit a death sentence for the dolphins, as they don't cover enough of their range. They want a bigger area covered to guarantee full protection.
What do you think? Should people be satisfied with the government's plan and see that as a starting point for more? Or should one, big, plan be passed guaranteeing absolute safety for these undoubtedly cute critters? (Sorry, Blobfish!)

The Glasswing Butterfly

A Miscellaneous Post

How big is a blue whale?
Bigger than a pen? Bigger than a (normal-sized) book? Bigger than your computer screen?
Pro tip: the answer is yes. But you already knew that.
In fact, here's a great link that shows you just how big a blue whale really is.
That's really it. I just wanted to share that site.
And this one.
And this one too.
And these.
In fact, here's another one.
Be careful of this one. It bites.

Blogging Challenge Day 1: The Baiji Dolphin

I have to say, this extinct animal is the closest to my heart. When I heard that it had gone extinct, I cried. I'm saying that unashamedly now, but really, in 2007, it affected me that deeply that an entire species has disappeared, and only through our actions. And I would still cry now, if I heard it. The baiji dolphin lived only in the Yangtze. However, through recent years, the longest river in Asia, and third longest in the world, has become more and more polluted through human activities. The lakes dried up. Water became filthy. This once pristine river, the domain of the emperor's barges, is now- well, I'll let the picture say it all. How could the baiji river dolphin, partially blind, and sometimes called the Goddess of the Yangtze survive? A traditional Chinese folktale believes the baiji to be the reincarnation of a princess who drowned herself when her family forced her to marry someone she didn't love. The baiji's white skin is valued for handbags. In the 1950s itself, its population was estimated at only 5,000 individuals. Finally, in 2006, a research expedition from the Baiji Foundation traveled the 2,000 miles of the Yangtze river with all sorts of fancy equipment and couldn't find a single specimen. They declared this beautiful white dolphin functionally extinct. That means that even if a few individuals were left, as they probably were, they were either too old or too few or too far apart to regrow the population. In 2007 a businessman reported a video of a large white creature that was later confirmed to be a baiji. However, as I said previously, there are probably too few individuals left. A whole species is about to disappear, has disappeared, or something like that. No one can know for sure.
There might not be hope for the baiji dolphin, but that doesn't mean hope should be given up. There's another unique cetacean of the Yangtze: the finless porpoise. Let's not be too late this time. If we all work at it, let's make sure that the Yangtze river is not robbed of yet another priceless treasure.


The Glasswing Butterfly