ECOWATCH: Mothers must become Mother Nature’s teachers
Ode to Delphinus:
She swims in warm salt waters, her baby being fed. Her search for food and safety gave way to ominous dread.
She met with human cruelty and death became her plight. Trusting ways had harmed her and took away her might.
Delphinus’ blood-stained journey so shattering to the core, a friend of blue waters to nurse and mother no more.
Gardin poet
This Mother’s Day celebration will be saddened by the recent news of a lactating dolphin that recently washed up on a Fort Myers beach.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a necropsy found that the dolphin had been impaled in the head with a spear-like object while alive. The agency suspects that by the shape and size of the wound, the dolphin was likely being fed illegally.
There was no news on the fate of the young calf that was dependent on its mother for feeding four times each hour for the first eight days. Mothers continue to nurse their calves for up to 18 months.
Feeding wild dolphins is a dangerous habit started by boaters to bring dolphins closer to their boats for pictures. Begging is not a natural behavior of dolphins. While this foolish pastime might be fun for some boaters, it is putting dolphins at risk. Many fishermen do not want to be bothered by dolphins that might be scaring fish away from their area.
Anger and frustration by some fishermen or deranged persons may be behind the wanton slaughter of 27 dolphins since 2002 in the Gulf of Mexico. According to the NOAA, some of the 27 stranded dolphins showed evidence of being shot once or twice in the head, struck by arrows or impaled with sharp objects. Only one offender was apprehended, a teenager who admitted shooting a hunting arrow into a dolphin in Orange Beach, Florida in 2014.
Keep in mind that 27 dolphin killings may seem to some to be a small number of incidents, but these were just the dolphins that had been stranded. Others may have sunk or been eaten by other creatures of the sea, never to be listed.
On the heels of the recent killing of the dolphin in Fort Myers, another heartless act of cruelty against a stranded dolphin on Quintana Beach in the Gulf of Mexico some six miles east of Freeport took place on April 16. There a crowd of beachgoers dragged a stranded bottlenose dolphin back into the water and then attempted to swim with her and ride the sick animal. The dolphin died. If you observe anyone harming dolphins or other marine animals, call the NOAA enforcement hotline at 800-853-1964. Rewards are being offered. So if you see something, say something.
The question is, how and in what span of time did so many humans revert to their own form of beastiality against dolphins and other wildlife species?
Dolphins were revered in Greek mythology with paintings and association with the sea god Poseidon. Dolphins were also associated with the Greek poet and musician, Arion, whose life was saved by dolphins after he was thrown overboard by pirates.
The dolphin was so esteemed it became one of 48 constellations catalogued by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in his 2nd Century treatise called Almagest. Unlike many other constellations, Delphinus (i.e., the dolphin) actually resembles the sea animal it depicts, making it easily recognizable in the night sky.
The almost daily news reports of wanton acts of cruelty toward our fellow earth creatures are troublng. How did it become okay to kill, torture or maim animals? What is happening or what is not happening? And how can we possibly change the downward spiral of inhumanity toward our fellow creatures?
One simple solution is to instill the love and care of nature in children when they are at a young age. Mothers are the ones to take the lead, as they are the main nurturers in families, hence, Mother Nature. (But fathers are not off the hook. They will be featured in a Father’s Day article.)
Many poets and writers have offered advice on how to instill the love of nature in a child. To wit:
“We must teach our children to smell the earth, to taste the rain, to touch the wind, to see things grow, to hear the sun rise, and night fall, to care.”
John Cleal
“Our challenge isn’t so much to teach children about the natural world, but to find ways to sustain instinctive connections that they already carry.”
Terry Krautwurst
Above all, we should be teaching children to be kind to animals and people alike. Take the little ones for a walk in the woods, pointing out animals and their environment and the need for their existence. Also consider taking a stethoscope with you and letting them place it on a tree bark to listen to the sounds of a tree. Invaluable. Take a bird book with you and point out the different species of birds in your area.
Read to them stories of kindness and appreciation of nature. Black Beauty, Lassie and Aesop’s Fables will make them think and open them to the beauty of nature, while the TV is given a back seat. Just maybe the lessons of kindness will replace acts of cruelty in later years.
And on a starry night in late summer in the Northern Hemisphere, have them look to the sky for a faint star that forms a kite shape with a tail. The little dolphin appears to leap out of the night sky. Delphinus is now free from harm and dancing in the sky.
