All 8 of the dolphins that were washed into the Gulf when their aquarium was over-flooded by Katrina have now been rescued . . . touch and go with Rita coming!
GULFPORT, Miss. (CNN) – The last four dolphins still missing after Hurricane Katrina destroyed an aquarium on the Mississippi Gulf Coast were recovered by biologists and trainers Tuesday in the Gulf of Mexico.
They were the last of eight dolphins swept away from the Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulfport when Katrina blasted the coast Aug. 29. The animals were unfamiliar with finding their own food and lacked the survival skills needed to live in the wild, trainers said.
The other four were rescued last week. All eight are being placed in a U.S. Navy facility in Gulfport, in a special pool used for Navy dolphins. (Posted 7:11 p.m.)
Getting vitamins and medication before rescue:
Practicing being rescued by jumping onto a floating raft:
Oh, for shame! Was NO ONE interested in the plight of these poor creatures?
They had to fight their way through the rubble of the grandstand and ceiling that had fallen into their pool, swept away by a 30-foot wave containing building debris and God only knows what else, then lost about 100 pounds each from starvation, and it was only a miracle that the danged sharks didn’t kill them.
Could we not have had some tiny bit of sympathy for them? Could no one even spare a “good show!” for them?
It wasn’t like they chased them down with a net, you know. The little guys participated in their own rescue by jumping onto the rescue raft!
How many of us would have that kind of motivation??? Or talent??? Or trust???
Hmpf. And you wonder why I don’t bother starting threads.
Yes, they did. Some of them didn’t even know the others, but they joined up in a support group and stayed together. Some were injured with serious lacerations–all the more wonder sharks didn’t get them.
They were thought to have perished, but they were discovered on aerial photography not far from their aquarium.
The films of them as the rescuers approached the first time showed them leaping joyously out of the water.
Some of these dolphins were born in the aquarium and had never been outside in the wild before. It must have been frightening for them.
I enjoy dolphins. There is a pod that rests at high tide at night in a little indentation in the seawall outside my place. I can hear them carrying on out there in the middle of the night. Daytime, they cruise past with their kids. Two of them have a new baby. He’s only about 3 or 4 feet long. The parents swim side by side and the baby swims between them, right in front of their flippers. Very cool.
