No matter how many rules and protocols and jurisdictions and governments and agencies and organizations humans create, sometimes nature just refuses to co-operate.
When a dead 23-metre-long blue whale washes up on shore, whose responsibility is it to clean up?
That’s a debate that recently raged in two towns on the west coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.
A 60-tonne carcass washed up on the beach of Trout River and began to rot not far from waterfront businesses and restaurants.
In Rocky Harbour, a 20-metre blue whale carcass washed ashore in Gros Morne National Park.
Blue whales are the largest animals in the world. Though the carcasses were something of a tourist attraction at first, residents of the towns grew increasingly concerned that the gas trapped inside the carcasses might make them something of a blubber bomb just waiting to go off.
Not to mention the stench of the rotting cetaceans getting stronger with each passing day.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans said it will be removing the carcasses, putting the blubber in a landfill and driving their skeletons and tissue samples to a Toronto museum. The DFO will take DNA samples to determine if the whales are part of a group that died after they were trapped in thick sea ice earlier in the spring.
The carcasses present a rare chance people to learn more about the creatures — it’s just too bad they couldn’t stay in Newfoundland.
While there’s an upside to an unfortunate situation regarding wild animals in Newfoundland, the discovery of nine eagle carcasses in a ditch near Kamloops is anything but positive.
Conservation officers are asking for tips from the public in its investigation after the mutilated remains of eight bald eagles and one golden eagle were discovered last month. Each had its head, feet, tail feathers and wings removed.
Although eagles are considered to have a secure population in B.C., more incidents of this magnitude could upset the population and accelerate its decline.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Report All Poachers and Polluters line at 1-877-952-7277.
Over the winter, poaching prompted a Vancouver Island First Nation to offer a $25,000 reward for information that would lead to the killers of elk in their area.
A dozen of the elk had been transplanted to the area around Port Alberni and Barkley Sound to create a sustainable population there. However, a number of their carcasses turned up over the winter, raising concern that the sustainable population wouldn’t be so sustainable if faced with poachers.
While some of the poached elk looked professionally butchered, some were only partially harvested and some were just abandoned.
These animals were killed without any sanctions and, it would seem, without any idea of the consequence a harvest of that size could have on the population.
You don’t have to be a wildlife expert to know that it is irresponsible to kill animals in this way.
You also don’t have to be a tree-hugging, anti-hunting vegan to be troubled by this kind of indiscriminate killing.
