How time flies… May already. Still working on the MZ posts. A (figurative) cat’s got my tongue. Will let you know (by posting) once I wrestle free. In the meantime:
This month marks the second year since my blogging debut. Below is the piece that pushed me over the edge and onto the world wide web as part of a late majority? on the blogosphere.
Short version: I spammed my contact list with this little rant and it ended up in print media. Without my permission. It’s called ethics in Africa (yes! I am dumping on the motherland). The whole incident learned me a great deal though, and if I had to do it over again, I would do the same thing, making sure to include a disclaimer that said “not to be republished without author’s permission,” for those members of the School For The Gifted (SFTG) who don’t understand that a private email is just that!
Some may argue that I also belong to the SFTG if I put out something (remotely) controversial and expect it not to end up hurting me. Me? Am quite sadly delayed at quixotism central, and still some distance from the nearest exit.
Oh, I did follow up and discovered that there’s a disconnect between the journalists and the experts, so the messages and knowledge were not communicated effectively. Also, the journalists are not necessarily trained to report science stories, further diminishing quality of coverage. Hey, that’s what my research found, so from a lofty position of 20/20 hindsight 2 years on, no one was at fault. It was just kukosa bahati.
Of dead dolphins and (dead) science
Know what, I didn’t think i was a “bunny hugger” until I got terribly saddened at reading of the demise of HUNDREDS of dolphins in Zanzibar (last friday). Truly the end is nigh. Couldn’t hold back a shout of laughter though, when I read that “those who had eaten the dead dolphin meat were doing fine the following day“. Guess that is when the hard working fisheries officials concluded the dolphins were not poisoned, they were simply… lost. Well, glad to see we humans aren’t the only ones who are ‘lost’ and on the path to self-destruction.
So now, because we ate the money for the forensic labs, the Swedes (ok ok it’s us that I’m really mad at) took samples back to their labs in Sweden to test them there. What capacity will that build in Africa I wonder. And I don’t see these mass die-offs stopping, meaning that every time there’s one, the swedes will pick up the tab on the lab work, while we get a few starving fishers to eat the meat so we can determine whether or not the level of poison in the dolphins was high enough to affect a skinny chap after one meal. (note that there’s been a bi-lateral agreement in place for at least the past 10 years between Tanzania and Sweden to train marine scientists. Many have graduated from this program, but clearly… no one studied this aspect of marine science).
Of course it was sonar that killed them!! We just need to find and fine the culprits. Hmmm I wonder who would be pinging the waters of the indian ocean about now… very difficult to tell… THREE HUNDRED (and by other accounts, up to 600) DOLPHINS… how long will it take to bring back those numbers? Probably never. You know… that vanishing biodiversity story finally sinks in, how can it not when this example is so graphic? This means the dugong (mermaids) were probably also buggered and just unobtrusively sank to the ocean floor leaving the smart dolphins to swim ashore and inform us of the genocide (a la ‘hitchhiker’s guide‘).
And are we serious when we claim to have marine research institutes which can’t figure out conclusively what happened? (other than… whatever it was wasn’t ingested ’cause the dissected dolphin tummies were empty). They don’t have up-to-the-minute satellite info, they can’t trace toxic algal blooms/pollution spills or hotspots, they’re not listening underwater… So I suppose it would be difficult to know what happened to them.
And what of disaster preparedness? Isn’t this a natural disaster? Where are the rescue crews? No, not to rescue the dolphins (I’m not thaaaat much of a hugger) but to assist the villagers and fishermen in burying the carcasses (and giving people like me the chance to own a complete and flawless bottlenose dolphin skeleton – any entrepreneurs out there? lots of money to be made from this… just wait for the final tox results though- and cut me in on …10% of net). Oh, and let’s not forget that ever present fear that “it will affect tourism”. I know it would affect my consumption of seafood for a while. What a hoax! And the tragedy is that on any given day, we can decide to turn it all (this mess) around, and we CAN succeed.
Another priceless quote: “Residents had cut open the animals’ bellies to take their livers, which they use to make waterproofing material for boats.” Glad to see there were positive outcomes. Lakini, knowing that there was inevitably someone who was … no, not loitering but, ‘enjoying some leisure time at the beach’, why didn’t they raise the alarm or help the animals? Not that it would have mattered anyway, once they beach themselves they’re usually not interested in returning to deeper water…. besides, who would have come to help? Seriously though, we have to cease and desist being such hoaxes and allowing nothing (but corruption) to work in our countries!
Oh, but how can I stay upset for long when I find gems like this opening statement from Daily News in TZ: “In unprecedented move, about 300 dolphins were yesterday found dead in the Zanzibar waters of the Indian Ocean.” Then there’s the promising title of an article, “Cause of dolphins deaths to be made public today” in which a marine expert indicates: ”We are at a crucial stage of our investigations. We shall make public the report any time tomorrow (today),” and informs us the number of dolphins that died has been revised upward to over 600, and that divers who had been used in finding the dead marine wildlife ‘called off the exercise yesterday’, and finally lays bare the fact that we simply play at science and research by confirming that “The government [is waiting] for the results of the samples that were sent to Sweden to determine how they died”. Just two questions: does someone sit there and randomly pick stock phrases/expressions to insert into news stories? (yes dolphin brains are about as heavy as human brains, but still… ‘an exercise to find dead marine wildlife’??) And this “unprecedented move”, was it by the dolphins or by those who found them?
Another one: “Local residents say the north of the island has had strong winds and heavy rains, as well as big tidal water movement due to the new moon.” … last I checked, there was a tsunami a couple of years ago that was bigger than puny storm winds and spring tides, and we didn’t see this sort of thing.
Checked out a couple of pictures, one of a marine biologist dissecting a carcass (no protective clothing in sight), and another of someone (fisher?) wading in the water, among the dead dolphins…(not to mention the villagers spiriting away chunks of free meat). The dedication (to science and stomach) is great but let’s say maybe…. just maybe… it was a red tide that had killed SIX HUNDRED! Dolphins… would you really want to be in the water/touch them without some form of protection?
“We believe that the dead dolphins are the immigrants from Southern Africa. They are not Zanzibar dolphins, so Zanzibaris, and specifically the tourism department, should not worry, we still have our dolphins” [and aren't we glad to hear that nature has finally! socked-it-to southern africa? NATURE doesn't sleep!].
