Last summer a pod of 16 dolphins swam up the Shrewsbury River in New Jersey. When winter came, they didn’t leave. So the Marine Mammal Stranding Center wanted to shoo them out. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said no. They were worried that trying to push the dolphins one way could make them go further under the ice–which has happened before. But in a broader sense their argument against action was: let nature take its course; we can’t save all the wild animals.
Now the fifth dolphin has turned up dead.
In January we knew of five left, then didn’t see them anymore.
So far scientists haven’t been able to conclusively id one of the dead dolphins as part of that pod since its 8 1/2 foot carcass has rotted so much.
The argument against hurting the dolphins by trying to rescue them seems to have fallen apart. All that’s left is the philosophical bent of NOAA. It doesn’t seem fair that since the marine mammal stranding center, whose whole expertise is helping these animals in New Jersey, wanted to do its job without any taxpayer support that NOAA should have gotten in the way.
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