Monday, August 17, 2015

Mirror Mirror On The Wall ... Who's The Smartest Mammal Of Them All?

This is one of those stories that reaffirms, to me, at least, that we are far from the smartest creatures on this planet …

Michael Riggio and Ivan Iskenderian, a couple of fishermen, found themselves in an amazing position while on their boat recently, and they have videos and selfies to prove it.

While on their boat in Middle Harbour, north of Sydney, Australia, they watched as whale began nudging the craft, and then circling the boat and swimming beneath it. When the whale came closer, the two men noticed that there were garbage bags and fishing lines caught in the whales mouth and he, or she, I guess, seemed to be asking for help in removing them. Riggio grabbed his camera while Iskenderian leaned overboard to help the whale.

Another man, Ron Kovacs, was fishing in a boat opposite the young men when the whale made his first appearance near the side of his boat, seemingly asking for help, before the whale tried the other fishermen.
“He just popped his head up so you could reach out and remove the garbage. He tried on my boat but we are a bit higher. I made one grab for the bag but missed. He was very inquisitive and more interested in us. You could see that big eye coming out watching us. They are not dumb for sure.” — Ron Kovacs
As the whale made its way over to the Riggio and Iskenderian's boat, Kovacs captured it on his camera, and once Iskenderian had removed the garbage from the whale’s mouth, he, or she, swam away, but not before flapping a fin … in appreciation.

Who’s smarter now? The ones who fill the oceans and the land with garbage, or the great whale that knew who to ask, and how to ask, for help?

Daily Mail

8 comments:

  1. Wish I had kept the story but recently read of a 22-yr-old student who has worked out a way to clean large amounts of garbage from the oceans. So there is hope out there!

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  2. @TDM
    Fingers crossed!

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  3. humans are filthy disgusting pigs!

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  4. I try to recycle and use tote bags as often as possible, but so many people don't even try. Glad this was a happy ending story, at least!

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  5. An amazing amount of animals come to us to request help.

    As the human race goes, we need to step up on using less and recycling more.

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  6. We are so busy trying to rid the planet of all its wildlife and resources to make money for the 0.01% that we haven't noticed that we are heading for the extinction of the maddest species of all - ourselves.

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  7. Well, geez, don't group all of us humans into one category and say we are ALL stupid. Also, I'm sure that the issue with humans polluting the Earth is more human cruelty or apathy, not always stupidity (except in the case of climate change deniers, then there's stupidity).

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  8. @Master Markus
    Throwing your garbage away anywhere except where it should be thrown away is stupid, and when it adversely affects an innocent mammal, then I'll continue to call it stupid.
    I mean, a plastic bag that someone got from their local grocer ends up caught in the mouth of a whale because they couldn't recycle it? Stoo-pid.

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