Dolphins are apex or top level predators. They are the natural control mechanism for the number of fish and squid and help to maintain the balance in the ecosystem. This balance is fine tuned and delicate. As all is interrelated you cannot affect one part without setting off a chain reaction accross the entire system. We are part of that system so it affects us too. The bottlenose dolphin, which is the preferred species in marine parks has been identified as the sentinel of coastal marine ecosystem. Reduce the number of sentinel and increase the threat to the system. It’s not rocket science. It is commonsense. It is like cutting your defence budget and removing the military from your border. Apparently because bottlenose dolphins eat such a wide variety of fish and squids they concentrate high quantities of contaminants in their bodies when there are high levels of contaminants in the water (see dolphins-world.com)
So dolphins are protectors of the coastline. Humans justify killing dolphins etc because they eat too many fish. They eat the fish that we want to catch and sell to make a profit. How dare the dolphins do what comes naturally to them and eat lots of fish. The problem with our species is that we want to eat and use everything. We want to swim in the ocean, put our boats on the ocean, eat the delicacies of the ocean, fly in the air, launch rockets into space, look at the possibility of living on another planet, dig deep into the earth for gems, put transport systems underground, overground, in the air. We refuse to recognise any boundaries.
This is the health and safety age with risk assessments but we only look at the surface and we shortsightedly only look at what affects us on the surface. If we were more sensible and people removed their chubby fingers from their pies and detached themselves from their destructive vested interests then we could begin to look at things holistically. Health and safety regulations tend to look at things in a linear way. Do this on this date in this way and this will happen at this point in time. Then the investigation goes backwards along linear time to identify the cause and the culpable. Then it takes the findings into account and moves forward in a linear fashion to monitor and try to safeguard the linear future. Investigators conclude and write reports specifying that this happened because of A and B interacting and causing C. But they do not take into account other factors that affected A or B which impacted on the situation.
But at a deeper level the planet, the cosmos does not function in linear time and space. We invented linear time with clocks that are round to symbolise its passage. We are comfortable with lines going from one point to another as a species. We like people to “tow the line”,” draw a line under things”, “step in line” – it makes us feel in control. Keep your focus on the straight and narrow of linear time and all will be well.
I dreamt of spirals last night. I was helping a teacher and I made a diagram of a situation and made a spiral to represent what had happened (I cannot be more specific about the subject matter of my dream. You know how the dream mind is…) When I went to pin my diagram of a spiral up, lines got involved, all got blurry, my flash of insight got contaminated and I ended up with a confusing blob which was of as much use as a chocolate fireguard.
I started thinking about my dream and this post is what emerged. Every action spawns a chain of reactions and most of these are not obvious or within our understanding. Taking dolphins or other creatures out of the ocean to stop them eating what we see as our resources or putting them in marine parks to “educate” people creates a wider chain of reaction. It is not a linear reaction but more of a spiral and at some point the arm of the spiral will touch us. Indeed it will again and again and again.
As above so below, as within so without.
Photocredit : AP/San Jose Mercury News
