Daily Quick Read - August 20, 2019

Dugong Death by Plastic

The eight-month old dugong appears to have been lost, possibly chased out of her normal feeding territory by an adult dugong.  Complicating the situation was her ingestion of plastic waste that resulted in the infection that killed her.

The baby dugong, which washed up in waters off southern Thailand months ago, has died from a stomach infection caused by swallowing bits of plastic. Marium's death once again casts a spotlight on plastics in the ocean.

An 8-month-old dugong, which had won the hearts of many people after being found on a southern beach in Thailand in April, has died from an infection caused by plastic in her stomach and intestines, officials said on Saturday.

Marine biologists said the baby dugong's death was caused by a combination of both shock and indigestion.

The female dugong — a large ocean mammal — was named Marium. She gained celebrity status in Thailand after images of biologists rescuing and feeding her milk and seagrass went viral on social media.

According to Chaiyapruk Werawong, the head of Trang province marine park, Marium died just after midnight after going into shock as efforts to resuscitate her failed. "She died from a blood infection and pus in her stomach," he said, adding that small amounts of plastic waste were found in her intestinal tract.

Maybe We Should Just Leave Them Alone

Human interaction with dolphins in marine parks has been under constant attack, but what about the impact of human interaction with marine mammals in their natural environment.  It’s not very beneficial either.

Off the coast of Bunbury in Western Australia, tourists wade waist-deep to get close to wild Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins, which show up day after day, lured by fish given out by volunteers.

The dolphins in Bunbury are under threat by boat traffic and an expanding port. Over the next 20 years, their population of about 200 individuals is expected to dwindle by 50 percent. While it would be easy to think a handout will save these imperiled dolphins, new research by Valeria Senigaglia, a doctoral student at Murdoch University in Australia, suggests this tourism-focused feeding program is doing more harm than good.

“Among the many variables that can affect the survival of a calf, apparently, having a mother fed at the beach for tourism purposes is the most detrimental,” says Senigaglia.

Why Not Just Get Your Sand at Home Depot?

Sand theft is actually a global problem.   Nature makes sand at a much slower pace than humans are using it.  But, this case isn’t about sand for construction or electronics or any useful purpose.  It’s just a couple of yahoos taking home 90 pounds of prime beach sand as a souvenir.

A French couple is facing years of jail time after stealing almost 90 pounds of sand from Sardinia, the Italian island known for its picturesque beaches. The alleged thieves told police they were taking the sand home because they wanted to keep it as a "souvenir," Italian media reported.

According to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, two French citizens poured white sand into 14 plastic bottles from Chia, a beach in southern Sardinia, and put them in the trunk of their SUV.  The couple wanted to take it home as a memory of their vacation, but instead were caught on a ferry en route to Toulon, France.

"Sandy beaches are one of the main attractions of Sardinia," a local environmental scientist told the BBC. "There are two threats: one is due to erosion, which is partly natural and partly induced by the increasing sea level due to climate change; the second is sand stealing by tourists."

Sand Graffiti is a Thing

                                                                                                             Tottori prefecture

In Japan the locals are very serious about their beach sand and believe that tourists need to be respectful of nature.  Of course, some tourists can’t help themselves – the Instagram disease.

Local authorities in Japan have drawn a line in the sand amid anger over a rise in graffiti by foreign tourists disfiguring its pristine coastal dunes.

Tottori, a prefecture (county) on the Japan Sea coast, banned the defacement of its sand dunes – a major tourists attraction – a decade ago, but the local government said there had been a dramatic rise in “sand graffiti” in recent years as the area attracts more visitors from overseas.

The prefectural government said it would erect more foreign-language signs urging visitors looking for the perfect Instagram memento not to vandalise the dunes, which cover a 16km stretch along the coast.

More than 3,300 incidents of “sand graffiti” have occurred in the last decade – including more than 200 last year – according to the Mainichi Shimbun. In January, a couple from overseas were ordered to erase a 25-metre-long message that read “Happy Birthday Natalie”. Other graffiti have been erased by local officials and volunteers, the newspaper added.

Broken Promises Litter the Land

Canada has almost as bad a record in its treatment of the “first people” as we have in the US.  Broken treaties, land theft and all the rest.  Here is a brief history of broken promises and exploitation in British Columbia.  

Out of desperation, Blueberry River continues to seek protection for the last few intact wilderness areas in court, claiming that their treaty with Canada, signed in 1900 in reaction to the depredations of the Klondike gold rush, has been breached.

The following nonfiction comic was more than a year in the making, and is published now as a court case brought by Blueberry River continues to wind through B.C. Supreme Court with a potentially precedent-setting decision coming in 2020.