COLIN/COLINETTE

Six days ago a young humpback calf wandered into Pittwater, a bay area just North of Sydney Harbour, and a playground for the well off.
It had clearly been separated from its mother and was lost.

Enter Australia’s finest, the NPWS (National Parks and Wildlife Service) and the catalogue of incompetence, rivalled only by fuckwit Iemma and his cronies in the NSW Labor Government, began.
We’ll fast forward to yesterday, some five days after the initial sighting of the distressed young whale. A day when they discovered he wasn’t in fact, Colin, so much as Colinette, a she.
Good work NPWS – only five days.

Back to the beginning.
Colinette, as I mentioned, drifted into Pittwater obviously lost and in distress, and began to swim up to any boats in the area that resembled the size of her mother.
The NPWS watched, and in their oh so important epiletted uniforms, discussed what to do.
One day turned into two; two into three; into four.
The young whale was starving to death while the “experts” (I have such fucking contempt for these people) sought advice from...well, fuckin everybody. Meantime, the whale starved and in its way, as a frightened child might, pleaded for help, demostrated by its constant nudging against the hulls of boats. A heart-tugging sight.
The NPWS continued to procrastinate. They set up an exclusion area to prevent those who had the wherewithal and desire to help, from coming near the terrified young whale.
At no time did they attempt to feed the hungry infant, despite having a precedent in America where they did exactly that. They watched it starve and as its health deteriorated, they wrung their collective hands and said, “there’s nothing we can do”. So not so much a “can do” attitude as “can’t do” then…
Six days later, they put the helpless animal to death.

The public were divided into two groups; one side claiming it was nature at work and people need to get over it, the other outraged at the NPWS’s apparent lack of action in helping the animal and it’s eventual destroying it.

The first group are a mixture of callous and indifference and are the sorts of people who if they own a dog for example, keep it outside. They cite examples in nature where this happens often. We know nothing about it, they argue. And they’re right –it does. Nature is very harsh at times. But on this occasion it didn’t. It occurred in full view of us and it is, (or at least, is in my world) incumbent on us as rulers of the planet to do what we can to protect those that can’t protect themselves – no matter what species. They should have towed it out to the migration lanes and waited. Sooner or later an adult would’ve appeared. They cruise up and down that coast all year round. True, they do have a “season’ as it were but also, it’s not unheard of for individuals just expelled from the group to be nomadic.
And if the worst was to eventuate and a surrogate didn't appear, well, at least they tried. Here they didn't. Didn't do a fucking thing - just let it suffer while they dawdled, the destroyed it.
They should've fed it, at least for the short term, to give it some breathing space. But no, the experts froze, completely stunned in their incompetence.

The second group have, judging by the radio calls I heard, the animal’s best interest at heart and fail to see how something can’t be done.

The geniuses with the university degrees (what, in sinking piss and rutting each other like pigs…?) towed the animal out to sea at one point and…left it. Sort of, “Ok, this’ll do”.
The whale followed them back, alone and frightened, seeking help.
The experts were stumped.
This was about incompetence and money, make no mistake. They didn’t want to spend the money they use to fund their cars and “educational” trips on just a whale.
It fine when they’re reaping it in while the whales migrate, when they charge king’s ransoms to send out their boats to whalewatch but when the time comes to step up and help one of the money making machines…
Tough shit for Colin/Colette.