Lessons from Colin the Baby Humpback Whale
August 22nd, 2008 by Ingrid Cliff
A personal rant this morning. Steve Irwin would be rolling in his grave over the handling of Colin the baby humpback whale separated from his mother in the Pittwater in Sydney.
This is a situation of political correctness over knowing and using the right protocol gone horribly wrong.
Over the hundreds of years where we have kept animals in captivity we always learnt by trial and error. Our animal handling protocols were developed because we tried different things … sure we failed, but we learnt from those failures and now we can keep our baby endangered pandas, tigers and other animals alive because of our efforts.
By sitting on our hands and watching this baby starve to death we are no better than the Japanese whalers killing for scientific research. Where has the Aussie spirit of giving it a go gone?
However I also feel for the National Parks & Wildlife people. They are trying to do the right thing but don’t have the organisational and political flexibility to allow left field solutions in. Allowing people to try to help and potentially fail would have been better than blocking them. They have a PR disaster on their hands that will take them years to recover from.
So what impact has this had on my family? I was talking with my kids in the car this morning, trying to help them to work out the lessons from Colin. We ended up with the lesson that in life you have to try even if you think you are going to fail. Trying with even a slim chance of success is more useful and important than giving up and not bothering to try. We always miss 100% of the shots we don’t even attempt to make.
To put it into practical kids thinking, they decided that in class if they don’t know the answer to something it’s better for them to try and work it out or put up their hand and ask for the answer, rather than sitting silently and then writing in the answer later, because that is what Colin has taught them.
If nothing else, the lessons from Colin have given my kids a useful lesson in life.
Until next time
Ingrid Cliff
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This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 8:06 am and is filed under Heart Harmony. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Hi there Ingrid,
I have watched the plight of dear little baby Colin all week. I was furious mid week when a gentleman appeared on the national news having bought a heap of milk for Colin. The authorities would not let him near Colin so that he could feed him.
All the authorities achieved in their bumbling about was to distress the little whale and starve him. Why were no efforts made to feed him?! A U.S. whale expert who successfully saved a bay whale by feeding it tried to help by offering his advice. An Aboriginal “whale whisperer” also tried to help and could not understand why more was not done for Colin.
I am glad that you mentioned Steve Irwin. I firmly believe that if he was still with us, he would have flown into Sydney at the first opportunity he had and would have attempted to feed the poor little bugger. I too believe Steve would be turning in his grave over this entire situation.
I put my money where my mouth is and donate as much money as I can afford to various animal charities (e.g. WSPCA, WWF, RSPCA, WIRES etc). I also adopt starving and abandoned domestic animals.
The way in which Colin’s very short life was ended is nothing short of disgusting. They couldn’t even euthanize him quietly, instead distressing him further and making a spectacle out of him.
What happened to Colin is a disgrace to New South Wales and a disgrace to Australia.
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:59 am
My heart bled over this. I deliberately avoided the news yesterday, knowing what they were going to do. I totally agree with you. Instead of naming him, save him! Something was very wrong in the whole approach and it cost a life.
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:46 am
Hello Ingrid,
The message from Collette is to give it a try. Having raised scores of injured and abandoned baby birds and also poddy calves who have lost their mothers, I have found the first step is to give them a feed. even if the formula is not quite right, it gives them a fighting chance and some baby animals are quite resilient.
Sometimes it is not enough and they have not had enough of their mothers early milk with all the immunity it gives them against infection and they die.
But sometimes they thrive. Poor little Collete wasn’t even given a chance by being given a feed.
Maybe it wouldn’t have saved her but not feeding her was a death sentence.
NP&W were never allowed to “give it a go” and try and save Collette. Where was the State Minister for the Environment who could have called together an expert group to quickly devise a care plan.
Media plans, public relations plans, euthanasia plans but no care plan.
Vale little Collette.