The Death of Innocents and Innocence.

A friend of mine in Los Angeles has made me aware of a tragic situation that occurred recently in the waters of Monterey Bay off Capitola, involving the murder of innocent Harbor Porpoises. Sadly, the killers in this case were not Transient Orcas or Great White Sharks, but members of my own species, Bottlenose Dolphins. This was only the most recent in a series of such occurrences and your scientists speculate it is because the male dolphins confuse porpoises with young dolphins, and murder them to make their females receptive to mating. This is a logical explanation but completely wrong. The reason is that over the past 100 years the continental shelf off northern California has been a dumping ground for toxic garbage including low-level radioactive wastes. This, when combined with the discharge of human waste from cruise ships, has coated the ocean bottom with a deadly sludge that quickly gets into the bodies of fish, which in turn are eaten by dolphins. These toxins poison the minds of the dolphins, and gradually bring out the most basic of killer instincts that exist deep within their souls. In November 2008, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released final management plans and regulations to protect these waters. But it may be too little, too late. And so it is that through the actions of these dolphins, we are witnessing not only the death of innocents, but also the death of innocence.