Canadians free dolphins trapped by ice

[G_j]

in need of a little good news?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/20/AR2009022002448.html

Canadians free dolphins trapped by ice

By CHARMAINE NORONHA
The Associated Press
Friday, February 20, 2009; 4:08 PM

TORONTO -- Fishermen and a teenage boy from an eastern Canadian town rescued three exhausted dolphins that had been trapped behind drifting pack ice for nearly a week, the wife of the town's mayor said Friday.

Sadie May said the men cut a path through the sludgy ice in Newfoundland's Seal Cove harbor with their 18-foot trawler Thursday night, freeing the dolphins from an oval-shaped hole in the ice they had been swimming in for days.

Two dolphins followed the open channel immediately, but the third was too weak and tired, May said.

"He could barely swim about, the little guy, and the men knew something had to be done. A kid, 17 years old with a survival suit, jumped into the water and the dolphin just kind of attached to him and wrapped his flippers around him, like a friend or a mate," the mayor's wife told The Associated Press.

The teenager, Brandon Banks, helped tow the animal to open water, where it swam away, said May.

The 8-foot-long animals somehow became separated from the open Atlantic Ocean and had been stuck in the ice-filled harbor since the beginning of the week. They survived in a shrinking hole in the ice that was roughly 100 feet by 650 feet.

..more..

[LanternWaste]

1. Yay!!!

Yay!!! Hooray for the dolphins, and hooray for the people involved, and hooray for that teen.

[byeya]

35. I've been to Seal Cove, NFLD, and since the cod fishery

has been decimated, mainly by foreigners, the whole area has been poverty stricken.
I want to tell about a fisherman whose nets got entangled with a humpback whale 15 years ago and although his nets equaled about one half years income, he cut up the nets to free the whale. {The whales also eat commercial seafood}
It's awful the slaughter of baby harp seals for the vanity of the wealthy but there are a lot of good people in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, eh?

[closeupready]

2. Oh, good - I was hoping everything would work out.

:)

[enlightenment]

3. Oh! That is VERY good news!

Thank you for posting.

[StarryNite]

4. Finally some good news!

It's so rare these days.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. Wonderful! Those guys are my newest heroes!

[TahitiNut]

6. Brandon Banks deserves a parade in his honor.

:applause:

[driver8]

7. Wow -- what an amazing story!!

These guys are my new heroes!!

[KittyWampus]

8. Payback. Dolphins have saved many a human.

[Captain Hilts]

47. Absolutely! All the best, Flipper! nt

[havocmom]

9. Off to the Greatest Page with ye and yer watery mates!

Thanks for some really good news.

Had a classmate saved by a dolphin when she was about 11 and bounced over the side of a boat, striking her head. Good to see humans can give as good as they get from these wonderful creatures.

[wroberts189]

10. effin A ...MADE MY DAY knr

[1monster]

11. After all the stories we've heard about dolphins saving humans from

drowning, it's great to hear about turnabout...

[ThomCat]

12. That's awesome! Brandon Banks is a hero!

How many people can say they hugged a dolphin, pulled behind a trawler, on a ride out to the open sea and saved it's life. :)

:woohoo:

[rucognizant]

44. I know a guy.......

who did that with a sperm whale!

[ThomCat]

51. Wow!

I can't imagine being able to move a sperm whale. But that must have been a wonderful experience. :)

[SoCalDem]

13. Bless their hearts

:loveya:

[Arugula Latte]

14. Yay! Finally some humanity deserving of admiration!

:bounce:

Wow ... That kid ... jumping in that water ... :wow:

[frebrd]

15. Wonderful! K&R

[GCP]

16. Oh, thank goodness - I was worried about those poor things

Mankind can be good at times!

[gratuitous]

17. This just encourages irresponsible dolphin behavior, you know

What about all the dolphins who weren't in danger of drowning? Who's coming to their rescue? And the dolphins that were saved, how does this teach them valuable free market lessons? Where's David Santelli to rant and rave about this???

[drmeow]

30. LOL

[InvisibleTouch]

18. Great news! K&R n/t

[a la izquierda]

19. K & R

[Toasterlad]

20. God Bless Those Canadians!

[flvegan]

21. I salute you, Master Banks.

Well done, everyone.

[ColbertWatcher]

22. ***BETTER LINKS TO PICTURES***

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2009/02/20/dolphin-rescue.html?ref=rss

[G_j]

38. comparing the two stories, it sounds like

the story in the OP was written after this one, and despite fears, the rescue was successful.
The details are a bit confusing.

[1monster]

41. Yes, OP article was posted after 4:00 p.m. on 2/20. Second article was posted just after 7 A.M same

day.

For EVERY good deed done, there will be at least one naysayer to tell everyone it would have been better to let them die than to try to save their lives because the effort might fail.

I'd rather have that chance to try to survive, myself.

Dolphins are very smart beings. I'm sure they'd rather have the chance too.

[ColbertWatcher]

50. It reminds me of how the GOP want to handle our economic mess.

Everyone wants to try something to get people jobs, etc.

The GOP want to sit back and wait regardless how many people suffer.

[BrklynLiberal]

23. Thanks for posting this. So great to hear good news.

[chatnoir]

24. Thank god for these people

They're heros and Brandon Banks, a rock star!

:yourock:

[babylonsister]

25. Thank you for this! Very wonderful news! nt

[applegrove]

26. I love it that the 17 year old took the day off of high school to save the dolphins.

What a great lesson he learned.

[1]

27. yay canadians and yay dolphins! i love this story!

[iamthebandfanman]

28. thank god

i had saw on the news about the poor trapped dolphins and was suprised that it seemed like nobody was doing anything....


glad they are free :)

its always neat to see dolphins interacting with humans... they almost always show gratitude

[A HERETIC I AM]

29. Reminiscent of the 1988 Gray Whale rescue near Barrow, Alaske

http://www.qsl.net/kg0yh/whales.htm



Workers created a chain of rectangular openings stretching for several miles so the stranded Gray Whales could get back to open water.

[Skittles]

31. kudos to them

:thumbsup:

[dmr]

32. This is wonderful news. It broke my heart watching them struggle.

The fisherman, and Brandon Banks are heroes & have beautiful & caring hearts.

[earcandle]

33. Auh. nice...

[jeff30997]

34. Thanks for posting this heart warming story.

:)

[rosesaylavee]

36. O Canada

You are a great and wonderful people!

[HamdenRice]

37. In good ole merika we wooda shot em and et em! Canadas fulla wimps.

Well mabe not et em. hurd they tase kinna fishy. we eeoda shot em fer target prackise.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

39. oh dang now you got me cryin....the happy kind

I am SO glad to see this!!!! I couldn't read the earlier reports, it was too sad.
I'm SOOO glad to see a happy ending!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"He could barely swim about, the little guy, and the men knew something had to be done. A kid, 17 years old with a survival suit, jumped into the water and the dolphin just kind of attached to him and wrapped his flippers around him, like a friend or a mate"

:cry: :)

[saltpoint]

40. Hey you people in Canada who rescued these dolphins --

Thank you.

Thank you for doing that.

[Uncle Joe]

42. This is very heartwarming, Canadians rock!

:yourock:

Thanks for the thread, G_j.:)

[AllyCat]

43. What wonderful people!

"In the end, it wasn't experts or the government, it was us, the people, who made the decision to rescue them," said May. "In Newfoundland, you don't think about yourselves, you think about others and this time, we were just thinking that we couldn't let these dolphins die."

Thank you for thinking of the big picture. If only more of us could learn to think outside ourselves, the world would be a much kinder place.

[aquamarina]

45. What a wonderful story.

[Myrina]

46. YAAAY for the rescuers!!!

I have not been able to figure out why an ice breaker or something couldn't have gone in there & cleared them a path.


O8) for the folks who saved those dolphins!!

[earth mom]

48. K & R in the nick of time!

I love stories like this! :applause:

[Kajsa]

49. Wonderful news!

I'm so glad they made it out, OK.

Kudos to their rescuers!

:applause: