Eight Dolphins Seen in Lake Pontchartrain

ap on Yahoo ^ | 10/13/05 | Jane McConnaughey - ap

[NormsRevenge]

NEW ORLEANS - The manatees that grazed in Lake Pontchartrain before Hurricane Katrina haven't been seen since, but eight dolphins were leaping in the lake this week.

"If the big critters are back, the lake is definitely coming back," Carlton Dufrechou, executive director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, said Thursday.

Flocks of pelicans and the pod of dolphins spotted Monday indicate that there are fish for them to eat, he said.

Earlier in the week, the journal Environmental Science & Technology reported that tests had found the dirty floodwaters pumped out of the city may be a long-term hazard to wildlife in the lake.

"We knew Pontchartrain would heal itself," but the rate at which it seems to be doing so is a welcome surprise, Dufrechou said.

Dufrechou said the last reported manatee sighting was about a week before the hurricane, but he added that there haven't been any sightings of dead manatees, either.

"I would suggest that means nature took care of itself — they knew something big was up and got out of Dodge," Dufrechou said.

Meanwhile, the New Orleans aquarium, which lost the majority of its collection during Katrina, brought back a 300-pound sea turtle named King Midas.

About 10,000 animals died after four days without support systems at the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas.

The survivors, including a 19-member penguin colony, two sea otters and several hundred freshwater fish, were evacuated to other aquariums. But King Midas was brought back from Moody Gardens in Galveston, Texas, as the New Orleans aquarium began the process of repopulating its tanks.

"It's really a sign of hope and rebuilding. It was a big rallying point for our staff. They've gone through so much, losing animals they worked with for 20-plus years," aquarium spokeswoman Melissa Lee said.

[oyez]

I wonder how the oysters are doing.

[Marine_Uncle]

" Is Louisiana seafood safe to eat? " I checked the link. That is the background I based my statements on. Oddly people in say NY, and PA probably eat more fish and shellfish loaded with known carcenogens then most of the USA. I have a elder brother who is a research chemist and chemistry staff member at a well known PA college that has done much work with a world renown salt marsh biologist out of Delware Univerisity, as well as state and federal level contracts. So I am somewhat aware of many of the long term carcinogens that are in the coastal food chains that end up in human livers that eventually cause liver cancers etc..
Hopefully all the fishing industries will be fully in tack for those that can somehow recover and pursue their choosen means of earning a living.

[VRWCTexan]

Between this news and the news about the eatable fish being caught, poor Senator Mary L. will be forced to delete a few billion from her $250 billion taxpayer "stickup"

[kingu]

So glad that they had the resources to get a turtle out but didn't have the resources to get those seniors at the rest home out of harms way...

Just seems wrong.

[Senator Goldwater]

Howard Twilley, Larry Little and Jake Scott.

[jdontom]

Griese

[dr_who_2]

Somebody kill them and pack them in cans before they multiply and turn the entire area into a site for eco-tourists.

[AGreatPer]

I read somewhere where a good storm is one of the best things to happen to the eco system sometimes.

[Paleo Conservative]

Mercury Morris, Larry Csonka, Garo Yephremiam.....who were the other six?

Maybe Ricky Williams?

[Marine_Uncle]

"I read somewhere where a good storm is one of the best things to happen to the eco system sometimes."
Sometimes that can be the case. I sense much of the gulf has been spared from any really harmfull man made pollutents. Wonder how many folks realize that in each thunder storm for instance, nitrogenous compounds end up falling to earth that end being consumed by plant live to help them grow. Every heavy snow storm, again leaves behind a lot of nitrogen in a form that plants can use for growth in the next growing season. But surely if those two storms would have wrecked havoc on the refineries, which they apparently did not do, there could have been a lot of petrochemicals, and perhaps raw oil spilled into the local coastal ways. If that happened then the story might have taken on a different viewpoint.

[Windsong]

"We knew Pontchartrain would heal itself,"

Whoops..

Dont tell the eco-nerds!

[Leroy S. Mort]

Dufrechou said the last reported manatee sighting was about a week before the hurricane, but he added that there haven't been any sightings of dead manatees, either.
"I would suggest that means nature took care of itself — they knew something big was up and got out of Dodge," Dufrechou said.

Proving that manatees are smarter than a large number of land-bound mammals in the New Orleans area.

[FOG724]

I think CA has proven it is almost impossible to kill a lake.

[GreenFreeper]

ECO-PING

FReepmail me to be added or removed to the ECO-PING list!

a little break from the gloom and doom!

[Marine_Uncle]

Thanks for ping. Yes I am aware those little tweety pies are happly popping up and down on the lake. The good Lord must take much glee in how He created such neat marine animals!
I as most are happy to see them whishing over the surface, and just enjoying their existence. They sure seem to have some form of appreciation for living. May they continue to live in healthy conditions.

[Issaquahking]

Relief from gloom and doom???? Obviously my FRiend you haven't seen what the left is scared to death to print from their leaders...


We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion -- guilt-free at last! -- Stewart Brand (writing in the Whole Earth Catalogue

Free Enterprise really means rich people get richer. They have the freedom to exploit and psychologically rape their fellow human beings in the process . . . Capitalism is destroying the earth. -- Helen Caldicott, Union of Concerned Scientists

We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects . . . We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled land. -- David Foreman, Earth First!

Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed. -- Pentti Linkola


Them damn greenies are running with the devil!!!

[1rudeboy]

My first thought after reading the headline was, "were they armed?"

[Erik Latranyi]

What?! Environmentalists get another prediction wrong?!

But, but, but, HOW?

[Mr. Jeeves]

"I would suggest that means nature took care of itself — they knew something big was up and got out of Dodge," Dufrechou said.

In all fairness, manatees didn't have to wait around for a government check to arrive on the 31st. ;)

[HIDEK6]

Were they having a sex party on a charter boat?