Dolphin Jumps Again with Artificial Fin

Ant writes "This Yahoo! News story mentions Fuji, a mother dolphin that lost 75 percent of her tail due to a mysterious disease, being able to jump again with the help of what is believed to be the world's first artificial fin. The 34-year-old dolphin held at Japan's largest aquarium in the southern island of Okinawa wears the rubber fin for about 20 minutes a day allowing her to jump and to swim at the same speed of other dolphins."

Comments

Kinda funny when Japs eat them

[rqqrtnb]

...for "scientific" purposes... maybe they are feeling guilty and want to save the species now. Yea!!!

Dolphin Swims... but Children Keep Dying

[HighOrbit]

Bridgestone said the artificial fin was given to the aquarium for free, but that it cost the company about 10 million yen (95,000 dollars).

Great for the dolphin. But do you know how many lives in the developing world could have been saved with $95,000? Every day thousands of children under 5 year old die from diarrhea caused by un-clean water. $95K could have bought a water purification unit (possibley several depending on capacity) in Africa or India or where-ever.

Great for the dolphin but I think there are better things to spend your philanthropy on.

This is similar to what we see on the news every day. If the news has a story about some dog getting burnt in a house fire, people will spontaneously send in thousands of donations for the dog. If a family with children gets burned out of their house, they get jack in donations (except for help from the established relief agencies like the Red Cross and Salvation Army).