Finding the middle line
Welcome back to MokoInWhakatane.
Moko is still in our town and, over the last six weeks, has continued to attract the attention of residents and visitors alike. He is almost becoming “part of the furniture”. I’m so used to looking for his fin when I cross the bridge that, even when I know he is at Otarawairere, I still do it from habit.
I closed MokoInWhakatane mid April due to a controversy over boats.
Now that the location updates have stopped and the water is getting cooler I am much less concerned about Moko’s saftey being affected by differing viewpoints between third parties. Also, it is evident that MokoInWhakatane provided an excellent forum for people to learn about dolphins, comment about Moko and share their experiences. This project started because of my passion about dolphins, the desire to learn about Moko and the wish to share this experience with other people. These goals succeeded far beyond anything that I expected … so much so that I became concerned about Moko or someone being hurt when third parties fell into disagreement.
The converse situation is also damaging. Without the education and discussion opportunites that MokoInWhakatane provided Moko is in danger of being hurt through ignorance. A medium ground must be found. Moko does not need to be mobbed but it is imperative that he is not isolated … such a situation is paramount to solitary confinement for him.
There is currently debate in the veterinary profession about ethics regarding organ transplantation in animals. As humans we can choose to donate our organs for use by another person if we wish. We are able to give informed consent for this to happen. The same surgeries are able to be performed on animals. The difference is that the donor animal is unable to make the choice about the donation … there is no informed consent. Practices that perform kidney transplants on cats, as a rule, insist that the owners adopt the donor cat as their own pet to make up for this lack of consent but the controversy remains.
Our situation with Moko is exactly the same. Moko is choosing to interact with us on his terms. Who are we to impose our ethics upon his freewill? He has decided, for the time being to be in Whakatane and it’s people instead of other dolphins. To neglect him of this contact is just as likely to be harmful to him as to mob him. He is a sociable animal and, for better or for worse, he has decided that we are his pod. No lone sociable dolphin has ever returned to their pod as a result of human intervention … they either do or they don’t and restricting human contact has no effect on it … in fact there are recorded incidents suggesting that dolphins have stranded themselves in order to gain human contact upon it being withdrwan.
Moko will do what Moko will do … if we mob him he will stay or he will go though he could be physically hurt. If we neglect him he will stay or he will go though he could be pschologically damaged. If we find the middle ground he will stay or he will go and the chances of harm coming to him are minimised. Note that I have not said that he will ever return to the sea to be with a pod. Moko will do what Moko will do when he decides to do it. The best we can do is learn about him while he is with us and so …
… Welcome back to MokoInWhakatane.
Strawberry the clown, 
CetiVet, 
Jo, and 2 others are discussing. 
Jocelyn Zame 7:01 am on May 28, 2010 Permalink
Hi Chris, thanks for starting up this blog again. I love to check in to get my daily Moko ‘fix”. Mahia isn’t the same without him playing in the bay. So this is the next best thing. (I have this site on my firefox speed dial)
Here’s hoping that one sunny day he will decide to come home to see us again. All the folk living here at Mahia miss him a lot.
In April I went to Auckland for my grandsons 1st birthday so called into Whakatane to see if I could whisper in Moko’s ear “‘ please come home”‘. But sadly he wasn’t on the right side of the river and there wasn’t enough time to get a ride with his minders to even get close enough to take a good photo. But with my telescopic lens I could see he was sleeping anyway, so he wouldn’t have been listening only dreaming. I can’t remember if anyone here had ever noticed him sleeping close to humans, So he must be very comfortable with his friends in Whakatane to trust them to let him sleep without being disturbed.
I’ll check in each day to see how Moko is doing.
Joce
Kym 7:19 am on May 28, 2010 Permalink
Hi Chris
Thank goodness your back
Jo 11:29 am on May 28, 2010 Permalink
Yay Chris,
Great to have you back.
How do I request to join the twitter update on his location??
CetiVet 1:28 pm on May 28, 2010 Permalink
I need to remove that Jo. I’m no longer updating his location. DoC and I agree that far too much interest was created and that safety for both Moko and the public became too much of an issue.
Strawberry the clown 1:22 pm on June 2, 2010 Permalink
i met moko in the river and at the heads it was amazing it was always a dream to swim with a dolphin now thats a tick.