Health and Welfare Concerns
Springer had developed a dangerous pattern of approaching boats and rubbing against them. There was a high risk she would be hit by a vessel in the busy area, and also concern that she would eventually become big enough to capsize a small boat. One local group, Project SeaWolf Coastal Protection, started regular observation of the calf and documented a number of whale-boat interactions while Springer foraged in Seattle-area waters. Her attraction to boats and floating logs was attributed to a need for social interaction and touch. Dr. John Ford observed later that "she didn't have whales to associate with down there, so boats sort of became a replacement for that for social reasons."
Springer was no longer dependent on her mother for milk. However, killer whales are highly social and form extremely strong family bonds. Resident orcas stay with their mothers and their maternal relatives for their entire lives.
Springer was also thin and in poor health. She had ketoacidosis, worms, and an itchy skin condition.
Read more about this topic: Springer (killer Whale)
Famous quotes containing the words health and, health, welfare and/or concerns:
“Pride can go without domestics, without fine clothes, can live in a house with two rooms, can eat potato, purslain, beans, lyed corn, can work on the soil, can travel afoot, can talk with poor men, or sit silent well contented with fine saloons. But vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, health and peace, and is still nothing at last; a long way leading nowhere.—Only one drawback; proud people are intolerably selfish, and the vain are gentle and giving.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears
Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
Importing health and graveness.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Whether in the field of health, education or welfare, I have put my emphasis on preventive rather than curative programs and tried to influence our elaborate, costly and ill- co-ordinated welfare organizations in that direction. Unfortunately the momentum of social work is still directed toward compensating the victims of our society for its injustices rather than eliminating those injustices.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“Art and science coincide insofar as both aim to improve the lives of men and women. The latter normally concerns itself with profit, the former with pleasure. In the coming age, art will fashion our entertainment out of new means of productivity in ways that will simultaneously enhance our profit and maximize our pleasure.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)