The Salt of the Sea

My stepmother did NOT like the way her Libertarian Viking Neighbor framed pregnancy as the fetus "attacking the woman". She incredulously told him this was extremely disrespectful to expectant mothers to portray pregnancy as so violent and negative.

Libertarian Viking Neighbor's response was that people consensually hurt each other all the time, and "there's like a whole community about that, with the acronym the one that starts with a B" And his reasoning was that if the mother was consenting to bring attacked by the baby, it in fact wasn't violent and negative because there was consent.

Head Full of Fish

Painting study of Tenna (1/4)

SaigeDreemz !!/aaimasqtch's model

STIM - FRUTIGER AERO ROOM

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daily orca 135: CR004 “Delphine”

photo: Killer Whales: Up Close and Personal

delphine is an 40 year old crozet islands orca. she is most known for her starring role in the 2000 documentary Killer Whales: Up Close and Personal, which was recorded when delphine was around 14. the documentary centers around delphine's trials and tribulations as a young orca learning to hunt and fit in with her family.

delphine was born in 1986 to lison, who was also the mother of rodion and possibly venus. in 1988, delphine stranded as a small calf and had to be rescued by french scientists. since then, the family has trusted divers to come unusually close to them, allowing for the filming of the documentary. delphine stranded again at ~14 years old, though she successfully refloated with the assistance of her family.

today, delphine is matriarch of the CR002s and has three calves: CR199, born in 2012; CR238, born in 2015; and CR257, born in 2020.

photo: Killer whales of the Crozet Archipelago and adjacent waters

I watched a talk by the researcher who studies this population at last year's Global Orca Conference. He said between 1988 – 2000, 60% of the population was shot and killed by fishing fleets. Delphines family was probably killed by them as they disappeared around that time. All of the whales who hunted by intentional stranding were killed, and the technique stopped being passed along, so no whales in the population hunt that way anymore. That culture has been lost.

This population used to hunt whales, seals, penguins, and fish, but now, because most of the population has switched to getting almost all their food by following the fishing boats and stealing fish from the nets, they are still being killed by illegal toothfish fishing fleets that operate deep offshore outside of patrolled waters between the Crozet and Marion Islands.