And now for something completely different. A very sad tale: "Finless Porpoise Found Dead Again." I feel bad enough that the poor creature died at all, but to die twice? That's a real tragedy. Let's go to the article and see what could have caused this (edited, with comments, for maximum mock seriousness):
A finless porpoise was found dead last Sunday morning in Huangshi City Park in Hubei Province, the Changjiang Times reported.
Dead Porpoise or Leftover From Alien Autopsy?
The cause of death was thrown into considerable doubt when people came up with various speculations: commercial fishermen using electricity may have killed the female dolphin, or she might have been simply stranded, or maybe water pollution killed the creature.
I'm no fishing expert, but is electrocution common? Why not use hand grenades?
A team of ad hoc experts did an autopsy to determine the cause of death.
They don't have a standing committee of experts for porpoise autopsies? Huangshi city must be out in the sticks.
“Such an enormous finless porpoise is rarely seen,” said Dr. Hao Yujiang with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, brimming over with grief.
Biggest one I've ever seen. I'm going to go out on a limb and concur with that "enormous" characterization.
The preliminary examination revealed that the marine creature was an adult female, measuring about 1.65 meters in length and weighing about 70 kilograms. There were no traces of bruises but the body stunk and the creature appeared to have been dead for a couple of days.
Yeah, generally your average finless porpoise carcass tends to get a little ripe after a few days.
Drawing on the evidence of the milk spilling out of her breasts, Dr. He inferred that she was either pregnant or experiencing lactation as a result of recently giving birth at the time of death.
Agreed. I've never seen a finless porpoise carcass that was freely lactating for no reason.
The autopsy also found that her liver and other organs had turned black, suggesting that water pollution may be the culprit.
That's kind of nasty. By the way, I have suspected for a long time that from my years of living in LA and Beijing, my lungs are probably black as sin. To match my soul for making fun of a poor fish, uh, mammal.
Powered by ScribeFire.