Posted on 08/06/2009 4:04:55 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A dolphin or porpoise (there are subtle differences between the two) somehow wondered into Coyote Creek in Santa Clara.
The mammal was discovered just outside the 49ers training facility.
The find quickly attracted a crowd of both onlookers and reporters alike.
Experts from the Marine Mammal Center out of Sausalito came down and made quick work of rescuing the animal. The team took the creature to its Sausalito-based center for medical treatment.
By midday, the tide was starting to turn taking the water out, which put a real time pressure on the rescue effort. If you know the area, you know that cops do motorcycle training in the parking lot next to the 49ers facility. One of the officers spotted the mammal.
Stan Minasian at the Oceanic Society said he thinks the wayward creature is a Harbor Porpoise.
Minasian says it appears to be healthy and somehow just lost its way. He said a sick porpoise would normally beach itself.
The wayward mammal was found around 10:30 a.m. and was on its way north by 2:30 p.m.
The nice people of Santa Clara didn't have enough time to name it.
The dolphin was just pulling a Belichick, and secretly videotaping the Niners’ practice. Of course, once caught, he ditched the camera.
I like the warm fuzzy poll asking how this story makes you feel. Barf. I couldn’t resist. I clicked “laughing”.
If you are going to add your own words to text copied from an article, you should make it clear when you do so. Nowhere in the article does it refer to subtle differences between dolphins and porpoises, so those must have been the poster’s words.
The ridiculous photo in the article is a photo of a dolphin, so the source has no idea what a porpoise is. However the “subtle difference” can be spotted and voiced by a toddler that can enunciate the words dolphin and porpoise.
See that great big “nose”? That’s a bottle-nosed dolphin. Dolphins are a member of the group of mammals known as beaked whales. Porpoises do not have those big noses. Anybody that understands that basic difference cannot possibly mistake a dolphin for a porpoise.
Sorry to seem rude, here, but I wasn’t the one that took a mysterious tone and claimed that some subtle difference made discerning between the two was somehow the realm of experts. I am confident that any Freeper could immediately spot the difference between a huge bottle nose on a dolphin and a similar-looking creature without the “beak”. See?:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/08/22/dead_porpoise_in_mexico.jpg
;-)
Excuse me, I didn’t add a single word. The article was completely changed to reflect an update to the story. What I posted was exactly what they had. There was nothing about the dolphin’s death at that time.
Not only that, but they changed other facts in the article. When I posted it, it said the animal was found in Coyote Creek, not San Tomas Aquinas Creek. They’ve changed it completely.
Also, if you checked the time stamp, this version was posted 32 minutes after I posted it.
Oh, Man. Don’t do that without a warning!
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