Blog Action Day: The Power of We

Imagine if this picture happened to you: instead of swimming and playing in the pool you were obliged to stay and live for good inside a bathtub. Well, that´s what in fact is been happening to a way-too-shameful-for-us-human-to-even-enumerate-such-huge-number of whales that are living into this nightmare around the globe right at this moment.

Now picture this: What if they could live free, in the open sea, as they were meant to be as their divine power and as God intended them to be? And you could see them not from so far and yet without touching them and get too close you would be magnetized and magnified by their beauty and splendour?? Would this be the perfect world? The Eden on Earth??

What if you live inside a tank made of cement where you were not able to send signs to your fellow men and instead your cries would only deafen you even more? I bet you would want to die, wouldn´t you?? So now just imagine how much noise humans make and how this noise can seriously affect the whales’ ability to hear each other’s calls in the sea. That would explain why so many sea mammals are losing their abiltity to find their way and many die due to the active sonar that leads to beaching. Not to mention in an amusement park where people clap their hands, they laugh, cry, scream, and where loud music and whistles play major role to make people have fun. Let alone their struggle for surviving in such small place yet loud ambiance. And although they may look happy they all are crying inside. For to keep the entertainment industry going on they are obliged to take lots of medicine, the males have their sperms taken so that they can breed females with artificial insemination. And the slavery continues in such unnatural way. And this is actually what is happening to a lot of animals that are forced to live in captivity and never leave that unhealthy enviroment and do you know why? Just to keep us humans entertained. Isn´t that sick, monstrous and outrageous? But unless the same "us humans" do something with the power of we we will continue to allow that to happen God knows for how long, or until when that time considering that many of the same animals we keep in danger are already endagered species. And now I just found out through a documentary in the UK that iron is crucial to ocean health. Whales recycled iron in the ocean by eating it in krill and making it available to phytoplankton in faeces. So that´s at least IRONic that we may save the planet and beat the climate change by keeping the whales in the sea to allow them to sort of leaving their shit out when nature calls.

So much can be done yet, to empower our ecosystem instead of keeping causing so much harm and risking to destroy it to a point of no return. We should get together, all of us, and make the whole world see how whales and other sea lives play a crucial role in keeping our oceans healthy. And if these endangered mammals become extinct we are the only ones to blame and most of all we will be in trouble ourselves. All we need to do is to inform as many people as possible to not only spend their money elsewhere but to stand with THE POWER OF US against marine amusement parks and against the capture of cetaceans.

This post is my way of taking part of Blog Action Day, a Global initiative which I participate since it has begun in 2007:

In 2011 the theme was FOOD
In 2010 we talked about a very serious issue:WATER
In 2009 I somehow missed it to talk about "My Multimedia Books"
In 2008 I was "Fighting Poverty in the World"
And the last and the first but not the least to burst Global Warming

Hannah visited Valparaiso

It's always nice to see celebrities visiting places which are not famous for their glamour. Such is the case with Daryl Hannah who showed her humanitarian side yesterday when she enjoyed a short tour throughout Valparaiso, greeting and talking with stray dogs . While in there I also met many dogs wandering around the city streets, and many accompanied me.


In Santiago, while I climbed the mountain in Cerro San Cristobal, many followed me as well, just to protect me. I even wondered if they were hired just to guide the tourists there. They barked at the cars each time they passed me, and I said, "Very good! We should walk here. Enough of polluted air." So surreal! I was then a funny version of "Anna and the Wolves".

"Many people buy fancy dogs, while there are so many abandoned, eager to love and be loved" said darling Daryl. "There is so little love in this world..." and so little compassion, I would add. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just embrace the idea of reaching out our hearts to one another, and shelter those who are so much in need?

Happy Valentine's Day at the Zoo.

I spent my Valentine watching birds and animals of all types, and loved them all, especially the sweet felines. I particularly wanted to see "Luna", sweet moon so endearing and mother tiger who recently gave birth to three twins at the Metropolitan Zoo in Santiago. While she lied there she had her tail bouncing, which for me was a good sign. Then she looked at me with that piercing blue eyes in a very informal way like saying, "see what I did? Aren't they cute?" said sweet Luna moon/mom, while talking about her kittens, and so very proud of her achievement. Women looked at her and they couldn't help but let a "Oh..." coming off their mouths as a term of endearment. I approached and I took a pic with the zoom (didn't want to disturb her coming too close). Then I left. And as the moon with both bright and dark side, all of a sudden Luna rose from her lethargic almost entranced state and looked up very attentively. I was far away when I took the other two pictures of her. Couldn't see her babies though. They were already gone for their siesta, they were probably taking a nap after all the surely furor of having them there with their mom (The Zoo allows only one hour in the morning and one in the evening for the visitors to see the three tender tigers). Then this morning I went hunting/haunting in the heights the mountains of Farellones, a marvellous environment to also do some Yoga training, with the tree pose as the epitome (although the higher you go the less oxygen you will get), but at least a few miles away from the city, with dazzling views of the Andes, and not that suffocating vial of encaging buildings. Not comparing, though it reminds me of the Grand Canyon so much that sometimes I have to remember me, baby, but you are not in "California, ooh-ooh, I've got to warn you" (I love that rhyme, any-who!;) especially when in the radio there was the music playing, "Welcome to the Hotel California..."
Back to the Zoo, or we never left there, just by walking on the streets and looking around, with a honking driver with a resonant sound characteristic of a wild goose, or a woman talking over her cellular phone and sounding like a parrot, what was my exasperation to see the afectionate polar bear covering his eyes for the unbearable light and in a-morose state with the hot Chile pepper which we have been experiencing this summer. So sad to see the Arctic and Antarctic with the effects of the global warming too. We are now suffering the consequences. Dry weather leaving animals with lack of food and in danger of extinction, and we are no less vulnerable. I wish San Valentine could make this summer not so hot (but only in our hearts:) And the penguins who were desperately trying to get the heck out of that warm water. I am so glad that the efforts of the Zoologists were rewarded by the little endangered tigers (which got them effervescently constructing to the new family a realm with cascades and a wider place similar to their own habitat which, as I witnessed, will look pretty wild!:) And the five new born flamingos, which I also eye witnessed, they are really cute, especially while mommy flamingo gives food. I wish I could see all of them in a free environment and not in a cage. Of course, that would be a little too risky, or I would better be in a safari for that. But I mean in a sense of letting them having a bigger place so that they may enjoy the life they were meant to live, and not being only an attraction for us. I guess they would be well maintained and would have more possibility of reproduction if they really have that kind of natural habitat. Such as the elephants, I know they love to be in the water, getting refreshed by the mud. And I have never seen that happening in any Zoo. Funny though that this Valentine's "El Mercurio" also wrote about the animals at the Zoo:
http://blogs.elmercurio.com/cienciaytecnologia/2008/02/14/conservacion-los-secretos-amor.asp

And here are some pics I took the same day they were talking about the loving birds... The pictures tell for themselves (and they're worth a thousand words:)



"Born Free..."