Awards Week: Day 3 - The White Dolphin Award

Remember how I said the most amazing thing about my blog was that I'd recently discovered how to make image mouse-over titles?

I take it back. My best new discovery has been Blogger's scheduling tool. Here on the Northwest Coast we get snow oh so very rarely, maybe once every five years, but this year was the year. An unseasonable cold March storm rolled in and dumped five inches of wet snow yesterday, knocking out the internet for most of the day, but thanks to the scheduler my post got put up anyway.

If the world suffered a life-ending cataclysmic apocalypse, how many authorless blogs would continue posting for months afterwards thanks to the scheduler?

And on that happy note I hereby announce the noble and much sought-after White Dolphin Award.



The Yangtze white dolphin, or baiji, was one of only three species of freshwater dolphins on earth. Freshwater dolphins are incredible creatures, quite different from their saltwater cousins. One of these days I'm going to write an entire post about the boto, pink dolphins of the Amazon, that laugh like children. Some think they are the spirits of drowned men.

But wait, I'm getting distracted.

The tale of the white dolphin, unfortunately, isn't a nice one. Found only in the Yangtze, they were once called the "goddesses of the river." But they couldn't survive the pressures of the growing Chinese population. Direct hunting, habitat loss, entanglement with fishing gear, and the increasing pollution of the river took its toll, and after years of decline the dolphins at last disappeared. They were declared extinct in 2006, the first loss of a marine mammal in over fifty years. They're also a first for me - the first animal that I remember learning about as a kid, watching my animal documentaries and thinking, "I want to see those!", that now I'll never get to see.

Here's an actual photo:



Extinction. Think about it.

So to honor the vanished white dolphin, I hereby confer this award on all of my friends and acquaintances who have left their blogs untouched for a year or longer. (I thought about listing them, but they are numerous. You know who you are.) Like the white dolphin, they are apparently gone forever, yet I cling to the slim small hope that all the experts are wrong, that someday they may come back again, that I might catch a glimpse of their glistening fins insightful musings once more!

To accept the award, the recipient must pass it on to another blog. To pass on the award, the giver is not allowed to notify the recipient in any proactive way. They must discover it for themselves. If they know they have been remiss in blog posting, then the award is theirs.

Hooray! Isn't making up awards fun? I should do it more often.

Tomorrow, something!