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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 12/14/2006 : 02:38:12
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As volunteers, military struggle to save stranded mermaids,
Scientists race to understand why they beach themselves.
Vero Beach, Florida, December 13, 2006 (MP) -- Mermaids are beaching themselves in increasing numbers on shorelines all over the world, and scientists are struggling to understand why. Since cryptid species such as mermaids are even more "endangered" than extinct species, it's a desperate life-and-death race against time.
This entire mixed-species mermaid pod expired before
anyone even knew they had beached themselves.
Cryptoveterinarian Dr. Scot "Scotty" MacScott flew in from Scotland to help deal with a rash of strandings on American shores.
According to MacScott, "We really need to understand this phenomenon. In many cases the mermaids die, and we don't yet even know what killed them. Mermaids are quite capable of living out of the water. They usually haul out on isolated rocks and in shoreline grottoes to sing, preen themselves and comb their hair, and they do that without harm. But these beachings are different from normal haul-outs, somehow. Nearly half of the mermaids which are stranded succumb."
While one stranded mermaid is rushed in a sling to a
waiting chopper, another is forced to await her turn.
Volunteers and animal protection agencies regularly try to save beached mermaids, but often to no avail. Since so little is understood about these mythical creatures, and since survival is so hit-and-miss, many volunteers, and even cryptoveterinarians, have developed their own procedures.
"I personally," said Dr. MacScott, "like to bilaterally palpitate and stimulate the creatures in the anterior thorax area. I don't know how much it actually helps the mermaid, scientifically speaking, but I certainly enjoy the procedure. Oh, now there's a very healthy one with a remarkably large thorax! Watch me try the MacScott Maneuver on her."
Sometimes, when the emergency crews arrive, they find that the mermaids are not only apparently healthy, but are found to be laughing and giggling. Even so, they refuse go to voluntarily back into the sea. In such cases, they usually have to be manhandled to return them to the ocean.
A few scientists now speculate that at least some
mermaids beach themselves just for the attention.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
Edited by - HalfMooner on 12/14/2006 03:25:13
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