last 6 miler

Yesterday I finished my last 6 mile run before stepping it up to 8 throughout February, got round in 63 minutes which isn't too bad.  I'm going to have to get some new shoes soon though my decrepit £10 decathlon specials are almost done for.

I was reminded this week about why I'm doing this after reading about another mass stranding in New Zealand last week, around 100 of the same species of whale stranded on golden bay and only a few (around 17) were saved.  Many had to be shot after re-stranding several days in a row.  There is so much research to be done into this bizarre phenomenon, though there are many things that people can do or rather not do to the marine environment to help protect marine mammals like the pilot whale.  It is often suggested that noise pollution may affect their sonar and cause them to become disorientated (such was the suggestion at Durness where the Navy were detonating bombs off the coast just before the stranding last July) but no one really knows if that was a contributing factor.  What people do know however from the autopsy of stranded animals that don't make it back into the water is that humans are having a huge impact; from reports of dead whales being found with dozens of plastic bags in their stomach to seals and sea birds caught up in packaging, it is the responsibility of all of us to stop this from happening...

* contents of a Minkie whales gut washed up in the English channel, the animal starved to death after being unable to digest the plastic and debris that had accumulated in its intestines