Dawn and Dolphins

As the "snowbirds" all pour in and Florida gets so crowded you think it's going to collapse into one huge sinkhole, there are still the quiet places.

I wasn't the first to walk on the beach this morning - there were footprints in the sand but I had it mostly to myself.

Except for a solitary figure who seemed to be looking for prehistoric sharks' teeth.

I haven't seen so many sharks' tooth prospectors lately, though the red tide seems to be far less of a problem now. I didn't spot any dead fish - although it's possible there just aren't the fish numbers any more. The pelicans haven't returned in force - that's meant to be a sign that all is well.
  The other evening we heard a talk by someone from the Mote Aquarium - they do sterling work with the local sea life. Though I wonder at all the trouble they go to with dolphins, for example, taking blood samples, (which get sent to the human hospital) putting tracking devices on them, monitoring their diets and so on. It's mostly funded by donations, so people obviously support it. I wonder if the dolphins see it as an invasion of privacy. Sadly six dolphins have been lost in the red tide. The speaker told a story which proves there's no end to human stupidity. A dolphin called Beggar used to hang around our local coastline, scrounging for food, despite Do Not Feed signs. It proved irresistible to sightseers and obsessive feeders who turned up in droves. The Aquarium staff spotted one man actually holding his baby over the dolphin's jaws. They just rescued the baby in time.