Hi, this is  azalea
Enjoy our very first monthly update!


CETACEAN NEWS

PETITIONS:
- Prevent SeaWorld from keeping the public out of their hearing: http://tinyurl.com/6f36kcm
- Free Morgan: http://tinyurl.com/34gdjdn
You can learn more about Morgan here: http://www.freemorgan.com/


WILD CETACEANS & ENVIRONMENT:
- Gulf of Mexico still oily: http://tinyurl.com/65jsqr9
- Gulf spill to blame for dead dolphins washing ashore: http://tinyurl.com/6y3r2p4 + http://tinyurl.com/63u8tss + http://tinyurl.com/4rx5tor
- Legendary wild orca missing: http://tinyurl.com/4ajk8up
- 107 Pilot Whales washe ashore: http://tinyurl.com/4mr3zm4
- Taiji hunting season over - for now: http://tinyurl.com/45arrwb
- 'Cove' director gives free DVD to Japan residents: http://tinyurl.com/63krl34
- Lonely whale with vocal problems chases lady whales away: http://tinyurl.com/4m628l5
- Men rescue tangled orca: http://tinyurl.com/6bdp3wu


CETACEANS IN CAPTIVITY:
- A year after deathly incident, SeaWorld allows trainers back into water: http://tinyurl.com/4wfxqad
- Former trainer's opinion: http://tinyurl.com/4s7wog5
- Captive orca Lolita in trouble: http://tinyurl.com/4nob5b6
- Apparently Lolita suffers from tooth infection: http://tinyurl.com/4tryky2


MISC.
- Ancient whale fossils found under church: http://tinyurl.com/5wg3gpj
- Dolphins help save tired dog stuck in canal: http://tinyurl.com/4cyjjjq
- Everything you ever wanted to know about River Dolphins: http://tinyurl.com/6hbzpjk
- The size of a Blue Whale's heart: http://tinyurl.com/6hzz6xj


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FEATURED ARTIST
 aphinion is our first featured artist!

Personal
Name: aphinion or aphorx
Age: 27
Location: Frankfurt/Main, Germany
What do you do for a living? Mainly I'm studying business administration, secondarily I job as Segway Tour-Guide and have an inflatable toy-business ^^
What are your hobbies? Hiking, travelling, debating, driving, swimming with and without inflatable toys and last but not least: enjoying time with other cetacean furs!

Dolphin
What is your furry species? Officially: Inflatable Dolphin. Out of my heart: Dusky-Dolphin or Pacific White-Sided Dolphin. I haven't yet found out.
Why exactly this species? Inflatable Dolphin: Well, it's fun, crazy, creative and too surrealistic to even get stupid questions. The real dolphins: When I look at pictures of these 2 species, my body is shaking, the picture turns into 3D and nothing feels more familiar.
What does it mean to you to be a dolphin furry? Is it just for fun or does it maybe have a deeper meaning? In my opinion dolphins are social and have a deep understanding for each other. I consider myself as highly empathic. A dolphins world mostly consists of sounds. The sound of something is a very important thing to me making me an audiophile (... that only trusts self-made stereos engineered by other marine mammals). Finally dolphins are playful and erotic play is just part of all that - nothing immoral. Something thats quite similar in my life - sexual play is as much part of my life as breakfast. So yes, the dolphin inside me is a strong part of my own identification, my judgement and my emotions. It's part of every second of my life.
Have you ever seen a dolphin in RL? Yes, they were in captivity though.
Have you ever swam with a dolphin in RL? Not yet. I'm hoping to do that soon!
Have you ever done whale watching? Nope, not yet.

Fandom
How long are you in fandom already? For 11 years now.
How did you get into fandom? Doing internet-research to find an inflatable orca love doll :P
Why are you in fandom? I found it by accident, found people, who are as crazy as I am... and stopped feeling alone within people who consider themselves "normal". Great feeling.
Ever been to a furry convention? Yes. Around 30 times now :)
Are you an artist? What kind of art do you produce? I consider my work "art". I develop ways to turn toys into adult toys, especially inflatables. These huge soft vinyl fellas now can take their male owners, offering a deep and intense kind of pleasure. They keep people sane. They allow people to drift into their own surreal fantasies. They do it for me as well :) I'm also the tech-part of PuffyPaws - an inflatable making company that designs their own wonderful inflatables. Every staff member is part of the design process and so am I.
What materials/programs do you use? Vinyl. Glue. Several graphics tools, engineering programs and enterprise resource management tools :)
Do you do commissions? Yes, I try to fulfill every customers wish - so I even ended up with special hole-inserts that got the name of their customer :)
Pick three of your works from your FA gallery and pimp them right here!
Not much left after FA's banhammer (While most of BadDragons products are considered legal artwork here, my stuff is considered a violation of their rules. Well, bans are part of doing crazy things :) )
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2390319 - Everything thats censored is actually my work - you will find the uncensored pics if you are interested in. I'm sure :)
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3816391 - The wolf was our first PuffyPaws series product, taking us 12 weeks of design process and several studies in printing and color technology. This picture of the wolf and  yotienpluche is a wonderful try of creating the illusion of living inflatables :)
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2173634 - I love to do crazy things with insider-meanings. That one has been done at the biggest shopping street of Frankfurt - the 'Zeil'. I loved the confused faces of the people walking by ^^


If you wanna be a featured artist, check out this link:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2137583/

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Comments and suggestions always welcome!
See you next month!

- Aza