On Syto-Piora, there's an expression: 'Don't put all of your tumpas in one carry-to-home'. Common sense, really. It's far better to spread the risk than depend for one's livelihood, or very existence, on just one creature. Unfortunately, common sense appears to be in short supply on Janka - leastwise, giving any thought to what might happen if what actually happened did in fact happen.
For as long as anyone on Janka can remember, the seas have always teemed with life. Countless species of fish, mammals and invertebrates have thrived in the oceans for 
millions of years. Every year, groups of air breathing mammals, more than one hundred feet in length, called Shleva, leave the southern ocean, where their young were born, and traverse the six thousand miles to the northern polar ocean, where they feed and mate, before heading south once more. The journey each way takes five months - on Janka, that's one hundred and ninety-three, eighteen-hour days. When they arrive, they gorge themselves on the vast shoals of Mynky. Countless billions of Mynky have hatched every year for the last several million years according to First Observer [Professor], Hart Ghamn, of the Dartutha Institute of Fish and Mammalian Studies. "It's not possible to overstate the contribution they make to the everyday lives of millions of Jankan," he said. "Recently, however, we 
have come into conflict with the shleva over fish stocks. In one day, just one [shleva] can eat sufficient Mynky to feed a thousand or more people for a week."
Well, now friend Ghamn can stop worrying about the shleva. They're dying in their hundreds. Weak and thin after their grueling trek north this season, they arrived in the chill waters off Chesopecka Bay to find the Mynky were gone - eaten by those who had arrived first. Mothers, still nursing their calves, have no milk to give, yet so strong is the urge within them, they still roll onto their sides and offer their dry teats. The calves are the first to die. It is a pitiful sight to watch these magnificent creatures circling the small carcasses, occasionally turning towards them to nudge them; to encourage them to swim just a little longer. But they are beyond encouragement.
Just as the shleva are dying, so are the Janka. They have no agriculture. They have no alternative food source to the Mynky they have ruthlessly over fished, harvesting them earlier and earlier in their breeding season. They are just a little further from extinction than the shleva, but unless help arrives soon, they must inevitably follow them.
Update: The first of sixteen vessels from Janka's neighbor, Hana-Tu, arrived laden with processed cereal as we were going to press. A further forty are scheduled to land at Tana-Gur spaceport over the next couple of weeks. Janka's population currently stands at three million. Unless many more vessels can make the trip over the next week or so, many of them will die. Already Hana-Tu's space fleet has been overwhelmed by the emergency. Calls have been placed to other worlds in the vicinity of the Rassa Boria Nebula. Thus far, other offers of help have been few.
