A Whale of a Problem

That whale up north, I guess, has made it back to the Pacific Ocean before the Japanese whalers got it to it, so that's all good. Still, there's been a lot more whales in the news the last few years than I ever remember hearing about before. Just the other month I think there was one in the Hudson river, too.

So I've been thinking about whales, just a little.

The Japanese, I hear, are introducing some new measure or other about hunting them, or some regulation or other, and I think I've finally discovered the problem. Some well-meaning, but misguided idiot, years ago decided that the offspring of a whale should be called a calf.

Big mistake.

If you don't want people eating something, I maintain that it's not a good idea to name it after one of the more delicious and widely eaten things on the planet. Leaving aside the Indians, the real ones, five-sixths of the world know there's few things more tasty than beef. If I wanted to protect whale babies, I think I'd name them poisonos or something. Something to discourage the thought of how good they'd taste barbecued. You call them calves, well, you're just asking for trouble.

The other thing these wayward whales have taught me is that we humans are very generous when it comes to calling things intelligent. Okay, I'll give you the ability to swim beats out, say, turning your face toward the sun, but I think that if one of the things that differentiate animals from plants is mobility, the ability to handle that movement should have some importance. Nowadays, whales are getting lost all the time, and that's just sad.

There are some who say it's our fault, that our navies are deafening them with sonar or something, and I think that would be pretty easy to test. It might be the mercury we're filling the ocean with, from all those early thermometers one would think, and, again, we could find that out pretty quick.

It may be that whales are to humans as men are to women. Everyone laughs at how stupid men are for not stopping to ask directions, and the whales are that stupid and more. Glorious animals, yes, but with too much pride to ask for help and too few muscles in their sense of direction, I'm thinking calling them intelligent may be stretching it.

I've been lucky enough to see them and was in awe of their majesty. I feel the same way about mountains.