Save the Whales

The majority of the earth consists of water. Majestic salt water seas and oceans inhabited by the most fascinating of beasts. Fish, plants, and mammals, the most intriguing of which are the elegant cetaceans; whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Sea mammals that have actually begun their evolution as hoofed land mammals. Skeletal fingers within rubbery flippers and very vestigial pelvic structures leave us pondering a mystery. Possessing the most advanced intelligence in the animal kingdom makes them the closest things to human beings. Unfortunately a number of these species remain endangered or depleted since history’s vicious whaling expeditions and today’s boating and fishing accidents. There are seventy-eight different species of cetaceans, eighteen of which are endangered or depleted.

• Beluga whale-depleted
• Blue whale-endangered
• Bottlenose dolphin-depleted
• Bowhead whale-endangered
• Chinese river dolphin-endangered
• Fin whale-endangered
• Gray whale-endangered
• Harbor porpoise-endangered
• Humpback whale-endangered
• Indus river dolphin-endangered
• Killer whale-endangered
• North Atlantic right whale-endangered
• North Pacific right whale-endangered
• Sei whale-endangered
• Spinner dolphin-depleted
• Spotted dolphin-depleted
• Southern Right whale-endangered
• Sperm whale-endangered

The dark past presents us with visions of seas dyed red. Brutal slaughters by whalers in dinghies driving spears deep into a whale’s head till they see the “Red mist” when the spray that irrupts from a whale’s blow hole as it exhales turns to blood. They were then hoisted into ships where they were then harvested of their oil, blubber, bone and baleen. Today cetaceans face the danger of boats, being chopped up by the propellers, getting caught in fishing nets or being turned into bloody chunks of road kill by naval ships.

When your think about it, it feels much like murder. It’s only considered murder if a human is killed. Other than that it’s just considered hunting, or in the case of a protected species a violation of standards or animal cruelty. But how do you define a human being as we are very much animals ourselves? Is it out intelligence that sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom? Every part of a dolphin’s brain is either just as big or bigger than a human’s; just as or more complex. In a dolphin’s brain, the cerebral cortex which rules over memory, attention, awareness, thought, language and consciousness is forty percent larger than a human being’s. our brain weight to body mass ratios are close to equal and with many cetaceans possessing EQ’s in the four to five range it makes them the second most evolved intelligence on the planet next to human beings with an average EQ of about seven.

Fortunately, to the benefit of cetaceans there are organizations and acts such as the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) serving to protect them. Under the MMPA the “Take” of these animals is prohibited, but when authorized for the following exceptions:

• Scientific research.
• Enhancing the survival or recovery of a marine mammal species or stock.
• Commercial and educational photography.
• First time import for public display.
• Capture of wild marine mammals for public display.
• Incidental take during commercial fishing operations.
• Incidental take during non-fishery commercial activities.

These animals deserve to live. Like humans they feel emotions. They love and hate. They mourn and celebrate. They keep family ties and enemies. Now different are cetaceans from us.