Simon Barnes

The song of the whales

We have changed our understanding of whales and by doing so we have changed our understanding of the world

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thenextrefugeecrisis/media.mp3″ title=”Simon Barnes and the Sea Watch Foundation’s Dr Peter Evans discuss whales” startat=1400]

Listen

[/audioplayer]Last week a sperm whale was beached at Hunstanton in Norfolk and there was much horrified concern.

A terrible sight, lying there like a small cottage on the immensity of the beach, 46 feet long and 30 tons, surrounded by rescue workers from British Divers Marine Rescue and Hunstanton Sea Life Sanctuary who were dousing the whale with water to try and keep it going, but to no avail. It died towards the end of a long and desperate day.

Last month, another sperm whale was beached just a couple of miles away and five more at Skegness. All of this provoked a mood of sadness and wonder: that so enormous a thing could exist in the first place and then die in so inexplicable a fashion.

It wasn’t always like that. In 1331 a large school of whales beached on the Dodder River in Ireland, tributary to the Liffey, in the middle of a famine: ‘From the stinking cagework city a horde of jerkined dwarfs, my people, with flayer’s knives, running, scaling, hacking on green blubbery whalemeat. Famine, plague and slaughter.’ This from Ulysses.

North Atlantic right whales are docile things. They keep near the coast and near the surface. They have a high blubber content, so they float like corks when harpooned, and yield vast quantities of whale oil. They were called right whales because they’re the right whale to hunt. They were duly hunted close to extinction and are classed as endangered.

We have changed our understanding of whales and by doing so we have changed our understanding of the world.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in