He was so very old, having outlived family and friends. How many miles he’d traveled, no one could know. He had seen so much change — for the worst. Whether or not it was really “his time to go,” he was slaughtered by a gang of heartless, mindless killers. In a world soaked in blood, blinded by a spectrum of cruelty and violence, choked with the nausea from limitless abuse and inhumanity, his death breaks my heart — again.
If there ever was a god, he killed himself or walked away in disgust. mjh
Whale found with 19th-century weapon in neck, By Erin Conroy, Associated Press
BOSTON — A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt — more than a century ago. Embedded deep under its blubber was a 3 1/2-inch arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale’s age, estimated between 115 and 130 years old. …
“It probably hurt the whale, or annoyed him, but it hit him in a non-lethal place,” he said. “He couldn’t have been that bothered if he lived for another 100 years.” …
The 49-foot male whale died when it was shot with a similar projectile last month, and the older device was found buried beneath its blubber as hunters carved it with a chain saw for harvesting. …
“We didn’t make anything of it at the time, and no one had any idea about their lifespan, or speculated that a bowhead could be that old,” [some idiot] said.
It is a measure of our indifference that the tone of this article is of amazement, not guilt. Look! We finally got him! Hey, he couldn’t have been hurt so bad — he lived another century. For all we know, he ached every day of that 100 plus years. Regardless, it’s over now. Someone got a museum piece, a moment in the news, a bowel movement. mjh
“What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!”
— Hamlet (II, ii, 115-117)
I, too, was stunned at this story. We are hunting a species of whale and we don’t even know the rudimentary
biology of the creature.
Q: How long does it live?
A: (munch munch) I dunno, but ya oughta try this blubber; it’s fabulous!
(munch munch).
When creatures invade our habitat with this sort of mindless destruction we call them “pests.”