Thursday, July 13, 2006

Whalefare

A non-political happy story, courtesy of vicki at Louisville Drinking Liberally:
If you read the front page story of the SF Chronicle on Thursday, Dec 14, 2005, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso and a line in her mouth. A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help.

Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so badly off that they must act immediately. The only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her, a very dangerous proposition. Just one slap of the tail could kill a rescuer. They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually she was freed.

When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around, she was thanking them.. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eyes were following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.
I would appreciate it if my fellow humans would stop killing them, please. Thank you.

7 comments:

spocko said...

Now that is a nice story.
Check out another nice story at Salon by Joe Conason. Notice who is mentioned in the last paragraph!
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2006/07/14/melanie_morgan/

BTW, you coming by and posting recently has cheered me up. Your readership and comments helps keep me connected to a great group of folks.

karmic said...

Great story.

Eli said...

My pleasure, spocko. I hope you succeed in taking those scumbags down. If you can publically associate them with Disney, I think they'll have to do something to preserve their happy mouse image.

spocko said...

Interestingly I've only got till December. Then Citadel takes over.
ABC/Disney is trying to avoid doing anything until then when it is no longer their problem.

four legs good said...

That is a beautiful story. Thank you.

Eli said...

Interestingly I've only got till December. Then Citadel takes over.

Oh well. Even if Disney dumps 'em, Citadel will probably just bring them back - I assume Citadel are wankers, yes?


Glad you liked it, 4legs - I thought it was pretty damn cool. If you check bigvic's original post, she says she checked it with snopes and everything.

Susan McIntosh Lewis said...

Wow. Thanks for that. Seeya back on the Lake.