Read Online The Stranding by Karen Viggers - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Karen Viggers
Tags: FIC000000
Ads: Link
whaling at home and then, in the newspapers, reading about modern whaling and the upcoming annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission.
One of Vic Wallace’s books was called Killers of Eden. When Lex had first taken it from the shelf, he’d thought it was a murder-mystery, but it was about shore-based whaling in Twofold Bay out from Eden in the late 1800s. The story was about a pod of killer whales that assisted the local whalers over the years. He had been particularly interested in the old black and white photo of George Davidson, the most famous of the Twofold Bay whalers. He looked like a dour and hard old man, tough as nails, as if nothing could scare him. But his wife’s face was a tired mask of resignation. The book made the lives of whalers seem heroic, but the wife’s face showed there was a cost. It was a hard life, and not a pretty one.
Lex had lingered over a photo of an old whale boat. It was little more than a wooden tub manned by six oarsmen and seemed a meagre weapon against a whale. Yet, according to the book, the whalers slaughtered plenty in a good year, and the killer whales helped them. Old Tom was the best known of the killers. He and his pod assisted the whalers by leading them to a group of whales and then preventing the whales from escaping out to sea. Once the whalers had harpooned and lanced a whale, the killers ate the tongue. Lex had never considered the size of a whale’s tongue before, but apparently it was a gourmet meal for a killer.
In another of Vic’s books, Lex had read about the Faeroe Islanders of the northern Atlantic. These people held an annual event in which whales were herded into a bay and killed. Sometimes more than a hundred whales were killed at a time, and the photos were disturbing—dozens of row boats in the small bay with speared whales rolling in the water, others trying to escape and hundreds of spectators lining the shores watching the slaughter. These people traditionally killed whales for food and Lex thought he should have found that acceptable. But it made him think of modern whaling, and of the Japanese making excuses to take whales for their so-called research.
Twentieth-century whaling had developed the grenade-tipped harpoon, which was designed to explode once it was fired into a whale’s back. The whale was supposed to bleed out internally and die quickly, but the time to death depended on where the harpoon had embedded, and it could still take up to forty-five minutes for a whale to die. This was what Lex disliked about whaling. The killing wasn’t humane. And for some reason, this seemed worse in whales than any other animal. Lex wasn’t sure why he felt this way.
In the newspapers, there was endless outrage about the Japanese proposal to end the moratorium on commercial whaling. Lex knew, from covering this story on radio in previous years, that the Japanese and other pro-whaling nations would need a two-thirds majority to overturn the moratorium. Over the past few years the Japanese had been buying the votes of other nations, even those that had never attended the meetings before. And each year the vote had been getting closer. As usual, the Japanese were asking to increase their annual research quota of minke whales, and this year they also wanted to add humpbacks.
Once a week on his radio program, Lex used to chat with a zoologist from the University of Sydney. Not your usual kind of academic, this guy had been quite eloquent and had a knack of picking up on issues that concerned the public. Each year, when whaling was in the papers again, they’d talk about whales and the talkback lines would be full of callers. People wanted to vent their anger at the Japanese, and many of them passionately described their encounters with humpbacks migrating along the coast. It seemed everybody who had seen a humpback had been moved by the experience. Everybody, that is, except the Japanese, who still wanted to exercise their right to eat whale
One of Vic Wallace’s books was called Killers of Eden. When Lex had first taken it from the shelf, he’d thought it was a murder-mystery, but it was about shore-based whaling in Twofold Bay out from Eden in the late 1800s. The story was about a pod of killer whales that assisted the local whalers over the years. He had been particularly interested in the old black and white photo of George Davidson, the most famous of the Twofold Bay whalers. He looked like a dour and hard old man, tough as nails, as if nothing could scare him. But his wife’s face was a tired mask of resignation. The book made the lives of whalers seem heroic, but the wife’s face showed there was a cost. It was a hard life, and not a pretty one.
Lex had lingered over a photo of an old whale boat. It was little more than a wooden tub manned by six oarsmen and seemed a meagre weapon against a whale. Yet, according to the book, the whalers slaughtered plenty in a good year, and the killer whales helped them. Old Tom was the best known of the killers. He and his pod assisted the whalers by leading them to a group of whales and then preventing the whales from escaping out to sea. Once the whalers had harpooned and lanced a whale, the killers ate the tongue. Lex had never considered the size of a whale’s tongue before, but apparently it was a gourmet meal for a killer.
In another of Vic’s books, Lex had read about the Faeroe Islanders of the northern Atlantic. These people held an annual event in which whales were herded into a bay and killed. Sometimes more than a hundred whales were killed at a time, and the photos were disturbing—dozens of row boats in the small bay with speared whales rolling in the water, others trying to escape and hundreds of spectators lining the shores watching the slaughter. These people traditionally killed whales for food and Lex thought he should have found that acceptable. But it made him think of modern whaling, and of the Japanese making excuses to take whales for their so-called research.
Twentieth-century whaling had developed the grenade-tipped harpoon, which was designed to explode once it was fired into a whale’s back. The whale was supposed to bleed out internally and die quickly, but the time to death depended on where the harpoon had embedded, and it could still take up to forty-five minutes for a whale to die. This was what Lex disliked about whaling. The killing wasn’t humane. And for some reason, this seemed worse in whales than any other animal. Lex wasn’t sure why he felt this way.
In the newspapers, there was endless outrage about the Japanese proposal to end the moratorium on commercial whaling. Lex knew, from covering this story on radio in previous years, that the Japanese and other pro-whaling nations would need a two-thirds majority to overturn the moratorium. Over the past few years the Japanese had been buying the votes of other nations, even those that had never attended the meetings before. And each year the vote had been getting closer. As usual, the Japanese were asking to increase their annual research quota of minke whales, and this year they also wanted to add humpbacks.
Once a week on his radio program, Lex used to chat with a zoologist from the University of Sydney. Not your usual kind of academic, this guy had been quite eloquent and had a knack of picking up on issues that concerned the public. Each year, when whaling was in the papers again, they’d talk about whales and the talkback lines would be full of callers. People wanted to vent their anger at the Japanese, and many of them passionately described their encounters with humpbacks migrating along the coast. It seemed everybody who had seen a humpback had been moved by the experience. Everybody, that is, except the Japanese, who still wanted to exercise their right to eat whale
Similar Books
