climate change
21 Aug 2008
Forget the Whales
Let's not pretend we're doing our best for the young whale abandoned in Sydney when we're happy to poison him, the sea, and everything else in it
For a cetacean just three weeks old, being abandoned by your mother is a terrible (and generally fatal) incident. Things only get worse if you befriend a 26-foot ketch, as some sort of surrogate mother. But nothing puts your short life into miserable perspective like being given the name "Colin" and having your last few hours become a Sydney media event showcasing our everyday environmental hypocrisy.Mother Nature can be the Most Official Bitch. We all know this but have great difficulty accepting it when she gets one of our favourite eco-nature pin-ups in her sights. Once the emblem for the patchouli oil and dolphin-tatt set, whales are now synonymous with everything that is green and wonderful. I'd like to use Colin as an example and suggest we all wake the hell up.
Whales are awesome. Majestic creatures of the deep, with their breaching and deep timbre singing, whales have become a symbol of the strange natural world that enchants us as we rapidly destroy it. Killing them makes no sense — apparently they taste awful. But saving them, specifically, as a symbol of our dedication to Mother Earth is futile and offensive to all the other, equally worthy creatures of the sea. In the age of global warming, whale preservation is like fire fighters rescuing cats during a bushfire.
Verity Firth, as NSW Environment Minister and Climate Change is all over the Save Colin Campaign. And why wouldn't you be? While the NSW Government builds a desalination plant, proposes more dams, offers little in the way of sustainable urban development and runs a public transport system which is outclassed by cities in most third world nations, Ms Firth is flat chat rescuing a doomed whale (and offering $35 for your old fridge). Take THAT, carbon emissions!
Meanwhile, perhaps seeing an opportunity to prove he is the man of the moment, Nathan Rees (the wannabe leader of the NSW ALP) has somehow become "acting" Environment Minister, and called in — I sh*t you not — the Defence Force. By sheer fluke, our armed forces over in Afghanistan have apparently left their whale rescue equipment at home, so a fuel bladder is being transported from Townsville to Pittwater in Sydney, where Colin has fetched up.
The cunning plan is to use the fuel bladder like a giant inflatable raft to tow Colin out to sea and wait for a passing pod of humpbacks. Then there is the unlikely chance he may be adopted. In addition, the NSW Government is flying senior marine veterinarian Dr David Bligh, from Sea World on the Gold Coast, for a second opinion on Colin's health. Dr Bligh may also get to pull the trigger when it's decided that killing Colin is the most humane option, so the trip may not be a complete waste of time, money and carbon emissions.
As Colin awaits his impending doom in Pittwater, I have another suggestion. Ask Piers Ackerman to adopt him. Good for News Ltd and kinda OK for Colin. We'll all sleep well at night. And in 20 to 30 years time, when ocean acidification due to man-made carbon emissions has destroyed the plankton, the whales that eat them, and countless other marine lifeforms, all those multi-million dollar Sydney homes whose owners are upset right now about Colin's plight will be overlooking a stinking mass of lifeless slime.
At that point we can all stroke our chins through our gas masks and remember how we did bugger all when we had the chance to make a difference — but at least we did our best for little Colin.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Newsvine
Facebook
Kwoff
Discuss this article
To participate in the discussion Sign in or Register
Bob is right about our rush to trash the planet.
But nobody is right to let a baby starve, any kind of baby, whale or human or any other species.
The least we can do is try to feed it and wait and hope for a miracle. Sometimes they happen.
Also let’s all get serious about stopping global warming, throw out our useless politicians and bring in people who can and will build sustainable energy systems - and let us find commensense solutions and recreate a planet friendly society.
Wakler, I don’t think anybody wants the whale to starve, but it seems to be more difficult to feed him than I would have first thought. Please excuse my ignorance, but what does a baby whale eat? I know they are mammals, but do they breastfeed? I don’t recall ever seeing nipples on a whale, but I’ve never really been that close to one.
However I do recall visiting the Pet Porpoise Pool in Coolangatta when I was about ten. They had this giant tank in the back, which contained a very large whale. I have no idea why it was there, but the poor thing hardly had room to move. I hope that place has closed down.
I’m in no hurry to see Pittwater turned into a slime-pit, but the look on the faces of property owners would be priceless.
Stephen whales, like ALL mammals, breastfeed. Yes even platypuses breastfeed. Sea mammals, like sea lions, seals and whales, have inverted nipples which come out when the baby sucks. Some humans have inverted nipples too which is not (necessarily) a barrier to breastfeeding.
—
Jenny
NATURAL PARENTING IN SYDNEY: a guide to services & products
www.npsydney.com.au
Thanks Jenny for clearing that up for me. I always assumed whales breastfed, but as I said, I never saw any nipples, so I wasn’t sure. Thanks also for providing a link to your website. Now I’ll return the favour, and give you a link to mine http://2ser.com/programs/shows/queernoise
Maybe you’d like to come on my show sometime.
Interestingly, I have just learnt, baby whales don’t suck. They nuzzle up and the mother squirts the milk into their mouth.
Projectile lactation. Very interesting.
Great to see the discussion go off topic so quickly!
In other news, sadly Colin is dead.
There is now talk of a state funeral, naming ceremony at a memorial swimming pool and A Current Affair are busy trying to locate the mother - to ask her just how it feels to abandon a young baby. At sea.
Poor old John Dengate from National Parks (who euthanased Colin) said, ""Some people are very upset, and some were very aggressive. It’s a bit harrowing personally.
"They’ve been calling me the worst names you can imagine … [including] ‘effing murderer’ which is a bit hard to take - I’ve spent my life working with animals. SMH online
The Tele is giving even more insights:
Police have kept the media and environmentalists at a distance as the whale continues to lie on the beach. It is expected to be moved soon by truck to Taronga Zoo for an autopsy.
The local community was outraged at how the NPWS dragged the baby whale, bucking and thrashing, across 300m of water.
It was still thrashing when it was pulled up on the beach.
“I don’t understand why they didn’t let it die quietly,” said Michael Brown. “It was obviously distressed. I’m 41 years old and almost collapsed.”
Mr Brown and other locals were crying as the baby whale - which had sought refuge in the bay for five days - was lashed by ropes to the NPWS boat as it continued to struggle.
“After this comedy of errors of the past few days I thought that they would euthanase it with some dignity,” said Mr Brown.
“For Gods sake it’s a baby. It’s been through hell. It was separated from its mother, it’s been starved and confused.”
What this really highlights is that sharks have appalling PR.
Yes Bob, I am waiting for the offer of a state funeral. Someone will commission Lee Kernagan to write the C&W ballad of colin. THe world is turning into a TV soap opera.
I have as much sympathy for an animal’s suffering as the next person, but all the hyperbole is verging pure indulgence & the pretence of real concern for things environmental.
I’d have more respect for someone suggesting we send the body to Japan; one less of next year’s total?
Too much hand-wringing by those who could do with some reality councilling.
It’s touching to see the empathy and surge of feeling for the baby whale.
It brings to mind the emotion that engulfed our leaders and the nation when 146 children - including many babies - drowned off our shores on October 19, 2001, in areas of the ocean patrolled by our surveillance aircraft….
in news just to hand, little colin was actually collette
"effing murderer"????
Seriously, how deranged would you have to be?
The 'Cat Rescue Community' are not impressed, "Sit very carefully in your chairs NSW Labor, your days in office are numbered. No-one will forget this."
Highlights include: "$2m was the price of the life that the NSW Government threw away. In a year that we’ve spent $140m having a Catholic Party, spent tens of millions on boozeups and sporting events, spent billions on wasteful political campaigns . . we couldn't spring $2m to save a starving, tired baby whale as “it may not have worked”
"A spokesman for the Divine Marine Group said they had organised a legal injunction against the NPWS to prevent Colin being killed but could not serve it in time." Cat Rescue: Sorry Colin - NSW Parliament Let You Down
Maybe they have a point. If NSW had an Animal Parliament this sort of thing would never happen.
And if Queensland had a Banana Parliament, we would be paying a thousand dollars a kilo to the Corbys for imports in boogie bags from Bali.
No, this is wrong-headed Bob, although your general point is fine. But it seems to me that if we can’t even get people concerned about saving cuddly whales, the rest of the natural world has no chance (and I agree the chances range from Buckley’s to none anyway). One of the things that struck me about the media treatment was the immediate assumption that the baby whale had been "abandoned" - no hint that this was a very unlikely scenario, but a useful alibi - hey not our fault, just Mother Nature red in tooth and claw, shame. I saw no suggestion that the most likely reason for the separation of mother and baby was human interference of some kind. No indication that water traffic, human harassment, underwater noise, shark netting, oil slicks or one of many other human impacts might have seen the two forced apart. And then suddenly there was information that Colin had been injured, and then the dead whale down the coast, apparently hit at speed by some lunatic in a fast boat. Oh dear, not much media interest after that, you might have to start aking questions about what we are doing to the marine environment.
So quickly everyone jumps to conclusions and assumes the baby whale (now renamed Colette) has been ‘abandoned’ by its mother.
No thoughts by anyone as to why this mother whale may have ‘abandoned’ her calf? Like she herself has been fatally injured and was in fact a good mother until something ‘bad’ happened to separate them.
Now they have possibly found the mother whale dead on the south coast of NSW so perhaps an autopsy will help to identify the cause of death of this ‘bad’ mother whale.
Of course we (as humans) will have had absolutely nothing to do with this unfortunate incident of bad whale mothering!
No David Horton, I don’t believe I’m wrong-headed here. Saving whales as a symbolic gesture is futile in the context of the greater environmental threat we face.
If you think saving Colinette makes Betty Blacktown (or Molly Mosman) think about broader green issues, then we really are stuffed. Think of Earth Hour. If that is required to make us ‘aware’ of climate change, after Stern, Garnaut and thousands of news reports over the past decade, then I think you are more than aware of the end game we have in store.
And why whales? I’m not pretending to have a great understanding of marine science, but if you had to rate critical species to the marine ecosystem, I would suggest whales are much further down the list than turtles, crustaceans, sharks and any number of small, unattractive and introverted species.
Of course whales are popular, there’s the ‘Ooh, big’ factor, Melville has had us bamboozled by them and when the Japs kill them - it’s a total gore fest. (And the Norwegians, but apparently that’s OK ‘cos, well I guess it is Norway and they fought the Nazis). Why do we always send our environment minister around the world to every inane Whaling Commission summit, send planes and ships to chase whaling ships and donate to Greenpeace, as though whale extinction is the most critical green issue.
In addition, our Colin died in a harbour which the NSW government stages power boat races and advises not to eat line caught fish due to the prohibitive mercury levels. The irony is breathtaking. Caring for Colin helps us connect with the little eco-warrior inside us. And then let it rest again for a while.
Colin wasn’t the first orphaned whale and with whales becoming the pigeons of the sea, sure as heck won’t be the last.
And if this isn’t about the environment but animal welfare (as the cat lovers seems to think - rescued any marsupials lately???), how about News Ltd send one of their crack journos to follow another calf, named Daisy who goes from lush green pastures to wiener schnitzel. I’d like to see that.
So we may now have a monument to the dead whale! I feel this may well be our Princess Diana moment. Prepare yourselves for a multitude of magazine covers & a range of both soft & inflateable toys. Welcome to the world of trivialized sentimentality
Cross-purposes Bob. No disagreement from me on the state of the planet and the gloomy future - in fact I’ll match your gloom any day and raise you. Nor any disagreement on the appalling damage that media coverage of environmental matters does to conservation. But it’s not an either-or question - I think we have to value every creature that we can (and yes, I do rescue marsupials, and turtles, and ants). A young whale dying should be a matter of regret for all of us.
Most certainly David, but did we need to send in the defence force and the whale whisperer (who kept calling him Colin)?
Sorry ‘her’ Colin!!!
Pigeons of the sea? I thought pigeons were meant to be the rats of the air. Speaking of which, when the Health Department finds evidence of rats in a restaurant kitchen, do they send in the RSPCA to rescue the furry little critters?
No, the RSPCR sends in rat whisperers.
I think saving whales is great, but to think it’s a massive tragedy to have failed to save ONE whale is surely hyperbole?
And despite what some seem to think, a lot of people really did try their best.