A Whale of a Tale
Whale Picnic - Are Tourists raining on the Whale Parade?
.... by D. Grant DeMan
Oh leave me alone
Stop asking for more
I'm goin' home on my own
Oh leave me alone
As sung by Natalie Imbruglia/Wright
When I was a boy just three-foot-three, mother commented one day to me,
"I see by the Victoria Colonist, that our government has hired some of its
friends to hold an inquiry into the causes of poverty. If they came to me
for that information it would cost them exactly nothing. Some folks like us
are poor because we have no money." Period.
Now some fifty or so years later we seem more sophisticated in
gathering bits of obvious information. Carla Wilson, working diligently on
a tourist series for that same newspaper, wonders if West Coast fleets of
motorboats chock-full of raucous bug-eyed travelers roaring into their
habitat could possibly be disturbing the whales. "It is a very, very
difficult thing to measure," she quotes Graeme Ellis of the Pacific
Biological Station in Nanaimo as saying. A tremendous amount of data is
needed to answer such questions.
I'll bet! And just who will be paying for the collection of such
difficult data over a period of years and years and years? Somehow I don't
think it will be either Mr. Ellis or the Victoria Times-Colonist, do you?
And we read further that Dan Kukat, owner of Victoria's Springtime Charters
and vice-president of the International Whale Watching Operators
Association -- Northwest wants more federal money. Taxpayer's money, I
presume, to send yet more folks out there to examine these poor animals.
"We're the good group in this sector." He claims, "For the greater good."
Sure thing. For the greater good.Gone are the days when brave
men risked their lives in longboats to harpoon and slaughter these great
beasts. Now we must be satisfied with pestering them to death. Lookyloos
are mobbing the waters "For the greater good."
Makes you wonder how these animals managed for the past few million
years without all this human attention and affection, long before the
arrival of these tourists and scientists. Did they feel neglected? Were
they lonesome for some alien land-dweller company? In fact it may have been
our family of ancestral busybodies who drove them into the ocean in the
first place. I really don't know.
But I do have the sense God gave a goose to see the obvious, placing
myself in the whales' shoes, so to speak. Imagine a family picnic, a fine
time with the kids and grandkids and perhaps a cousin here and a neighbor
there. A nice quiet fried chicken and biscuit Sunday. A little music and
dance, while the children sing and play. Perhaps the pastor is saying a
prayer or two, and daddy is getting a team together for a ball game later.
All of a sudden out of the blue you hear a great roaring, a deafening
din from all sides of the picnic grounds, and lo, there on the horizon, you
view a great hoard of high-speed alien bikers bearing down on your spot.
These invasive pests circle around looking at you, critique your garments,
caress your bodies and smile at the way you jump to avoid their close-call
advances. Some stop and help themselves to a goodly portion of the food,
some clip tags and junk into your body, and some just stare and stare and
stare until you are about ready to have a nervous breakdown. Poor old
Granny has a heart attack.
Get the picture?
You're about ready to call out the harassment police and have them
jailed. Right?
Good. Does it do much for you? Do you feel relieved that these
well-intentioned folks are there for the Greater Good? Let me know
the next time a Greaser Gang invades your space, as these PHD candidates
like Chris Malcolm of the University of Victoria would do to the whales:
"We don't know whale watching has any impact on whales...." And dumber and
dumber: "They are not just a commodity." Good grief! A dozen years of
college and he suddenly discovers that whales are something MORE than a
commodity. There's money well spent!
Let me give you a clue that shall resolve the whole non-issue here. Is
it beyond the imagination of the average citizen of this great nation, to
conclude that everything will be hunky-dory if we damn well stop bothering
whales?
Is that too difficult a concept for most folks?
Don't examine, poke, or tag them. Nor gaze at them or give them
government handouts. I have it on high authority that Whales just want
respect and to be permitted to run their own lives.
Can't you hear them singing now? Listen to the words:
I'll make it on my own
Leave me alone
Leave me alone
Leave me alone
Just leave me alone
(Imbruglia/Wright)
Once more with feeling: "Go away and leave us alone!"
