What's On My Mind...at 59: Be a Whale Warrior With Us!

As I approach 60 I'm taking the time to think more globally instead of just locally. Today's blog opens with an experience I had as a nurse.

I was an acute stroke research nurse at Johns Hopkins. One of my responsibilities was to help teach the residents and interns about our drug protocol. One evening the chief investigator for our study and I stayed late to meet with the docs working nights. Before we began our talk, I made a quick trip to the bathroom. Just as I started walking down the hall a door opened at the end and what emerged haunted me for weeks and still does.

A beautiful chimp imprisoned in a "monkey chair" with about 50 electrodes coming out of his brain was being wheeled down the hall by a tall man in a white lab coat. The site below will give you an idea of what the contraption looks like with the exception that the one this chimp was in was wooden.

http://www.all-creatures.org/anex/monkey-chair-01.html

I stopped frozen as the chimp was wheeled past me. It was like watching an open casket go by with the corpse alive or watching someone being buried alive. The researcher had his head down so he didn't see the shocked expression on my face. I was stunned. The chimp made eye contact with me from way down the hall. His frantic eyes were wide open and he was looking hard at me as if he knew me. He did not take his eyes off of me until he passed. The message from his eyes was, "Why are they doing this to me? Please help me. Please help me now. I'm dying and it hurts."

He couldn't open his mouth for some reason. His arms and legs stuck out of little holes in the trap. The only thing that could move were his eyes. His little brown, terrified eyes staring hard at me.

It was horrific.

Chimpanzee's DNA is nearly 99% identical to humans.

My husband and I are vegetarians. One of our five children has chosen to be also. Our other four are not. We've never, ever pressured them into thinking that our way of eating should be their way of eating.

This post is not about eating animals; it's about killing animals human beings should not be killing. It's as obvious as not experimenting on other primates and not killing our planet's whales. No human being owns these animals.

Fin Whale - Highly endangered. Hunted fiercely because they are so large
(see comparison to humans in first picture)

Blue Whale

Humpback Whale - the most social of all

This is a paragraph taken from a book my husband, Henry, just read titled The Whale Warriors - The Battle at the Bottom of the World To Save the Planet's Largest Mammals by Peter Heller.

"Recent research has found spindle neurons in the brains of humpbacks, fins, orcas, and sperm whatles. Previously thought to be unique to humans, these specialized cells are located in areas of the human brain associated with social organization, empathy, speech, and intuition. They are thought to process emotion and are the cells responsible for feelings of love, grief, and suffering. The researchers found that the whales' spindle neurons reside in the same area of the brain as those in humans, that they have existed in whatles' brains much longer than in ours, and that whales have proportionally three times more of the cells than we do. Not only are whale brains larger than ours; they have four lobes to our three, and have more convolutions in the neocortex."

The back of the book reads -

"The Whale Warriors recounts the heart-thumping epic journey of the eco-pirate ship Farley Mowat as it stalked the Japanese whaling fleet off the stormy shores of Antartica. The Farley is the flagship of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Sea Shepherd claims to have sunk eight whaling ships over the years."

As Henry was reading the book he'd share something impressive - Humpbacks make 622 different social sounds.........The the ocean dies, we die too........The mess hall on the ship is vegan and run by vegan cooks.

We are members of Greenpeace. The latest newsletter described Japan's recent ramping up of its whale killing operations and its attempts to manipulate the International Whaling Commission. I've pasted below a copy of the letter he just wrote to the top three countries that hunt and kill whales for commercial purposes - Japan, Norway and Iceland.

The Honorable Ichiro Fujisaki

Ambassador to the United States

Embassy of Japan in the United States

2520 Massachusetts Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20008

The Honorable Wegger Chr. Strommen

Ambassador to the United States

Royal Embassy of Norway in the United States

2720 34^th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20008

The Honorable Gudmundur Arni Stefansson

Ambassador to the United States

Embassy of Iceland in the United States

2900 K Street, NW, Suite 509

Washington, DC 20007

Dear Ambassador ____________:

As long-time admirers of the ____________ people, the nation of ________, and ___________ arts and culture, we feel compelled to write to you to express our concerns about a practice that we consider to be a terrible blot on the fine character and reputation of your nation.

Despite __________ and its people serving as shining examples to the world's people in so many areas, __________'s practice of killing minor and great whales – whether characterized as "scientific research," "commercial fishing," "maintenance of aboriginal custom," or otherwise – strikes us as an atrocity of almost unthinkable dimensions.

These extraordinary creatures -- so simultaneously beautiful, awe-inspiring and threatened -- should generate from a thoughtful, kind and decent people an urgent and compelling protective impulse, and not a stubborn insistence on killing them.

Because we feel so passionately about this, and because of our admiration for you and your county, we wanted to share these thoughts with you in case they might have some small impact.

Best wishes to you and the nation of ___________ for a peaceful and enjoyable 2012.