So goes yesterday's widely reported story about the whale that beached itself at Breezy Point, Queens on Wednesday morning. There's been enough going on at Breezy Point after hurricane Sandy: now there's a whale to deal with. It's rather amazing the number of people that get involved when a whale comes in for a swan song.
Apparently, an emaciated 60' finback whale washed ashore with the incoming tide. The NYT story quoted Kimberly Durham, a biologist with the Riverhead Foundation on Long island, the region's official rescuers of stranded marine animals, "Unfortunately, this animal is so emaciated there's nothing we can do."
The weight of the whale on itself becomes a problem. Being beached, the whale is literally crushing itself. This is bad news for whales and shows how they differ from us, despite that we're both classified as mammals. A whale of a person with shopping bags and a North Face puff coat who plops down next to you on the subway and spreads their legs, as if expecting something good to happen, crushes you, not themselves. Life.
Apparently, disposing of the whale becomes an issue. "It's a logistical nightmare," Ms. Garron, a marine-mammal rescue coordinator with the Natural Marine Fisheries Service reports. "A 1964 whale was towed 35 miles out to sea, fitted with 500 pounds of explosives and blown up." Ms. Garron admits that that method is "off the table."
Only Disney can get away with that.
http://www.onofframp.bloghspot.com
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