Out of the Deep (12 page)

Then the Great Spirit decided to make one thing more, the very best of his creation—the bowhead whale. This was his most beautiful creature. He gave it a song, and as it sailed though the waters, sharing its melody, the whale was in perfect balance with all of creation.

But the Great Spirit saw something else. His people needed the whale to survive the bitter-cold winters. Without the
muktuk,
the flesh of the whale, the people could not stay warm and healthy during the frigid nights. They needed the bones of the whale to create their homes.

In short, they needed every part of the bowhead whale in order to live.

And so the Great Spirit gave the bowhead to the Inuit.

With spring comes the thaw. The ocean ice breaks apart, creating a water road called the Open Lead. It is on the Open Lead that the bowheads swim, right into the harpoons of the Inuit. Every year the whales sing, and every year they come, waiting patiently for their death.

But, the Great Spirit decided this also. At the same time every year, when the Open Lead is formed, the Great Spirit sends a cloud of heavy mist to hover just above the ice, above the whales, and above the Inuit. The heavy cloud hangs in the air between the sky and the sea.

“Though I gave you permission to kill my most perfect creature, the whale,” the Great Spirit said, “I do not wish to watch it happen.”

 

Opening her eyes, Ashley searched Bindy's face.

“What are you trying to say?” Bindy asked. “Is that story supposed to mean something to me?”

Ashley nodded. “Maybe,” she answered, “your aunt didn't want to believe what her son was doing, so she made a cloud to hide the truth. But now that she knows, she's trying to tell you she's sorry.”

For a long moment Bindy stayed silent. Then she murmured, “Thanks, Ashley.”

“Are you going to go back to her?”

“I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not.” Turning to Jack, Bindy struggled to clear the emotion from her face. “You're wet. Look at you, you've got goose bumps all over. Here, take my blanket.”

“I'm fine,” Jack told her, shivering.

“No offense, but you've always been a bad actor. Come on, Jack-o, you're freezing. Take it!”

When he refused again, she said, “All right, then, we'll share. Ashley, you throw your blanket around him on one side, and I'll throw mine on the other, and if we huddle up together….” Jack felt himself enveloped in warm blankets. “Maybe we'll all survive.”

Jack could hear Bindy's breathing, feel her rounded arm pressed against his, and on his other side he felt Ashley's knob of an elbow drill his ribs. They sat, the three of them, separate in their thoughts, yet united by what they'd been through together.

“We make a whale of a team,” Bindy murmured.

She was right.

T
he evil scientist is caught. Jack, Bindy, and Ashley save the day, and Olivia and Steven save the whale. All is well. But while this story didn't actually happen, many of the details are based on fact. There are some important themes in
Out of the Deep
that are worth returning to.

First, it is important to understand there are two types of whales—those that have teeth and those that don't. Toothed whales (odontocetes) are typically smaller, and include dolphins, porpoises, beaked whales, sperm whales, and killer whales. Baleen whales (mysticetes) lack teeth. Instead they have rows of baleen plates that hang from the roof of the mouth. These plates strain microscopic food from the water. Common mysticetes include the humpback, fin, and minke whales.

Do whales really beach themselves? Yes, but not frequently. In Maine, where Acadia National Park is situated, we respond to 5–10 toothed whale strandings each year. Baleen-whale strandings are much rarer and happen perhaps once a year. In most cases the animal washes ashore already dead. Finding Spud alive in
Out of the Deep
meant people still had a chance to save him.

Why do whales strand? We really don't know. There probably isn't just one cause. In some cases whales may deliberately swim toward a beach and strand. If rescue teams are unable to re-float the whale and push it back to sea, then it will likely die of asphyxiation (meaning it will suffocate) or from massive internal trauma. Out of water, a whale cannot support its own weight. Gravity will crush its organs. In some cases, a whale will repeatedly strand. This apparently suicidal behavior is difficult to understand. Even more puzzling are mass strandings, in which several animals strand within a short period of time.

Scientists are careful to examine all possible causes of any kind of stranding. If a stranded whale dies, we quickly perform a necropsy to see if we can understand more about what happened. These examinations don't always answer our questions, as we still know very little about a whale's physiology. From personal experience I can tell you that performing a necropsy on an animal as large as a whale is a smelly and gory business, not for the faint of heart!

In this story, Olivia remembers a mass stranding that actually happened in the Bahamas. Necropsies revealed that the ear structure in some of the whales had been destroyed. Eventually, the stranding was linked to local sonar testing by the Navy. I was one of the researchers at the Newfoundland stranding Greg mentions in the book. Examination of that humpback revealed that powerful sound waves had sheared the whale's earbone. That investigation was one of the first to suggest that exposure to loud sound could lead to a whale's death.

You may be wondering how sound can be so deadly to a whale. The answer lies in the way these animals perceive their world.

Think for a moment about how you take in the space around you. Vision is the sense we humans rely on most. This is because the air that surrounds us is transparent. But whales live in a watery environment where vision, at best, can only be used at short range. (Picture how far you can see underwater, even if you wear a mask and snorkel.) In contrast, sound travels very long distances in water—much farther than it does in air. Whales most likely “see” their surroundings as pictures painted not in color but in sound. When intense sound waves harm a whale's inner ear, they rob the animal of its ability to accurately sense its environment. It loses its ability to find its way.

Humans are but a small blip in the history of life on this planet. In contrast, whales have existed for about 60 million years. For most of that time, their environment was relatively quiet. But steadily over the past 200 years, humans have made the ocean a noisy place—first with the roar of boat engines, then with sonar and other types of sound devices. Whales have no way to protect themselves against this noise pollution. As a result, these magnificent animals have begun to suffer.

It is humbling to reflect upon how little we humans know about whales. We must learn about our impact on these mystical animals—not only about the effects of noise pollution or the use of sonar but also about the devastation of hunting that has brought many species to the brink of extinction. We must protect these creatures of the deep. Only knowledge combined with action ultimately will lead to a solution.

May it come in our lifetimes.

Sean Todd, Ph.D.
Professor, College of the Atlantic
Senior Researcher, Allied Whale
http://www.coa.edu/alliedwhale

An award-winning mystery writer and an
award-winning science writer—who are also mother and
daughter—are working together on
Mysteries in Our National Parks!

ALANE (LANIE) FERGUSON'S
first mystery,
Show Me the
Evidence,
won the Edgar Award, given by the
Mystery Writers of America.

GLORIA SKURZYNSKI'S
Almost the Real Thing
won the
American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award.

Lanie lives in Elizabeth, Colorado. Gloria lives in Boise,
Idaho. To work together on a novel, they
connect by phone, fax, and e-mail and “often forget which
one of us wrote a particular line.”

Gloria's e-mail: [email protected]

Her Web site:
www.gloriabooks.com

Lanie's e-mail: [email protected]

Her Web site:
www.alaneferguson.com

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