Humpback whale and dolphin play together

Recently watched a so so movie, In the Heart of the Sea, and it spurred a lot of thoughts. From wiki:

In the Heart of the Sea is a 2015 historical drama film based on Nathaniel Philbrick’s 2000 non-fiction book of the same name, about the sinking of the American whaling ship Essex in 1820, an event that inspired the novel Moby-Dick. An international co-production between the United States and Spain, it was directed and produced by Ron Howard and written by Charles Leavitt; the film stars Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy, Tom Holland, Ben Whishaw, and Brendan Gleeson . . . [3]

Anyway, it was one of those “duh” things for me. They hunted the whales almost to extinction for oil. We used to slaughter these beautiful, incredibly intelligent animals for oil.

(Now we slaughter our fellow humans for it. But that’s another story, one not taken up by Melville — but hinted at toward the very end of the film.)

It’s a good thing we humans also make art, or we’d forget about the beauty that was once on this earth, or all too rare, because of what we do when we’re not making art.

nittany ram wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

Recently watched a so so movie, In the Heart of the Sea, and it spurred a lot of thoughts. From wiki:

In the Heart of the Sea is a 2015 historical drama film based on Nathaniel Philbrick’s 2000 non-fiction book of the same name, about the sinking of the American whaling ship Essex in 1820, an event that inspired the novel Moby-Dick. An international co-production between the United States and Spain, it was directed and produced by Ron Howard and written by Charles Leavitt; the film stars Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy, Tom Holland, Ben Whishaw, and Brendan Gleeson . . . [3]

Anyway, it was one of those “duh” things for me. They hunted the whales almost to extinction for oil. We used to slaughter these beautiful, incredibly intelligent animals for oil.

(Now we slaughter our fellow humans for it. But that’s another story, one not taken up by Melville — but hinted at toward the very end of the film.)

It’s a good thing we humans also make art, or we’d forget about the beauty that was once on this earth, or all too rare, because of what we do when we’re not making art.

I read the book “Heart of the Sea” and really liked it. I don’t know anything about the movie but the book wasn’t a dramatic effort. It was simply a description of the events that occurred based on the accounts of the survivors and what was known about that time period.

This part of the linked paper bothered me…

“Slijper (1962) reported succorant behavior when a humpback whale supported an injured humpback for 40 min before being harpooned by whalers.”

It bothered me mostly because of what happened…a whale was harpooned while trying to help another previously injured whale (probably also harpooned). I picture a grieving, frightened animal, frantically trying to help a pod member (probably a sibling, parent, etc) only to receive a horrible and painful death for its efforts.

But what also is unsettling is the detached, clinical way in which it is written. Of course, it’s a scientific paper. To word it any other way would be inappropriate, but still…reading that after looking at pictures of a dolphin and whale playing was a little unsettling.

That is pretty awful. I’ve read that whales are quite likely smarter than we are. So we can’t make the excuse that we were just killing “dumb” animals without any feelings. They may surpass us in those areas.

Thanks for the picture, Nittany. It’s beautiful to see and think about.