Whales come long way since Moby Dick

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 30, 2002

Keiko, the celebrity killer whale of Free Willy fame, has been much in the news since surfacing in a Norwegian fjord a month-and-a-half after having been released from a pen in Iceland. While many fans celebrated Keiko's freedom, some experts involved in his former life as a captive expressed fear that he might be starving and disoriented.

Keiko seemed quite pleased to be back in the company of humans after his thousand-mile journey, during which he often mingled with his own kind. Since arriving in Norway, the 25-year-old orca has frolicked with swimmers, gobbled handouts of fish and accompanied commercial fishermen on their rounds at sea. Norway might seem an odd choice for refuge, being the only country that has no laws against whaling.

Worries about Keiko's fate illustrate the incredible reversal in attitudes that has taken place since the days, not so very long ago, when whales were depicted as monsters of the deep and hunting them was a bold and venerable occupation.

Coincident with news of the latest Keiko sighting, the University of Oklahoma has released a study by a team of biologists investigating the belligerent behavior of sperm whales in the early and mid-1800s. The scientists were looking at why the whales head-butted and successfully sunk ships much larger than themselves. A casual assessment, of course, might be that such behavior was perfectly justified, considering that the targets were whaling ships out for the making of perfume and lamp oil. But the study found a more intriguing twist.

This aggression, a key ingredient of Herman Melville's Moby Dick and a host of lesser adventure tales, appears to have romantic roots. The whales attacking the ships were males, the scientists believe, having at what they perceived as rivals for the affection of lady whales. To be able to knock the other suitor senseless and swim away unscathed, according to Jason Otterstrom, an author of the study, was "evolutionarily advantageous to their survival."