A Quote by Hal Whitehead
Whales are cultural animals, and we're cultural animals, so although we shouldn't expect whales to do what we do, it doesn't seem unreasonable to hypothesize that we might share some of these things.
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Conversation with animals could happen, but I think it would be easier for it to happen with creatures we share a bit more with - those that have been bred to interact with us, like dogs or horses, or ones to whom we have a natural evolutionary link, like chimps and other nonhuman apes. I mean, we do communicate with dolphins and whales, but we're not trying to get to the depths of their understandings. I feel that with animals as different from us as the whales and dolphins, it's likely to work better with us just watching them and trying to figure them out.
I never thought of that one, that linguistics could be driving cultural things. There are some thoughts that that does happen in humans, that languages have different characteristics and that influences in some ways how different groups behave, and I suppose it might in whales.
Molecular genetics can show off some surprising relationships like, for example, the close relationship of whales to hippopotamuses, which I think nobody ever guessed until molecular data was looked at. The closest relatives of whales are hippopotamuses, even closer than any other cloven-hoofed animals.
Years of cultural programming have taught us to love some animals while eating others, when in all reality, all animals are sentient beings with the capacity to feel, both physically and emotionally. Every day, I have the choice to live a life of compassion that not only saves animals but helps the environment.
Years of cultural programming have taught us to love some animals while eating others, when in all reality, all animals are sentient beings with the capacity to feel, both physically and emotionally.
Let me say right off the bat that I'm not what you would call a 'tree hugger' or a 'bushes and bunnies' environmentalist out to save the planet or the whales - although I do not denigrate that perspective either, and I really like whales.
I love all animals. I have a fascination with fish, birds, whales - sentient life - insects, reptiles.
Seeing the whales off James Price Point, mothers, babies, bull whales, seeing the count, going up into the thousands of these whales, the assurance that they will be ok with a mega port, mega ships and a huge factory ashore, is now clearly proven wrong.
New England waters are some of my favorite - they are some of the richest waters because they are temperate waters and nutrient-rich, and therefore provide food for so many animals, from giant whales to sharks to everything else.
Whales in mid-ocean, suspended in the waves of the sea great heaven of whales in the waters, old hierarchies. And enormous mother whales lie dreaming suckling their whale-tender young and dreaming with strange whale eyes wide open in the waters of the beginning and the end.
I write many essays on whales. I love whales, especially orcas. And dolphins.
Cultural diversity and cultural change are desirable and inevitable. We are cultural animals, someone without a culture is not human. But the cultures we possess vary enormously. Indeed, the variability, over time and space is the great evolutionary advantage of humanity. Instead of changing biologically over millennia, human beings can change culturally over decades
I've been diving for about 30 years, and I can honestly say that I've had some amazing encounters with sharks, squids, and other whales. But the encounter with the right whales in the Auckland Islands was probably the best thing I've ever done. It was just that amazing.
It had an enormous impact to the point of the United Nations passing a resolution against the killing and hunting of these whales as they are an endangered species. This was a documentary on the plight of the whales.
Many things that human words have upset are set at rest again by the
silence of animals. Animals move through the world like a caravan of
silence. A whole world, that of nature and that of animals, is filled
with silence. Nature and animals seem like protuberances of silence.
The silence of animals and the silence of nature would not be so great
and noble if it were merely a failure of language to materialize.
Silence has been entrusted to the animals and to nature as something
created for its own sake.
Large factory trawlers indiscriminately scrape and haul up everything from the ocean floor, along with everyone unfortunate enough to get caught in the nets. Roughly one-third of what is dragged in is not profitable fish, but other sea animals, including turtles, whales, dolphins, seals, and seabirds. These beings are referred to by the fishing industry as "by-catch." Severely traumatized and wounded, these animals are subsequently thrown back into the ocean, dead or dying.
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