When Pip the black cabin boy went overboard and was left behind to tread water during a whale hunt in Moby Dick, he witnessed the terrible beauty of God’s ocean, infinitely deep and wide, teeming with submarine insects and predatory leviathans. It was an insight that could only unhinge the limited human mind, and little Pip was picked up some time later a gibbering waterlogged lunatic.
Thankfully today’s Pips are safe from such epiphanies. Our liberal century doesn’t tolerate nonsense like grandeur and mystery, and child labour laws make it fairly tricky for employers to hang about on quays offering inner-city pre-teens the chance to seek their fortune on the briny billows. Besides, modern whaling captains just don’t have time to navigate the reefs of representivity, being too busy doling out pieces-of-eight for UIF contributions.
No, today’s urchins are high and dry, safe to stand in welfare queues and sell wire biplanes at traffic intersections without fear of drowning or being sat upon by a whale. Naturally the weekend whaler is disappointed, having got togged out with the authentic woollen cap and hickory pipe and pubic lice his new hobby demands; but he can always console himself by throwing toothpicks at goldfish.
Indeed, very few countries still hunt whales. A handful of tiny islands have been granted small quotas to ensure the survival of ancient cultural practices, which involve the donning of ceremonial Bentley-belts, the inflating of brightly painted water-wings, and a general dash through the breakers in war canoes to hack with flint tomahawks at the flukes of the Great Spirit or the Black Sea–Mountain Who Brings Life and Whale-Bacon, or whatever they call the particular species they’re -chopping up that day.
Norwegians also hunt whales to maintain cultural and historical -traditions. Of course these traditions also include splitting the heads of Irish monks with axes and setting large bits of Europe on fire, but one appreciates their honesty. They shoot whales with rocket–propelled grenades because it makes them feel good about being Norwegian, and that’s all there is to it.
One would have thought this transparency would have been seized upon by Japan, sensing a chance to come clean after decades of claiming that the dog ate its homework. But no, the official line remains unchanged: Japanese whalers are aiding ‘scientific research”, in much the same way that the Imperial Fleet’s field-trip to Pearl Harbour once aided scientific research on American shipbuilding techniques.
In all fairness, Japan’s marine scientists are making some impressive breakthroughs. A recent conference in the kitchen of the Happy Dolphin Sushi Bar in Hokkaido established the optimum temperature for preparing perfect sirloins of Minke, and any day now we should know exactly how many ground-up humpback penises it takes to briefly engorge one tiny flaccid, Oriental member.
But what remains a mystery is why Japan is currently fighting to have its quota increased to just under 1 000 whales a year. After all, how much more can science discover? And isn’t the extraction of the remaining few secrets best left up to scientists from San Diego called Jude and Leaf, who use pan pipes and aromatherapy on the beasts rather than chainsaws, -ginger and hot olive oil?
However, the Japanese position does raise an interesting question about the limits of research: If there is still much more to learn about species we’re so familiar with, shouldn’t we be redoubling our efforts to learn more about our own species before it’s too late?
Indeed, ecologists estimate that there are only about 125-million Japanese in the wild, surviving mainly on fish and Chicken McNuggets. Birth rates are dropping alarmingly as higher ocean temperatures force more females to start careers in order to pay for air–conditioned Tokyo apartments. In fact, the Japanese could face extinction by 2060, sooner if neighbouring populations of bottlenose Chinese (still irritable about some scientific research in Manchuria and Nanking in the 1930s) become hostile.
But despite our concerns, we must not give science a free hand. Left unchecked, some scholar will point out that 1 000 whales a year translates roughly in terms of population to 74 000 Japanese a year; and it simply would not do to have anthropologists packing shoulder-mounted missiles stalking tens of thousands of Osaka -pensioners.
After all, we are not animals.