The Loneliest Whale in the World
By Eric Kimberlin Bowley
In 2004, The New York Times wrote an article about the loneliest whale in the world. Scientists have been tracking her since 1992 and they discovered the problem:
She isn’t like any other baleen whale. Unlike all other whales, she
doesn’t have friends. She doesn’t have a family. She doesn’t belong to
any tribe, pack or gang. She doesn’t have a lover. She never had
one. Her songs come in groups of two to six calls, lasting for five to
six seconds each. But her voice is unlike any other baleen whale. It is
unique—while the rest of her kind communicate between 12 and 25hz, she
sings at 52hz. You see, that’s precisely the problem. No other whales
can hear her. Every one of her desperate calls to communicate remains
unanswered. Each cry ignored. And, with every lonely song, she becomes
sadder and more frustrated, her notes going deeper in despair as the
years go by.
Just imagine that massive mammal, floating alone and singing—too big
to connect with any of the beings it passes, feeling paradoxically small
in the vast stretches of empty, open ocean.
“A cryptozoologist has suggested that the 52-Hertz whale could even
be lonelier than we realize, a hybrid between two different species of
whale, or the last survivor of an unidentified species, plying the
oceans in a doomed search for another of its kind, singing its broken
song.”
Comments
Post a Comment