Thanks for all the fish?

It seems fitting that on Towel Day, a story about the high intelligence of dolphins and whales should crop up. Anyone who has ever read Hitchhikers will fail to be shocked at new discoveries on the relative brain power of these majestic creatures.

This BBC article starts by asking if we should ever be hunting such creatures. Personally, I find that if you have to ask yourself that question, you're a heartless monster. Of course we shouldn't be hunting them - they are intelligent, graceful beings, and not even the fearsomely named Killer Whale is a threat to us. Oh, but apparently they're good for research. Research, one assumes, into how many whales you can kill in a season.

The article goes on to raise brief surprise that public backlash after the death of a handler at SeaWorld was directed towards the captors, not the whale. I'm not sure anyone thought angrily of the whale in this instance, so I'm not sure why the writer thought the lack of anger "surprising". There has been growing unease about keeping such large, socially complicated and fundamentally wild creatures in captivity for any reason, and a tragic event like this only highlights just how inadvisable it is. I could not contemplate seeing such a sight as a voyager of the ocean waves, an animal of such demonstratively social tendencies, being kept in a pen with little company for the entertainment of others. Still, I cried about keeping elephants in British zoos, so maybe I'm just a pathetic liberal whingebag.

My hope is that June's meeting of the IWC rejects whaling as a valid "research" tool and finally starts the process of ending this barbaric practice for good. For more on these issues, I heartily recommend the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society for their website, lots of information and how you can help.