Thursday 26 June 2008

Whales: The Problem

There is a meeting going on right now (maybe not right now, but this is a more dramatic way to start a blog entry than “maybe at some point soon this will happen”) where the whaling association have gathered together for their annual conference. Their main concern? Whaling. Which makes a refreshing change from all their other conferences, presumably. During this conference they have gathered to discuss the problem which is currently prevalent in the world and which will likely strike all whalers hard, soon: whales are an endangered species. Yes, we all know this, because it was taught to us in schools while we were children and it’s also bleedin’ obvious, but the whaling association aren’t so sure. Their worry is that we have called whales an endangered species even though nobody (nobody!) can actually say for certain how many whales are actually in the sea at any one point in time.

They have a point, admittedly – there’s an awful lot of sea, and nobody can say for sure how much of the sea has a whale in it. Counting them is an impossible task – and if we can’t count them, how can we tell if they are endangered or not? Clearly, in the eyes of whalers around the world, we need to have some sort of census for whales. In no way is this a last plea to let them kill whales for food and blubber and energy (there’s an awful lot can be made from a dead whale) because their livelihoods will be ruined if they aren’t allowed to hunt them anymore. Fair play, they’re totally right, but I side more with the whales than with the whalers because:

a: I don’t eat whale anyway.
b: whalers need to find more humane ways to kill whales
c: whales are ace.

So I’ve thought up a way to count all the whales. What we do, essentially, is make a giant net that is circular, and then fly it into place using planes (or flying submarines, as in the classic Beatles movie ‘Yellow Submarine’) before dredging the sea. We take these gigantic nets and we drag them along the sea, collecting up all the animals on one side of the net, and pushing them over to the east coast of America. Once we have all the animals pushed to one side, it’s a simple case of counting up all the whales, and then setting them free again. And then, once we can conclude that they are, in fact, an endangered species, we can stop whaling them.

I have included a diagram of this:


If this does not come to pass, then you’ll know why: the whaling association have bribed the UN. Stay frosty.


3 comments:

  1. I say whales need that solution like they need a hole in the head.

    Oh, hang on...

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's a very smart plan indeed. And I like your diagram. It's spiffy!

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  3. Counting?

    "One whalie....
    Two whalie....
    Three whalie...
    Four whalie...."

    ReplyDelete