Reclusland

July 12, 2009

- Whales Dying From the Bends -

It might sound like something out of a bad sci-fi film: whales sent into suicidal dashes toward the ocean’s surface to escape the madness-inducing echo chamber that we humans have made of their sound-sensitive habitat. But since the Canary Islands stranding in 2002, similar necropsy results have turned up with a number of beached whales, and the deleterious effects of sonar and other human-generated sounds on ocean ecosystems have been firmly established.

Absolutely horrible.  Imagine killing yourself out of pure terror.  Now imagine killing yourself out of pure terror because the one sense you most use to make sense of your world is suddenly being filled with sense data that is completely meaningless and horribly intense. John Lilly supposedly gave dolphins LSD, but even their worst trips must have been nothing compared to this.  All for the sake of weapons testing or ocean floor mapping.

They get the bends from surfacing so rapidly.  I’d beach myself too…

miscellaneous —

  1. Yeah, but why did they beach themselves when the woodcut was made?

    Comment by Ted — July 15, 2009 @ 10:28 pm


  2. I dunno. I’m sure there are other reasons. Maybe exploding cannonballs? I just liked the woodcut.

    The currently dead whales though, have been necropsied (not sure why that’s not just autopsied…) and they definitely show signs of having died from the bends.

    The article’s really long, but the first page is worth the read for a quick breakdown of the subject.

    Comment by Ian — July 16, 2009 @ 11:59 am



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