8-minute read
keywords: marine biology, wildlife conservation

We Are All Whalers is veterinary scientist Michael J. Moore’s account of a life spent studying different whale species and what is killing them. He argues that anyone participating in our global economy has blood on their hands, often without realising it. Readers are warned that this book does not avoid graphic details. His research has ultimately drawn him to the problems of whales getting entangled in fishing gear and being struck by ships. However, it is the path that took him there, through both industrial and subsistence whaling, that might leave some readers more upset.

Despite Moore’s preface claiming this book is not a memoir, my conclusion is that this is most assuredly a good example of a research memoir, taking the reader chronologically through his academic career. Later in life, Moore has become irresistibly drawn to the problem of entanglement and collisions which he describes in the second half of this book. As it is probably the most straightforward part to discuss, I will start there.

Much of Moore’s work has focused on North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) that live in the waters off North America’s east coast. These large whales (average length 14 m, average mass 40,000 kg) are filter-feeders that were almost driven to extinction by industrial whaling, with approximately 100 individuals remaining by the 1950s when the hunt was no longer considered profitable. Since then, the species has slowly recovered but is facing new threats.

The North Atlantic sees intense shipping traffic, leading to frequent collisions that result in death, sublethal blunt-force trauma, and ghastly propeller cuts. More harrowing still is the gear used by the fisheries industry, both gill nets for fish and ropes linking together surface buoys and bottom traps for lobsters and crabs. Moore has been intensively involved in documenting the impact of both, often while standing knee-deep in beached whale carcasses during necropsies to determine their cause of death. The preface warns readers: “This story is, at times, gruesome, but I entreat you to stick with it” (p. xiii). These necropsies have revealed the intense agony whales suffer over many months as entangled gear starts to constrict and cut into skin, blubber, muscle, and ultimately bone while the animals slowly lose weight, trying to heal wounds that will not close. This forms the starting point for a series of fascinating and daring at-sea experiments to measure weight loss and body condition using an ultrasound probe, attach recorders that measure the impact of entangled gear on swimming performance, and develop a system to administer sedatives to allow rescue workers to approach whales and cut loose nets and ropes.

“Moore has been intensively involved in documenting the impact of gear entanglement and ship strikes, often while standing knee-deep in beached whale carcasses during necropsies to determine their cause of death.”

When health complications leave Moore unable to continue fieldwork, he moves into fisheries politics to try and enact changes to gear design. One of the most galling details of this book is that workable alternatives to ropes exist. Scientists have used acoustically triggered release mechanisms for underwater gear for decades. These could be adapted for use with traps and gill nets, but a combination of costs and entrenched attitudes has prevented the industry from adopting this. Other changes to gear design have been proposed and some have been tested, but the problem persists. More hopeful is that speed restrictions and rerouting of shipping lanes have shown promising reductions in collisions with whales.

Moore’s account is intensely candid. He makes no secret of his insecurities—”the priorities, the pitfalls, the unknowns, the hopes and fears” (p. 139)—in designing and trialling solutions nobody has ever considered before. The cognitive dissonance between witnessing suffering whales and dispassionately reporting these findings in the scientific literature (this book is a valuable counterpoint to The Urban Whale to which Moore has contributed, showing the personal stories behind such research). The unpredictabilities that come with animals responding to climate change such as whales moving into new areas in pursuit of prey, resulting in “a slow, endless, and incredibly frustrating process of trying to stay ahead of a moving target” (p. 180). And, of course, the endless battle between the conservation lobby and the fishing industry with the latter usually winning out. The anguish is dripping off the pages in places and I could not help but wonder about the toll this work has taken on his mental health.

Moore is also outspoken in concluding, as the title implies, that our “consumer culture is the basis for this crisis” (p. 56). Our demand for seafood and cheap products shipped across the world is creating this problem. However, some readers might be surprised by his admission that he has “no angst toward the fishing industry. It was simply doing what I, as one of many, many seafood consumers, demanded” (p. 121). Shifting responsibility from the industry to consumers has been a favourite tactic of fossil fuel companies. Have his collaborations with the industry blindsided him to this? I furthermore think that Moore contradicts himself somewhat by hoping for a world in which fisheries and whales can sustainably coexist when he elsewhere flags up that commercial profit motive ruins everything. However, what shape a wholesale reform of our society and economy should take is, understandably, a topic too big for Moore and well beyond the scope of this book, though he seems to wrestle with it in the back of his mind.

“Moore’s account is intensely candid […] The anguish is dripping off the pages in places and I could not help but wonder about the toll this work has taken on his mental health.”

What might confuse and upset readers more is the first half of this book, charting the early steps in his research career. This saw him study both traditional whale hunting by the Iñupiaq of Alaska and the use of explosive harpoons, acting as a scientific observer on Icelandic whaling ships. This combination has given him a unique perspective, in hindsight serving as “the positive control of an experiment that has occupied me for much of the past thirty-five years: a test of how well, versus how badly, humans can kill whales” (p. 37). There are passages here that might shock some readers, with three, in particular, coming to mind:

“What is worse for a whale–an explosive harpoon or entanglement? One of the big surprises of my life is that the answer to this question is neither obvious nor clear-cut” (p. 35).

“For well-meaning anti-whaling activists to say that commercial whaling with explosive harpoons is bad simplifies the reality of a far more complex series of relationships that humanity has evolved for killing whales with and without intent” (p. 59).

“having studied the basic science and practice of slaughterhouses at veterinary school, and the various ways farmed animals are killed, I was frankly surprised by the efficiency of the fin whale hunts that I had witnessed. I was still appalled, but there did seem to be a shade of gray that I had a hard time defining” (p. 62).

Taken out of context, it is easy to be upset with these quotations. But even within their context, some of this verged into “this probably sounded good in your head” territory for me. I was left feeling conflicted. Having experienced all this first-hand has given him insights that most people cannot truly fathom and will likely criticize or dismiss; and to work through these experiences in full view of the reader is nothing less than brave. However, have they made him lose sight of the bigger picture? Some readers might question why he does not condemn industrial whaling more clearly. One obvious response is that public awareness of, and opposition to, industrial whaling has already been achieved. Meanwhile, the problems of gear entanglement and ship strikes still fly under most people’s radar, which is where the second half of the book shines.

Overall then, We Are All Whalers is an intensely personal, warts-and-all account that does not avoid the moral grey areas and internal struggles this research brings to one man’s mind. This is certainly one of the more thought-provoking and disturbing books I have read in a while. Anything less would not have done this topic justice.

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Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

We Are All Whalers

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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