SAVE THE WHALES=SAVE THE STORY

No one told us that there were whales off our coast when I was growing up in Savannah, Georgia. Our school field trips took us to Fort Pulaski (sometimes multiple years), and I was more interested in the fortifications around it - the closest thing we had to hills – than stories of war. But if you had told me stories of whales, being birthed right off the Tybee Island beaches a few miles further? You would’ve had my full attention.

But apparently no one was paying attention at the time. North Atlantic Right Whales still travel from the northeast as far up as Canada to the warm waters off the coast of Georgia and north Florida. In the south, the newborns can comfortably swim until they’ve built up layers of fat to protect them from the frigid northern waters where they’ll spend their first summer. They’ve done this forever in terms of human existence. Once, there were thousands upon thousands of these enormous surface-skimming animals. Can you imagine seeing them out to sea from Savannah? From Jacksonville or St. Augustine, Florida? Sometimes, they’re that close.

They were named “right whales” because they were slow moving and continued to float after death. That made them the right whales to kill. People used their blubber for lamp oil and sometimes meat once preservation techniques allowed it. The whalers up and down the coast must’ve thought there was an endless supply of them. That’s what most people, particularly colonizers, believed about everything once...an endless supply just for us. (Indigenous people had a different view, but that’s another related story).

We no longer need whale oil. Whale meat is not only an unattractive idea to most of us, but we now know that it’s full of mercury and no doubt microplastics. Now, we threaten them in a different way, with fishing gear entanglements and ship strikes, hazards that are often undetected until it’s too late. Now, they’re the most endangered whales in the world. Only about 350 remain.

I know. “Save the Whales” is in the Urban Dictionary as a “general expression to summarize all environmental aims. It’s used mockingly, cynically, or sarcastically.” “Save the Whales” bumper stickers from the 1970s were followed by “Save the Humans” as an alternative or compatible idea. (I was never sure which)

So, given the cliché, why would we write a feature film script about saving whales? Precisely because whales represent. Whales are what biologists call “charismatic megafauna.” These are animals like elephants, sea turtles, and bears, suitable to have their likenesses on décor and stuffed toys because we love the idea of them. We feel a connection.

Some people fall in love with science, with facts and figures, with the pure wonder of the existence of an animal or a plant and the part they play in an ecosystem. But most of us need a story to connect emotionally before we care enough to act. It’s not enough to know about something. We need to feel something. If I hear there was another bombing in Ukraine, it’s a horrible – but abstract concept. If I hear about a family who lost everything, if I know their names, if I hear their voices, I’m moved to take whatever action I can to help.

I understand why a social justice activist for underserved Black and Brown communities might eyeroll at stories about saving whales. Here’s my counterpoint: the same forces that disregard the value of some human life disregard the value of whole ecosystems. Whether it’s intown neighborhoods, rural farms, or wild lands, they’re looking at what they can extract and how they can take advantage. This isn’t an “either/or” fight and to let those forces divide us plays into their hands. It’s all connected, and that’s the story we’re telling – through whales, through an intergenerational, bi-racial family in the deep south. “Whale Watchers” is about more than whales. It’s about family and what we value, and what we choose to nurture – or not.

I’ve written and produced over a hundred episodes of documentary television focused on conservation and social/environmental justice. I’ve worked with The Center for Biodiversity, Southern Environmental Law Center https://www.southernenvironment.org/, World Wildlife Fund, and so many other organizations. I’m proud of what our team does. At the same time, I know we must tell stories in new and different ways to hang on to a healthy, livable planet. I still believe that our hearts will drive us to act where our minds have fallen short.

https://phys.org/news/2022-04-endangered-north-atlantic-whales-cape.html