A Whale of a Tale

The following story is part of a collaborative effort to raise awareness of the very serious marine plastic pollution problem facing the world today.

Please be sure to read the first story, by JZ Harrison, The Mermaid Who Met a Patch of Blue.

A Whale of a Tale

Out of the blue, Dad said, “None of us would be here if whales didn’t poop in the ocean.”

Mom dropped her fork; it bounced off her plate and landed on the floor.

As for me—well, I snorted my coffee through my nose. Very painful.

“Where did that come from?” Mom demanded. We’d been talking about the property tax bill. Whales seemed a far cry from finances.

“Just saying—we should be grateful.”

“For taxes?”

“For whales.”

Dad had dementia. It was of a type his doctors claimed they’d not seen before. He could—and did—forget a conversation or an activity before it was completed, but he remembered all the details of the past with the same clarity as always. He’d tell stories, and they were great, but unless we asked a question, he’d go back to the same story over and over again.

The odd thing, for us at least, was that he’d sometimes get something in his head and stick with that subject for days, gnawing at it like a terrier with a chew toy.

Like the fool I am, I asked, “Why whales?”

Mom delivered to me a sharp kick to the ankle. I pulled my foot out of her range and asked, “Why whale poop?”

“Whales poop in the ocean,” Dad said. “They’re the fertilizers of the world.”

“What?”

“You look it up!” He pointed to my cell phone, sitting off to the side of my plate.

Yes, yes, I know. Phones don’t belong at the table.

“Look it up on your fancy phone.”

“It’s a Smartphone,” I told him.

“Phone’s only as smart as the person using it. So, look it up.”

Well, I asked for it, didn’t I? So I pulled up my search engine and entered “Whale Poop”, expecting…well, I don’t really know.

I didn’t expect to find out that some perfumes were made of whale poop. Interesting, but not the point Dad was trying to make.

And there it was: whales fertilize marine ecosystems.

"Whale feces is up to 10 million times richer in iron than the surrounding sea water and plays a vital role in providing the iron required for maintaining phytoplankton biomass on the earth.

"The iron defecation of just the 12,000 strong sperm whale population in the Southern Ocean results in the sequestration of 200,000 tons of atmospheric carbon per year." ( Whale feces - Wikipedia)

"As the whales feed and defecate, they redistribute the iron towards the surface of the ocean. That makes the iron available for phytoplankton, small algae which can't grow without the nutrient.

"These in turn are eaten by krill, which are eaten by the whales.

"Without the whales, a large proportion of this iron falls towards the bottom of the ocean, effectively leaving the ecosystem.

Staggering Data on How Much Whales Actually Eat Just Solved The 'Krill Paradox' (sciencealert.com)

I read a few little facts out loud and then said, “Okay, Dad. You’re right. No whale poop, no plant life in the ocean. No plant life, no tiny fishes to feed the big fishes and on up the food chain line—including land plants and animals, birds and the lowest of the low: people.”

Dad laughed at my sarcasm. “We get lower all the time, Pam. Not on the food chain, per se, but as a species, we suck.”

I giggled. I can’t remember when my father started to use the word “suck” in this way—he’s an old guy, and resisted modern slang for a long time. It still sounded weird to me. “Why do we suck, Dad?”

He shrugged and looked troubled. “We’re killing them,” he said. “We’re killing the whales.”

“It’s illegal to hunt them these days,” Mom argued.

“We’re killing them with plastic.” Dad sighed. “I worry about whales. When they go, everything goes.”

Mom and I exchanged worried glances. This was frighteningly coherent, considering the usual subject matter exchanged during meals these days.

Dad took a bite of his biscuits and gravy. “Mmm. This is delicious, Jan.”

Mom smiled. “Thank you.”

“We’d better hurry, though. Jim and Alice will be here soon to take us golfing.”

Mom looked meaningfully at me before replying, “Okay.”

Jim passed away in 2016; Alice followed in 2018; it was mid-December, and there was a foot of snow on the ground. There would be no golfing today. But it never did any good arguing—Dad knew what Dad knew, and we went along to get along.

After a moment, I asked, “Where was your first job, Daddy?”

The past was always a safe place to visit.

**~**

The whales became an obsession. I couldn’t get them out of my mind, even when Dad wasn’t talking about them.

He was right, you see. We are killing them with plastic.

I gathered up all the plastic shopping bags we’d saved—supposedly to re-use at the stores, but instead let sit in box in a corner. Sometimes I used them as liners for the smaller garbage pails in the office and the bathrooms, but that box was overflowing.

I’d read that those bags make their way from landfills to the ocean, where whales mistake them for squid and eat them. Intestinal blockages resulting in death are numerous.

I purchased cloth shopping bags and vowed to find something useful to do with all the plastic bags I’d collected so they’d never make it to a landfill.

Imagine my surprise when I found a way to make my own beads from plastic bags. I loved making little pieces of jewelry, key chains and sun-catchers with colored beads, but finding a way to recycle plastic and supply my hobby at the same time made me really happy.

Etsy {NewYork} Street Team - Indie Artists, Artisans & Crafters of the NY Metro Region: How-To: Turn Bags into Beads (thenewnew.blogspot.com)

This project also helped keep my father busy and engaged.

One afternoon, while we added glue and rolled our beads, Dad said, “I went on a whale watch once.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Off the coast of Oregon. I went with your mom’s brothers, while we were deep sea fishing.”

“I went off the California coast,” I said. “With Melvin.”

“So, he actually took you out somewhere?”

Dad didn’t care much for my ex-husband. Apparently, neither did I. That’s why he’s an ex.

“I’d really like to do that again. Maybe with my own brothers, this time.”

Mom came into the kitchen, proudly brandishing the basket she had woven from old plastic shopping bags. “Look!” she cried. “You can keep your beads in here!”

Going Green with Wrapped Baskets - Radmegan

“Wow, honey, that’s so cool!” Dad grinned. “Want to go whale watching?”

“Sure, why not?”

Go along to get along, right?

Except he wouldn’t let it go. “When is the whale watch trip?” He asked me this several times a day. “Is Dan going? What should I wear?”

Clearly, we were going whale watching.

I started making phone calls—his brothers and Mom’s brothers were soon happily engaged in planning a whale watch trip off the coast of northern California. Hoping to see several species, we planned to go in mid-July.

“We’re flying to the coast!” Dad happily announced.

“We’re driving to the coast,” Mom corrected him. “If I was meant to fly, I would have been born with wings.”

“You’re an angel,” Dad said. “Your wings are invisible.” He winked at me. “Your mama’s a chicken.”

“I know.”

“Chickens have wings, and they don’t fly!” Mom declared hotly, and stomped out of the room dramatically. She spoiled her exit by giggling, though.

**~**

We drove to the coast.

Uncle Dan happens to live in northern California, which made it especially easy for him to find the perfect day tour package for us. In all, there were a dozen couples besides Mom and Dad: her siblings and his, with their spouses. My brother and his wife had driven with us, so we made up quite a group.

“This charter filled up fast!” Our captain was also a marine biologist, and that turned out to be quite a blessing. Dad had a million questions!

We were dressed in layers and slathered in sunscreen. We could have posed for a Maui Jim sunglasses ad—we were styling with our polarized lenses. Not a one of us arrived carrying plastic water bottles. Dad had provided everyone with reusable water cups for the trip.

“No plastic!” Dad proudly repeated this all day. “We are here to visit the whales and tell them we’re not going to kill them with plastic.”

“You’re a good man, Patrick,” the captain told Dad, clapping him on the shoulder. “We need more people like you in the world. You know, if we keep going the way we’ve done so far, plastic in the ocean will outweigh all the fish in the ocean in fewer than thirty years.”

Uncle Dan look stunned. “It’s really that bad?”

“Whales—like that beauty right there—get tangled in cast-off plastic fishing nets and drown.”

Kim, my sister-in-law, gasped. “No! Just look at him! He’s gorgeous! I don’t want him to drown!”

A smaller body rose up through the water to glide next to the gigantic blue whale. The captain grinned. “She doesn’t want to drown, either, I’d say. She’s got a little one to take care of.”

“Oh, my God! Look, Ben!” Kim was dancing up and down on the deck.

I was busy snapping pictures and shooting video clips, because that’s my thing. But I was paying close attention.

“Did you know that our guts are now full of plastic waste? Even the tiniest of fish end up eating plastic. Then bigger fish eat them, and eat more plastic, and on and on it goes. If you like a little surf and turf at your favorite restaurant, you’ve gotten some free plastic particles with your meal, guaranteed.”

Mom looked a little green. “Is this nauseating you, or is it sea-sickness?” I whispered.

“Maybe a little of both,” Mom replied.

“I told you so, Pam.” Dad said. “We’re killing the whales.”

“You told me so, Dad.”

I stared out at the ocean, watching a humpback do a slow roll as if teasing the birds trying to light on his back and having a little laugh. What a magnificent creature!

And people, in their arrogant ignorance, are poisoning, choking and drowning others just like him every day.

I brushed a tear away.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We learned a great deal on our whale watch tour, and saw some majestic mammals at the same time.

Besides some of the recycling ideas we tried at home, we learned that we can greatly reduce our use of plastic every day. Drinking water is available in paper cartons. Straws made of bamboo decompose naturally. Single use plastic can be avoided in most cases. All we have to do is make up our minds to avoid so-called “easy” products and take responsibility for the waste we produce.

We must be aware of what could end up in the ocean.

My father had dementia, but that didn’t deter him when he made up his mind that he’d go see the whales and promise them we’d do better.

I've made up my mind: Dad's promise won't stop with him. I will do better. I will encourage others to do better.

We can all do our part to make sure we keep the whale population alive and thriving. Like dad said: "When they go, everything goes."

The third story in this collaboration is by @Judey Kalchik, who will tell us how plastic pollution is affecting sea birds. You can find her story here:

Mermaid Birthday Party

Story number 4 is by Sofia Duarte. You can find her story here:

Do Not Blow Up Our Planet Like a Balloon

Story number 5 is by Courtney Capone. You can find her story here:

The Struggling Sea Turtle

Story number 6 is by Siobhan Flynn (Vonne Vantablack). You can find her story here:

The Seal That Was Broken

You, too, can make a difference by making a promise to the whales and other marine mammals to do better by consuming less plastic.

For more information, start with learning about plastic shopping bags. Injestion by marine wildlife causes gastric blockages that lead to death in whales and other species: Plastic bag facts.

Sign the petition: Save Our Marine Wildlife From Deadly Plastic Pollution

Thank you!