Peter Watts: Bulk Food

This story has that certain verissimilitude that speaks of first-hand experience.

During my brief tenure as a credentialed whore at UBC’s Marine Mammal Unit, I interacted extensively with aquarium apologists, animal rights activists, and behind-the-scenes grunts in their natural habitats. I observed them. I took notes. I resisted the temptation to toss them cookies as a reward for their performances, as I resisted the (somewhat stronger) temptation to break their fucking skulls over the endless political bullshit that kept me from doing any real biology.

What I couldn’t resist was the temptation to write this story. I had a lot of help from my collaborator—not so much on the biology perhaps, but definitely on the funny bits. “Bulk Food” first appeared in On Spec in 1999; the illustration that ran with it is on display in the Gallery.

The science—the resident/transient stuff, the infant-mortality rates, all the chrome that predates The Breakthrough—is pretty much legit. Race Rocks is a real marine mammal hangout. Those familiar with the layout of the Vancouver Public Aquarium might experience a certain sense of deja vu as they follow Doug Largha on his adventures. The characters themselves are, sadly, more real than you’d like to believe; in fact, even the names bear a certain (but utterly nonprosecutable) similarity to actual public figures on both sides of the whales-in-captivity debate.

God help me, looking back I almost miss those duplicitous scumbags.

Anna Marie Hamilton, Animal Rights Microstar, bastes in the media spotlight just outside the aquarium gates. Her followers hang on every movement, their placards rising and falling like cardboard whitecaps to the rhythm of their chant: two, four, six, eight, Transients are what we hate —

One whale-hugger, bedecked in a sandwich board reading Eat the Transients , shouts over the din at a nearby reporter: “Naw, it’s not about the homeless —it’s a whale thing, man…”

The reporter isn’t really listening. Anna Marie has just opened her mouth. The chanting dies instantly. It’s always interesting to hear what Anna Marie Hamilton says. It changes so often, these days. Back before the Breakthrough, she was actually trying to free the whales. She was going around calling them prisoners , and hostages , for Christ’s sake.

“ Save the whales… ” she begins.

The reporter grunts, disappointed. That again…

Over at the turnstiles, Doug Largha swipes his debit card and passes through. The protesters register vaguely on his radar. Back in his student days, he considered joining, but only with the hope of scoring with some of those touchy-feely whale chicks. The things he did, back then, to get laid.

Hell. The things he does now …

A foghorn calls across the Strait. Visibility’s low on both sides of the world; the murk is gray above the waterline, green below.

The sea around Race Rocks is empty. This place used to be a wildlife sanctuary. Now it’s a DMZ.

Two hundred meters out from the islands, perimeter sensors listen patiently for intruders. There are none. The day’s too cold for tourists, too foggy for spies, too damn wet for most terrestrial mammals. Nobody tries to cross over the line. Even under the line, traffic is way down from the old days. An occasional trio of black-and-white teardrops, each the size of a school bus. Every now and then a knife-edged dorsal fin, tall as a man. Nothing else.

There was a lot more happening out here a few years ago. Race Rocks used to be crawling with seals, sea lions, Dall’s porpoises. It was a regular Who’s Who back then: Eschrichtius , Phocoena , Zalophus , Eumetopias.

All that meat has long since been cleaned out. Just one species comes through here these days: Orcinus . Nobody asks these visitors for ID. They’ve got their own way of doing things.

Five kilometers east, the commercial trawler Dipnet wallows forward at half throttle. Vague gray shapes crowd restlessly along the gunwales, slick, wet, hooded against the soupy atmosphere. Even a fog that drains all color from the world can’t dampen the enthusiasm on board. Snatches of song drift across the waves, male and female voices in chorus.

“ And they’ll know we are sisters by our love, by our love… ”

Twenty-five meters down, a string of clicks ratchets through the water column. It sounds like the drumming of impatient fingers.

Doug’s got everything figured. He’s found the perfect position; right next to the rim, where the gangway extends over the tank like a big fiberglass tongue. Other spectators, with less foresight or less motivation, fill the bleachers ringing the main tank. Plexi splashguards separate them from a million gallons of filtered seawater and the predatory behemoth within. On the far side of the tank, more fiberglass and a few tons of molded cement impersonate a rocky coastline. Every few moments a smooth black back rolls across the surface, its dorsal fin stiff as a horny penis. No floppy-fin syndrome here , no siree. This isn’t the old days.

The show is due to start momentarily. Doug uses the time to go over the plan once more. Twenty seconds from tongue to gallery. Another thirty-five to the gift shop. Fifty-five seconds total, if he doesn’t run into anyone. Perhaps sixty if he does. He’ll beat them all. Doug Largha is a man on a mission.

A fanfare from the poolside speakers. A perky blonde emerges through a sudden hole in the coastal facade, wearing the traditional garb of the order: white shorts and a ducky blue staff shirt. An odd-looking piece of electronics hangs off her belt. A headset mike arcs across one cheek. The crowd cheers.

Behind the blonde, some Japanese guy hovers in the wings with an equally-Japanese kid of about twelve. The woman waves them on deck as she greets the audience.

“Good afternoon!” she chirps resoundingly over the speakers.

“Welcome to the aquarium, and welcome to today’s whale show!”

More applause.

“Our special guest today is Tetsuo Yamamoto, and his father, Herschel.” The woman raises one arm over the water. “And our other special guest is, of course, Shamu !”

Doug snorts. They’re always called Shamu. The Aquarium doesn’t put much thought into naming killer whales these days.

“My name is Ramona, and I’ll be your naturalist today.” She waits for applause. There isn’t much, but she acknowledges it like a standing ovation and goes into patter. “Now of course, we’ve been able to understand Orcan ever since The Breakthrough, but we still can’t speak it—at least, not without some very expensive hardware to help us with the higher frequencies. Fortunately our state-of-the-art translation software, developed right here at the Aquarium, lets our species talk to each other. I’ll be asking Shamu to do some behaviors especially so Tetsuo here can interact with him.”

Figures the kid would be center stage. Probably some Japanese rite of passage. Number One Son looks like a typical clumsy thumb-fingered preadolescent. This could be the day.

“As you may have learned from our award-winning educational displays,” Ramona continues brightly, “our coast is home to two different orca societies, Residents and Transients . Both societies are ruled by the oldest females—the Matriarchs—but beyond that they have don’t have much in common. In fact, they actively hate each other.”