Christopher Moore - Fluke, Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

And go look at some whales. Not captive ones, wild ones. It all comes down to economics, and as long as it's more profitable to have whales around to look at, we'll have them around to look at. If you don't live near water and can't get to any, rent a whale video. It all comes around.

Barring that, just yell at people randomly to stop killing whales. It could catch on. Really.

("Would you like fries with that?"

"Shut up and stop killing whales!"

"Thank you. Drive through, please.")

First, my thanks to the home team: to Charlie Rodgers, as usual, for thoughtful reads and cogent comments; to my editor, Jennifer Brehl; and to my agent, Nicholas Ellison, who a couple of years ago said, "Hey, how about a book about whale song? I don't know — like there's meaning in it or something. You figure it out." Blame or credit goes to Nick for that. As always, thanks to Dee Dee Leichtfuss for being my "reader without an agenda." Thanks, too, to Galen and Lynn Rathbun, for taking time away from studying the hose-nose shrew to fill me in on the home life of the field biologist and for putting me in touch with the people at NOAA.

My thanks also to Kurt Preston for geological information, to Dr. David Kirkpatrick for information on genetics, to Mark Joseph for my "Introduction to Sonar" phone lecture, and to Bret Huffman for Rasta-Pidgin tutoring.

Much of the background on genes, evolution, and memes came from the work of Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, The Extended Phenotype, and others; also from Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea and from Susan Blakemore's excellent book The Meme Machine. I recommend them all for further reading, but when you're finished, you may have to read several of my books and watch a lot of TV just to get stupid enough again to function in the modern world again. Fortunately I am gifted in this respect and have recovered nicely, thank you.

The laser-measurement algorithm described in Chapter 1 was formulated by Dr. John Calambokidis of the Cascadia Research Collective. He should get credit for that as well as for many other contributions to the field.

Many of the research anecdotes I used in Fluke were fashioned out of stories told to me by the researchers themselves. The story of the Japanese whalers being affected by seeing a mother sperm whale and her calf (Chapter 30) was told to me by Bob Pittman of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center. The story of the Pacific Biological Research Project, where the military funded a feasibility study to use seabirds as a biological-warfare vector, was told to me by Lisa Ballance, Bob's wife, who also works at NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center.

Thanks, too, to Dr. Wayne Ferryman, also from NOAA, who shared many hours of stories, providing me with information about the lifestyles of researchers. My thanks to Dr. Ferryman as well for inviting me to observe the California gray whale survey in person and not insisting that I always bring the pizza.

Thanks to Jay Barlow from NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center for information on navy research projects and the relationship between researchers and the navy. Much of which I blew off so I could put Captain Tarwater in Maui, but still, thanks, Jay.

My thanks, too, to Carol DeLancey of Oregon State University's Marine Mammal Program, who told me the great story of the female right whale using a researcher's Zodiac as a diaphragm while the researchers were assaulted by a pair of prehensile whale willies (Chapter 8) — something that happened directly to Dr. Bruce Mate, but which I embellished in that I don't believe that the whales ejaculated in the boat, and Dr. Mate did not become a lesbian.

For information on underwater acoustics and the nature and range of blue-whale calls, much of which I totally ignored, many thanks to Dr. Christopher G. Fox of the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon. It was Chris's description of an unidentified, persistent throbbing noise coming from deep under the Pacific Ocean, somewhere off the coast of Chile, that first inspired the undersea city of Gooville.

For the inside story on harbor life in Lahaina and the dating life of the female researcher, my thanks to Rachel Cartwright and Captain Amy Miller, who study humpback cow/calf behavior and biology in Maui in the winter and Alaska in the summer.

My thanks, too, to Kevin Keyes for whale and dolphin stories, as well as for his infinite patience in teaching me ocean kayaking and providing the "cold-water discipline" safety training that probably kept me from drowning while trying to get out among the animals.

Finally, my deepest thanks to Dr. Jim Darling, Flip Nicklin, and Meagan Jones, who for two seasons allowed me to ride along and observe their research in Maui, as well as for giving generously of their time to answer my questions both in person and by e-mail. While most of the information about humpbacks and humpback song in Fluke came out of these trips, the inaccuracies and liberties taken with the information are my own. The anecdotes and science I learned from these folks, all of whom have spent their lives working in the field, were enough to fill two books, and were certainly too voluminous to list here. Simply put, this book would not have been possible without their help. Kinder, more intelligent, more dedicated people than these do not the face of this earth walk.

To support their ongoing research on humpback song and behavior, send your tax-deductible donations to:

Whale Trust

300 Paani Place

Paia, HI 96779

CHRISTOPHER MOORE is the author of Lamb, Practical Demonkeeping, Coyote Blue, Bloodsucking Fiends, Island of the Sequined Love Nun, and The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. He invites readers to E-mail him at BSFiends@aol.com.

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