Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

appear that the song has something to do with mating, because it is performed only by males and because it is sung only during the mating season, no one has drawn a direct correlation between the song and mating. Theories abound: The males are marking territory sonically, they are showing their fitness and size by singing, they are calling mates, they are just saying "howdy" – all of the above, none of the above. The fact remains that, regardless of its purpose, the humpback-whale song is the most complex piece of nonhuman composition on earth. Whether it's art, prayer, or a booty call, the humpback song is an amazing thing to experience firsthand, and I suspect that even once the science of it is put to bed, it will remain, as long as they sing, magic.
    Beyond the song, much of the whale behavior and biology described in Fluke is accurate, or as accurate as I could keep it and not overburden the story. (Excepting the whale ships, the whaley boys, and every killer whale's being named Kevin, all of which I made up. Killer whales are actually all named Sam. Duh.) The acoustic data, and the analysis thereof, is generally balderdash. While scientists do indeed collect data in the manner described, much of the analysis process came from my imagination. For the record, though, low-frequency whale calls can and do travel thousands of miles under the sea.
    While the Lahaina Harbor is indeed inundated with whale researchers every winter, and while there are indeed lectures given periodically at the Whale Sanctuary visitor center, the acrimony, competition, and tension described among the researchers is completely of my own creation, as are the individual descriptions and personalities of the characters. Tension among a bunch of neurotics is just more interesting for a story than is a description of dedicated professionals doing their work and getting along, which is the case in reality. When in doubt, assume I made it up.

CONSERVATION
    The reason we shouldn't kill whales is because they fire the imagination.
    –JAMES DARLING, PH.D.

    Hey, I thought they were saved already! No one likes the "We're glad you enjoyed this story about the rainforest with all its cute little animals and charming native people, BECAUSE IT WILL ALL BE A CHARRED DESERT NEXT WEEK!" approach, and I hate to do it to you, but you should know that much of the conservation information in Fluke is accurate. They aren't quite saved.
    The Japanese and the Norwegians continue to practice whaling, each taking up to five hundred minke whales a year under "scientific research" permits (the meat ends up in markets in Europe and Asia). Despite "free market" arguments to the contrary, whaling is not a profitable business in Japan. It is subsidized by the government, and, to bolster consumer demand, they have introduced whale meat into the school lunch program so children will develop a taste for it. (Good thinking there. Don't we all crave the cafeteria cuisine of our youth? Mmmm, mashed peas.) Biologists working undercover in Japanese markets (spy nerds), by running DNA tests, have found endangered whale species (including blue whale) in cans of whale meat labeled as "minke whale meat." (So someone is still killing them.)
    Except for scientific whaling, the International Whaling Commission's moratorium on hunting great whales is still in effect, but several whaling nations are rallying hard to have the moratorium lifted and finance survey studies to prove that great-whale populations, including humpbacks and grays, have recovered enough for them to resume hunting. The U.S. antiwhaling position in the IWC is severely compromised by the fact that they support aboriginal whaling – that is, subsistence hunting by indigenous people. The argument for aboriginal whaling by the actual indigenous people is seldom made on a basis of subsistence, but more often because hunting whales is a "cultural tradition of their people that must be preserved." This, of course, is utter bullshit. It's a tradition of Americans of European descent to commit genocide on indigenous people, but that doesn't mean we ought to start doing it again. Even some old ideas are still bad ideas.
    While it is true that many whale species seem to be recovering, like the gray and the humpback, other populations still struggle, and some, like the North Atlantic right whale, may yet disappear from the planet. (Not due to hunting, but as one researcher, whom I won't name, said, "because they're stupid