2004-10-25

Why Whales beach Themselves - maybe....

Over the last month I've been up the Eastern Australian coast to end in "Airlie Beach" in tropical parts between Mackay and Townsville in Queensland.

I won't go into why I spent a week camped at SHUTE HARBOUR, but it is the port for many if-not-most of the people and vehicle-carrying catamaran ferries, transporting people and their holiday bits out to the 74 Whitsunday Islands just off the coast.

It also is a pretty and safe harbour for innumerable yachts. Each day I'd pedal me bicycle down to the ports piers, and became conscious of the deep vibrations - not of the squillions of "tourorists" (50% of whom I'd guess, are actually tripping the light fantasy down our relatively unpolluted and unpopulated Terra Firma to assess which slice of the real estate they or their mummies and daddies will buy for them once they've secured their immigration visa, from uncle fritz in Canberra or Sydney -Yep! a hard-core cynic is me!) tourorists who flock through that otherwise insignificant port, but from the large ferries, and other barges constantly murmuring their way through the islands water.

In fact, as much as one could "hear" the deep rumbles of these big boats-but-not-quite-ships, one could "feel" the vibes.

This struck me into thinking of how much more the aquatic life under the ocean surface must hear and feel the vibrations.

Then I thinked, "What does it do to the fishies ability to navigate, to communicate and to be at Peace in their Hearts and Minds and Souls ("Fish with Soul!?", Fuckin' oath, skipper!) when these motorised monsters are pounding through their aural atmosphere.

Then, back down in NSW, at Tyagarah beach, just north of the big-old Byron Bay, I was on the beach and I could once more feel a deep burble, and yet could only see a usual-sized "prawnie" boat perhaps half a kilometre off the coast.

I was surprised at the volume of the motor, and once more wondered at how much this MUST effect the fishies, especially the biggies - whales in particular.

So, I wrote the following:

Whales beach themselves because of then intense, relentless and deafening engine noises of whiteman's (motorised) boats and ships.

How would whiteman handle it, with their aural atmosphere continually filled with overpowering thunderous reverberations of huge volume levels, enough to deafen them, enough to "drown-out" all other noises and their ability to communicate with each other, and enough to send them all mad?

I was getting angry as I wrote, so ended in my inimitable fashion:

On behalf of all non-Human Creatures on Earth - and beyond - I say "Wake-up whiteman, yours is one turd of a culture!

EFFFF-YOU!

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