powerful depiction of life, people and places in the remote part of the Canadian East, and most especially, how despicable people can be ( )

No-one does nature commentaries better than Farley Mowat. And this is a story that chose him, not the other way around. In 1961 Mowat and his wife, Claire, were looking for a place to live on the South-West coast of Newfoundland. Their boat conked out just as they came to the outpost of Burgeo. They bought a small house and settled in to live there. Five years later, just after the Mowats returned from a trip to Europe and Russia, a fin whale managed to get itself landlocked in a small salt water pond near them. Fin whales are the second largest animal on earth. This one had slipped into the pond on a high tide while chasing some herring. Once the tide went out it was too big to get back to the deeper water where its mate and children were swimming.

Two fishermen came upon it while using the pond as a shortcut back to Burgeo. When they told some men at the fish plant about the whale these men saw it as a fine sporting opportunity. They went over to the pond with their rifles and discharged all their ammunition shooting at the whale. Then they went back to town and scrounged up more ammunition so they could repeat this fun. By the time Mowat found out about the whale, it had been shot at least 200 times. Mowat, incensed, contacted the media and the world responded with great interest. For a time the whale seemed to be safe from the human predator. Mowat then concentrated on feeding it and coming up with some way to free it from the pond.

The book is full of lots of fascinating information about whales, whale hunts, Newfoundland, Joey Smallwood and nature in general. You can't read this book and come away without feeling outrage at the way mankind treats the fellow inhabitants of this planet. Mowat estimates that there were 1 million fin whales in the world's oceans before intensive hunting began. In 1972, when he wrote this book, the best estimates were that there were 50,000 to 60,000. This reference estimates the number in 2003 was about the same.Wikpedia gives a higher number of about 100,000 but stresses that they are still an endangered species. There has been a moratorium on killing fin whales (something Mowat advocated in 1972) since 1985. However, hunting of whales is not the only reason for decline in numbers. Mowat is as passionate about overfishing as whale hunting because lack of herring and other food fish causes the higher ocean species to decline in numbers (remember this was written long before the cod moratorium was instituted). ( )

Mowat started the whale conservation movement long before save the whales" became a force to be reckoned with." ( )

In the late sixties, very little was known about whales and their demise from the whaling industry and overfishing seemed imminent. So when a fin whale became trapped by the tide in a small cove on the coast of Newfoundland, Mowat saw it as an opportunity to learn more about the whale at close quarters. He was shocked and angered to find locals using the whale for sport, shooting at it and chasing it with their speedboats. He appealed to local authorities for help and getting little response, went to the media and Canadian government. The small community he lived in split sides as some saw his work advocating for the whale as meddlesome, whereas others welcomed the attention the whale brought their small village. Efforts to free the whale had to wait for the next highest tide- it would have been a month at best, but the story of the whale covers only ten days. Mowat struggled to find means to feed the whale, and protect it from people -whether they were just curious, bored or outright cruel mattered little- in the end they did the whale no good.

It gets set up slowly, introducing the reader to the history of whaling in Newfoundland (and around the world) as well as the location. Mowat had only been in this remote fishing community for five years, seeking a quiet place to live far from "modern society" (he rants a lot against industrialization and modern technology, seems to hate the telephone in particular). Unfortunately his actions in favor of the whale brought all kinds of conflict and ill-feeling. In parts the book is almost more a study of human nature (how people responded to the whale's presence and each other's involvement in its plight) than it is about the whale itself. There are some detailed descriptions of its sheer size, calm movements and eerie sounds. Also details on its natural feeding methods (which could hardly be met) and how another fin whale (probably its mate) stayed just outside the inlet to the cove constantly until the whale died. It's a frustrating story to read, because so little could be done, and by the time scientists became interested in the whale it was too late for them to arrive and learn anything. But the book did have an impact on early whale conservation efforts.

more at the "a href="http://dogeardiary.blogspot.com/2015/08/a-whale-for-killing.html">Dogear Diary ( )

An incredible tale from Mowat with a lot going on. This book marks a turning point in western attitudes towards whales and whaling, and remains a touchstone for Sea Shepherd's conservation work around the globe. However, there's also some other interesting themes of the consequences of economic growth and small town mindedness, which make this a classic read. ( )