The Wrath of the Ecologist

Herman Melville's white whale was a metaphor for something cosmically elusive. But even in 1850, the whale was almost as easy to catch and slaughter as the buffalo or the Indian. Today, by a process of relentless elimination that is anything but allegorical, whales are becoming an embattled species. Ahab's great-grandchildren fire their harpoons from cannons.

Last week the Department of Commerce, prompted by ecologists, decreed that U.S. fishermen may no longer hunt whales. As sometimes happens, it was a gesture of conservationist piety made too late. Only three whaling ships remain in the U.S.: they are operated by the Del Monte Fishing Co. of San Francisco. The firm's manager, Charles Caito, says that his men took only 109 of the 21,000 whales killed in the North Pacific last year. All the other prosaic Ahabs are Russian or Japanese, who will not be affected by the ban. They must, presumably, await the wrath of their own ecologists.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.