As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter........
I wonder over ignorance and the fiction which science and the media portray the animals of the sea. There is full blame on the scientific group as if they were not morons, someone would have stood up and said, "This is a load of bunk" in what people are fed as what are the rulers of the sea.
Polar bears are featured as some fluffy white things endangered, when the fact is the great white bear is a beast that eats both Esquimeuax, that would be Inuit as of late, and seals with savage death all over the frozen Arctic.
The Orca is championed as some wonderfully loving low, when their name killer whales denotes something so completely opposite, that even sea lions, the predatory tigers of the deep who flip penguins about the surf for fun and slaughter even are obliterated to mush by the prowess of the killer whale.
There is though a lord of the deep which for some bizarre reason is never mentioned, and the following is a story of one of these leviathons which are the supreme predators of predators, in what they hunt and kill.
Most whales feed on little protein animals, which are seived through their balleen and then turn into tons of blubber. The Right, Blue and Humpback for examples are of this class, and while the Humpback receives the attention, because these whales in nature have breeding, birthing and loafing areas next to land, so environmentalists and scientists can gain easy access to their monetary prize in getting funding and donations to add to their family fortunes, and that is why the Humpback is the darling, while the true Lords of the Deep are never paid attention to as they inhabit the swells of the ocean deep.
The subject of this education is the Sperm Whale or Cachalot. These whales have teeth, not sawing teeth like sharks, but a bottom row of pikes which fit into the sockets of the roof of the mouth.
It's chief dining pleasure seems to be giant squid, which is a barbed and beaked monster nothing else will touch as it is large as a whale, and the Sperm Whale hunting the immense depths of the ocean will capture these prizes and be seen in battle with them on the surface chewing them to digestable pieces.
Of all things, the Sperm Whale arrives at it's Eve given name due to the reality that this whale produces a wax like product called spermaceti which is white and when it expires it vomits up large white volumes of white froth of giant squid upon the ocean, thereby resembling the common male fluid of reproduction, it attains it's name.
These whales while not matronly in they will abandon a calf when attacked and not like the Humpback in nurturing a calf in protecting them while being harpooned, will attend each other as a cow with a bull, in the cow staying by his side in all danger and distress.
The best reference material on the Sperm Whale in ability is from a book quoted here in Seaman Frank Bullen on a New Bedford whaling ship.
The Seaman related an observation beyond these whales slamming boats with their flukes as Moby Dick or learning in being hunted how to hunt humans, that the old paintings of killer whales hanging onto the flukes of larger whale as others bite out pieces of flesh, to those killer whales biting the lips of whales and holding on to force open the mouths of the exhausted prey whales to their deaths, were indeed quite literal to the savage wolf like nature of the killer whale and nothing of the Free Willy the world is propagandized on, in what these sea mammals and sea fishes are really like in the wild.
Mr. Bullen stated he observed a strange combining of forces in a large bull Sperm Whale was seen being attacked by two killer whales hanging onto it's flukes as they sped along in a diversion, and a 16 foot long swordfish in concert then swept in to pierce the Sperm Whale at the heart to harpoon or lance it just as humans would.
What followed was the Sperm Whale was well aware of the swordfish, but the swordfish missed the lancing and strick the head instead which was hard and blubbery. The attack leaving a white gash across the eye. Being deflected, the swordfish meeting the blubber wall bounced over the top of the mass of whale.
The Sperm Whale quickly then turned on the swordfish laying motionless and severed it in two with one bite, and then swallowed both.
The killer whales at his point realized that the tides had turned and they had bitten off more than they could chew. They let loose of the flukes, but the Sperm Whale reversed in a motion that made the sea boil and churn and in quite Olympic fashion brought his massive tail down with a crash on the one killer whale and killed it immediately with the blow.
Seaman Bullen, states the last he saw of the duo was the killer whale fleeing for it's life and the Sperm Whale in determined pursuit to kill his foe leaping repeatedly out of the water. The leaping must have gained him speed as wind is thinner than water for whales to swim through.
This is a most interesting symbiosis never discussed in here were two killer whales who had a swordfish working with them as the harpoon and lance. It was akin to a hunter with a dog to worry a bear. Whether this is a common occurence or was some anomoly, no more anectdotal information is avialable to this unique scene. What is the reality though is the Sperm Whale is the absolute ruler of the oceans and it fulfills a food chain role as top of the predatory lists in dispatching the master predators of giant squid, swordfish, sharks and killer whales.
The Sperm Whale does not have evidence in seeking to eat humans, even when humans were crushed in boats hunting the whale or being adrift on the ocean. Then again it does not have evidence in eating seals either in the surf as the killer whale does.
It is though one of the most stirring of creatures. It upon having injuries in jaw formations, will become quite aggressive in order to survive.
For that reason, the ficitional tale of Moby Dick does not match the true lethality of the Sperm whale. It is in fact much more adept and dangerous than the fiction eludes to. It is the great settler of accounts in the deep. A master and mistress, like an elephant sized lion capable of reckoning for the penguin, the fish and the sea lion, what the sea lion, swordfish and killer whale all kill in order to live.
The tables though turn on the predators in the Sperm Whale. The trio above in swordfish and killer whale, apparently had worked the above hunting tactic previously enough to making a meal, that it was employed on the Sperm Whale bull.
Only God knows if this worked on smaller females or calves of Sperm Whales, or it was used on Humpback females who would protect their calves in shallows from shark attacks, in where this all began. What is the reality is this tactic ended with that bull whale in a most savage battle, which is the way the Sperm Whale lives.
There is a comfort in this, that the oceans are not mastered by Jaws Great White Sharkness nor Orca Killer Willie, but by those huge black whales with teeth that in even unfair fight can kill the most lethal of predators which environmentalists and scientists whore up to the public for funding and donations.
I frankly hope to honor a Sperm Whale someday in having a boat and a rubber harpoon made, whereby I will close on a bull and throw the the rubber wand at him, watch it bounce off, and hope he finds the offering in good humor and does not decide to fluke me to death.
I would think this would be much greater sport and fun, than in whale petting nonsense, as what could be more exhilerating than being in a little 16 foot boat and bopping a lethal creature with a rubber harpoon which should have no more discomfort than fly lighting on your hide.
This would be jolly good fun if nothing went wrong. I could hang it on the wall and maybe have a photo showing me on the hunt, much to the wide eyed mystery of my guests who would wonder at such nuttery.
That of course requires donations and funding of such size which the rich have not as of yet reached Paypal.
One can not but hope for such futures or else all is propaganda of sullen depressions. I can not swim a stroke and would sink like a rock, so that would add to the thrill I suppose. Oh what joy I could have, perhaps throwing my rubber harpoons at large round bales in practice.
I must stop there as this was about scientific education and not about a new adventure. What could be finer than to build my own blunty rubber harpoons and go bop a numerous ton bull whale with it and hope it took it as a compliment?
Eh, what an adventure that would be, eh.
agtG
