CHAPTER 12
Whales, Benthos, Horseshoe Crabs
CHAPTER 12
Horseshoe crabs 'donating' their blood for human medical tests.
Very useful, but more aftercare might be helpful.
Dorp and Sam came up the east side of
Florida and saw the beach in Miami and all the people there.
Soon
they were halfway up the east coast of Florida, just under the spur.
“Look,
Sam! Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. Spaceships and
astronauts.”
“My
Grandma went there a couple of years ago and sent me a hat. I would
love to be an astronaut, but I guess it takes a lot of work to get
picked for that job.”
“Popular
jobs always have a lot of competition, Sam. Some jobs require certain
kinds of smarts, and certain jobs require certain physical talents
and abilities.”
“What
if you don’t have much of either, like me?” Sam asked.
“You
don’t know what you can really do, Sam. When you’re playing
sports, you don’t train that diligently, and when you go to school, you don’t listen that well in class or study very hard with your
homework. You have a lot of potential, but it’s not going to ooze
out on its own. You have to work to bring it out, no matter what you
want to be.
Too many people think that real talent or real
intelligence comes out on its own. It doesn’t.”
“But
back to being an astronaut. Since 2009, astronauts drink urine that
is recycled into fresh water.”
“Whaaaat?
Astronauts recycle their pee?”
“It’s
true. And so does the City of Singapore. Nature recycles water and
humans are learning the process too.
After all, we went from being a
yellow dung fly to being a yellow chiffon cake.”
“Too
much information!!!”
They
reached the eastern Florida-Georgia boundary, near Fernandina Beach,
Florida. It has flown several different national flags; perhaps more
than any other American city. They saw a mother and baby Right Whale
in the ocean. Some think they were called Right whales because in the
old days they were the ‘right whale’ to hunt.
“Mr.
Dorp, back in San Diego, we take charter boats into the Pacific Ocean
to go whale watching. We see the whale mothers with their babies. Do
people do that here on the east coast? “
“They
do; let’s talk about whales. This area of the eastern coast is also
a birthing ground and nursery for whales. The east coast of the US
has some whales now but used to be rich with whales. Cold northern currents have more food in them than warm-water southern currents, so the
cold-water currents normally have predators, including whales.
Yet
you’ll see whales off Southern Ocean coasts because warmer water is
better for baby whales. Whales were hunted from the eastern shore in
America long before the White man landed. They were harpooned and
then pulled it ashore for butchering. Native people used the meat,
the blubber, the bone, and the baleen. White settlers learned that
whale blubber could be refined with fire and made into an oil that
burns very cleanly.
Tribal people taught Europeans native whaling
practices and provided much manpower for colonial whaling crews.
The
upper eastern seaboard spawned several whaling towns. Whaling ships
killed the whales faster than they could reproduce, which emptied the
North Atlantic Ocean of easy whale-hunting.
The whalers then went to
South America, and then to the Pacific Ocean to fill their boats with
oil. They would render the oil on the ship’s deck. It was socially
shameful for a boat to come back to port less than full, therefore
many ships stayed out four or more years to fill their holds with
barrels of oil.”
Dorp
explained that there were three types of whales that received the
most attention from the US whaling sector.
The Right whale and
Bowhead whale are both baleen whales. They have no teeth, but a
series of filters in their lower jaw that allow them to consume large
quantities of plankton, tiny aquatic beings. These whales
supplied oil from their blubber.
Whaling peoples have also used
baleen throughout their history to make utensils, jewelry and
baskets, and ornamental carvings and toys.
The
sperm whale, being a toothed whale, eats bigger prey, up to a ton of
squid a day. It has no baleen to harvest, but in addition to rendered blubber-oil, a sperm whale can provide up to 500 gallons of spermaceti oil; a
very fine waxy oil that was valued as clean-burning lamp oil,
lubricant for machinery, and wax for candles. That oil is actually
stored in their huge heads and is thought to be part of the natural
sonar device that sperm whales use to locate prey.
“Do
people still hunt whales, since we now have electric lights to see by
and oil to lubricate with?” Sam asked.
“On
a limited basis, Sam. Whales are still hunted legally or poached,
which means being taken illegally. In an 1855 treaty, the Makah
Tribe were given rights to hunt whales in their home territory. They
abstained from hunting their favorite, the gray whale, while it was
on the endangered list. But grey whale is now off the endangered list
and the Makah people want to resume hunting.
“What
does poached mean? I’ve eaten poached eggs. Are they stolen? I
thought mom bought them at the grocery store.”
“No
Sam, your mom paid for the eggs. The poaching I speak of, involves
stealing animals or plants. To take animals or plants that belong to
another person is called theft. But poaching means taking legally protected plants or
animals that belong to an ecosystem.
Often, such taking is forbidden
because the animals are endangered or because they are dangerous to
humans. Certain whales are endangered because they can’t birth
babies as fast as the adults are dying, due to whaling or diseases.”
“So, these whales are in danger, Mr. Dorp?”
“Many
types of whales are considered endangered, Sam. Humans who look after
these whales say that the Right whales’ nursery grounds off the US
southeast coast may see encroachment from oil exploration and
considerations to naval training exercises in the area. And
there are always whales being injured by the propellers of boats and
commercial ships passing over their backs.”
Sam
spoke, “I want to talk about the little creatures the big whales
eat. I can’t believe a huge whale can get a full belly from such tiny
things. That would be like me eating one grain of rice at a time. I
would have to spend my whole day eating. Of course, I guess that’s
what whales do, eh, Mr. Dorp?”
“This
will get a little complicated since we have no chalkboard to write
on.”
“You
can write?”
“I
understand twelve different languages, Sam. Anyway, Baleen whales eat
tiny things called plankton. I say tiny in respect to your normal
boy-size. Compared to molecules of water they are huge. There are two
types of plankton; zooplankton, which are aquatic animal life, and
phytoplankton, which are plants that live in the water. Look around
Sam. You are with them all the time here in the ocean. Plankton are
things that go where the sea pushes them.”
“Lots
of cool shapes. I wish we had shapes like this in the school
playground.”
“Yes.
And there are two types of zooplankton. Holoplankton are tiny all
their lives. Meroplankton are small only because they are going
through their larval stage. The meroplankton will grow up into either
nekton or benthos.
Nekton life forms, like squid, when grown, can
swim and control their position in the water.
Benthos, like shellfish
and starfish, live their lives on the bottom.
“Whew.
That’s a lot of weird names. Whales eat a lot of different food. I
wonder if they can taste. Maybe they decide, ‘Oh, we had
holoplankton the last three days. I’m really in the mood for
nekton. Let’s go out to the Underwater Valley Buffet and see what
is on the menu out there.’”
“Sam,
it doesn’t take much to fire up your imagination, does, it?
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you one other interesting fact about the
sperm whale. I said that its diet is adult squid. Squid eat fish but
can’t swallow the fish whole. Like starfish, squid have a
parrot-like beak in the center of its arms that tears away the flesh
of the fish and grinders in its mouth that turn the fish into a mash.
“Like
the baby food Abby used to eat?”
“Similar,
yes. Anyway, some of the fiercest sea battles ever waged happen daily
at the bottom of the ocean between sperm whales and the grown nekton
that we know as giant squid.
The giant squid truly are giants in their own right. They can weigh a
full ton.
When the sperm whale eats a giant squid, the beak is
indigestible. To protect its digestive tract, these whales produce a
waxy product called ambergris
which coats the squid beaks and allows the beaks to pass through the
whales’ digestive tract without harming the whale. Here’s what
you’ll like as a boy. This ambergris was once used as an ingredient
in women’s perfume.”
“You
mean girls would spray liquefied whale poop on their bodies?"
“Yes,
after a manner, Sam. And here’s more about ‘icky fish’. Herring
fisheries save the shiny scales from the fish when they are
processed, and the shiny part is put into lipstick and other
cosmetics to make them reflect light.”
Sam
was astonished and amused at the same time.
“Seriously? My
mom won’t go fishing because she refuses to touch the scales on a
fish, yet she puts fish scales on her mouth. Wow. Is she going to be
surprised! She a fish-kisser!”
“Are
you going to get into trouble for telling her things she doesn’t
want to know?”
“Maybe
so, Mr. Dorp. What is all this
fuss about ‘animal-rights’ stuff with whales?”
“Well
Sam, decent people abhor types of violence between humans, and some
people who have never had to kill the animals they eat, see human
interaction in the food web as a type of violence, which it is.
However, nature is inherently violent.
Trees for example, are not
just destroyed by humans. They are also destroyed by fire, by
lightning strikes, by tornadoes and hurricanes, not to mention
diseases and animal infestations.
Little fish are eaten by big fish,
butterflies and worms are eaten by birds.
Bugs are eaten by birds and other creatures.
You’ve seen what happens to mice.
Some people think that
humans should be above the violence of the food web. But herbivores
will eat plants, carnivores will eat animals, and omnivores will eat
both.
Plants like the Venus flytrap or pitcher plant also eat
insects, small lizards and rodents, which is a form of
violence.
The food web is violent. It depends at what point you see a
life form as untouchable."
“We
are now off the South Carolina coast, near Georgetown, moving north
via the Gulf Stream. Nearly all the water in South Carolina rivers
came from South Carolina, which is uncommon. So, how’s the view
from starboard?”
“Starboard,
Mr. Dorp?”
“You
are on the right, so you are on my starboard
side, a name that has nothing to do with the stars,
but with the
‘stahrin rudders’ of older vessels, as old Yankee sailors used to say.
Since I am on the left side,
my side is called portside.
If we were a boat, my left side would bump up to the dock.
And like
lighthouses, ships must have lights to be seen at night; red on
portside, green on starboard, and a white light placed according to
size of the vessel. This tells other ships where you are and how big
you are.”
“Hmmm.
Oceans and lakes have no white or yellow lines. If two ships meet,
how do they know who has the right-of-way?”
“Marvelous
question, Sam. First of all, no common vessel has the right to
intentionally navigate into a collision, so there is no absolute
right-of-way. Even so, when two boats approach each other, one is
said to ‘stand on’
or keep its course and the other is said to ‘give
way’ or yield to the other
boat. Learning all the rules for this is like learning a new kind of sports,
so don’t fret yourself about it just now. Perhaps you can
read about it when you get back home.”
“Look
now; Cape Hatteras and the Outer Banks of North Carolina is to our
portside and we are going to rub elbows with the Labrador Current
from here to the Georgia Bank near Maine. Here comes the fog.”
“Wow.
Why is it so foggy?”
"Sam,
this is where the Gulf Stream swallows the Labrador Current. The cold dry-ish air above the Labrador Current and the warm, moist air above the Gulf
Stream mix to make intense fog at times.”
“Mr.
Dorp, I tried to grab some fog in San Diego one morning. I mist.”
“Really,
Sam? Did you know that the word ‘mystery’ is derived from the
word mist’?”
Dorp
explained that this area is where the first European child, Virginia
Dare, was born at the lost Roanoke Colony in 1587.
The Wright
brothers flew their first plane near here, and the waters hereabout
are known for sinking ships.
“Have
you ever been deep in the ocean and seen shipwrecks?”
“Yes,
a few times.”
“Where
are they? I would love to discover a sunken ship.”
“I
never bothered to record the location. Gold and jewels hold no allure
for my kind. We have no needs. Either we exist as water and do what
water is supposed to do, or we fracture into oxygen and hydrogen and
do what they are supposed to do. A lot of the dorps I have known as
water were fractured by lightning and their oxygen parts went on to
fuse with iron and they are now ferrous oxide, rust in ships on the
bottom of this ocean. But back to your topic. Perhaps you can learn
to scuba dive someday when you are a boy again and explore the
underwater world on your own.”
“I
remember reading about the diving bell, invented in the 1600s. A man
trapped air inside a big bell, got inside it and was lowered way down
in the ocean. I would explore now if I could propel myself.
"Sam, as a point of interest, the man who invented the diving bell was also famous for spotting Halley’s Comet.
He had a wide range of interests”
"Really?”
Sam asked. “What was his name?”
“Sam,
think about it; HALLEY’S Comet?”
“Oh,
silly me.” mumbled Sam.
“Aha,
here is the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. America once had over 1,000
lighthouses operating at one time, before the days of electronics and
GPS.
“Really?
I’ve seen lighthouses in pictures, but never close up. Where are
they located?
“Anywhere
ships and boats traveled; large rivers like the Mississippi; the Gulf
of Mexico, and along both the east and west coasts and on the Great
Lakes. Even today, Sam, there are 10 of them just along the shore of
South Carolina, though most are now historical sights.
The Statue of
Liberty was a real lighthouse for a few years. Sometimes, boats
were even moored and rigged to act as light beacons to ships. We’ve
passed several of them, but apparently you have been too busy
thinking about other things to notice them.”
“Who,
me? Really? Why exactly is a lighthouse important since it doesn’t
shine a light on the water like a flashlight on the water so boats
can see where they are going?”
Sam
didn’t know it, but a lighthouse does several things.
First, lighthouses are painted in different colors and patterns, so in the
daylight a ship can tell where they are.
Second, it puts out a light that shows were the lighthouse
sits. Navigators are supposed to know the shorelines in the area of
each lighthouse and navigate the coastline accordingly.
Third, the
lighthouse also has sounding equipment that sends out an audible
signal if the fog is too thick to see the light.
On a clear night
though, a lighthouse with a superior lens can throw a beam as far as
20 miles.
Since
the stripes on a lighthouse can’t be seen at night, each lighthouse
had its own signal pattern that controlled the turning of
the light.
Other features existed to identify each lighthouse in the
dark, such as different pieces of colored glass in certain places on
the lenses.
“That
sounds like a brand on a cow, pardner,” Sam said.
“Exactly
pardner. You sound like you’re ready for another horse ride.”
“Not
through the inside, I’m not. Heck, no! How do lighthouses send
light so far without electricity?"
“By
The use of mirrors called parabolic
reflectors and special lenses
called the Fresnel lens.
If you can capture all the light from a flame or bulb, concentrate it
into a single beam, then the light will travel a long way. The
Fresnel lens uses multiple layers of prisms to do this. And remember
the bigger the lens, the further the same amount of light can
travel.
Sam
was puzzled. “What did they use for light before electricity? How
could something non-electric put out that much candlepower?”
(that’s a term he learned in 5th
grade).
Dorp
gave Sam the answer: “Ancient roman lighthouses used bonfires. Old
American lighthouses used whale oil, lard, colza oil, (a cousin to
canola oil, a relative of the turnip), and kerosene. Colza oil was
also carried on ship’s lifeboats to calm rough seas, which made
rescues easier.
“Imagine
growing turnips to light the lamps in your house,” Sam thought. “My
Grandpa Harry has a turnip patch.
Wait! Then how big of turnip patch
did the lighthouse keeper have to keep?”
“I
presume, Sam, that the owners of the lighthouses supplied the keeper
with colza oil.”
“How
did they turn the light, then? Did a guy have to walk it around like
a merry-go-round thing?
Or was there a big gear with a horse on a
treadmill that turned the light?”
“My,
Sam, Dorp said, “You have a vivid imagination, just like many great
inventors. Speaking of your Grandpa Harry; he still uses a windup
pocket watch. Some lighthouses had a big mechanism that turned the
light like the hands on a pocket watch but worked like the weights
on a grandfather clock.
“Whoa!
Why are some parts of this beach filled with people, and other parts
are completely empty? Private land?”
“Ah,
yes. A quick left turn down yet another rabbit trail. Sigh. Some
parts are closed off from humans to protect this area for sea turtles
and birds that use this beach as a nesting area. “
They
moved past the Outer Banks at Cape Hatteras and continued north,
staying in the Gulf Stream, with the Labrador Current between them
and the coastline. They flowed up to the Chesapeake Bay.
“Sam,
this is Chesapeake Bay;
inlet to Washington DC, Baltimore, Maryland,
and other historic cities and towns.”
“And
the Baltimore Orioles?”
“Yes
Sam; and the Baltimore Orioles. Do you like baseball or birds?”
“Both.”
“Washington
DC, for being considered the capitol of the free world, has an
unusual political system. Because it is a federal city, with its own
rights and rules, its citizens cannot elect members to congress.
Their voting rights consist of electing presidents, mayors and city
council seats. Many DC residents are frustrated because they have no
say in the makeup up of Congress.”
“Why
doesn’t Washington DC just become a state?”
“Sam,
Washington DC is a city, not a state. There are nineteen U.S. cities
bigger than Washington DC. Electing people to Congress is a lot of
power. If Washington DC could elect people to Congress, other cities
would each want their own representatives in Congress too.
Perhaps
the Washington DC could be broken into 50 districts, with each
district being adopted by a state, or chosen by lottery, and then
they could vote in their adopted state’s elections.
“And
they could run for election in their adopted state?”
“Logically
so, Sam. It would certainly make for interesting elections.”
“I
have a couple of president jokes. Who was the cleanest president?”
“I
don’t know, Sam. Who?”
“George
Washington.
Which president was musical but couldn’t play an instrument?”
“I
don’t know.”
“Abrahum
Lincoln.”
“Sam…”
After
a time, they were at the mouth of the Delaware Bay.
The State of
Delaware holds the south coast of the bay, while New Jersey holds the
north side.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is up the Delaware River a few
miles.
Delaware, in fact, used to be part of Pennsylvania. What is
now called Delaware used to be known as Pennsylvania’s
lower counties on the Delaware.
“Sam,
do you know what a horseshoe crab is?”
“I
sure do. They are SO cool. They look like an old, upside-down tractor
seat with a spike coming out.”
“I
suppose that is one way to describe them. Anyway, Delaware Bay has
horseshoe crabs that people look after.”
“Is
this an environmental thing?”
“The
horseshoe crab has special blood that reacts to
gram-negative bacteria,
a bacteria that makes people sick.
E-coli is a gram-negative
bacteria. Horseshoe crabs are farmed for blood donations to help with
something called an LAL test, which detects these illnesses much quicker than the old ways, so people can be treated sooner and get well faster.”
“Who
would think a weird looking creature like that could help people get
well?
Of course, my doctor isn’t very good-looking, and he helps
me feel better. Ha!”
“Sam,
mankind has used nature for medicine for thousands of years.
Advances
in science now allow people to improve human healthcare using animal
life, both of land and sea.
Something to consider.
We continue
north.”
Photo 1: BBC science
Photo 2: Defenders of Wildlife Battle for the Blue Bloods | Defenders of Wildlife