THE IMPENETRABLE SEA 



of one group : yet the underlying principles of their struc- 

 tures are identical, and their behaviour patterns and out- 

 ward forms have many correspondences. Between the 

 great blue whale and the dugong are a range of creatures 

 with very diversified characteristics, yet the basic rela- 

 tionship of them all becomes more and more evident as 

 they are studied. They are all aquatic mammals, and so 

 are more nearly related to man than they are to any of 

 the fishes. 



The great blue whale is probably the most typical 

 whale of them all. Its gargantuan size is the factor in its 

 make-up which causes us to forget our close relationship. 



Some writers of books on whales have said that when 

 they have first seen one it has been difficult to believe 

 that it is an animal at all. The men on the Kon-Tiki felt 

 friendly towards whales, seeing them at short range — but 

 as Georges Blond points out in The Great Whale Game,^ 

 the conditions in which the men were conducting the 

 voyage had reduced them to something like a state of 

 primeval innocence, and they had a friendly feeling 

 towards the whole of creation. 



Man's wholesale slaughterings of all the various kinds 

 of whales threatens them with extinction. International 

 conferences have not always resulted in whole-hearted 

 co-operation by the nations' whaling industries : agree- 

 ments have been ignored and some nations particularly 

 fail to adhere loyally to the international whaling con- 

 vention. 



One authority, Dr. Gilmore, said only last year that 

 the California grey whale had become almost extinct 

 twice in the last hundred years, and this is but one of 

 numerous statements which might be quoted to indicate 

 the extent of man's butchering of whales for commercial 

 profit. Norwegian whaling operators particularly are 

 seriously concerned regarding developments in the in- 

 dustry. Reports of the National Oceanographic Council 



♦Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1954. 



232 



