WHO CARES!!!!

I had a friend who served on HMCS Athabaskan, in the 70's. He said it wasn't uncommon to collide with whales. It probably felt a lot like hitting a gopher with a super-duty.

What is a necropsy going to accomplish? Will they have to install new traffic signals?

I for one would like to see this poor whale (name unknown) memorialized as a symbol of something or other. Eventually someone will get to look back and laugh.

Isn't it obvious? It died from underfunding.

A goodly amount of crab food in that whale

...we have strict whale avoidance procedures in place when our ships are in the vicinity...

I have my own procedures when I spot a gopher on the road.

What must be done is clear. All ships must be banned from the ocean.

Was it an honour killing?

Obviously a drug running whale. Carcass probably packed with heroin or cocaine.

Was there a Titleist lodged in its blow-hole? And does Jean Chretien have an alibi?

Mystery Meat , if they ban all the ships and remove them from the oceans all that displaced water the ships are responsible for will cause the ocean levels to drop . Then there'll be beached whales everywhere with gulls and crows pecking out their eyballs , not to mention every beach on earth will smell like Toronto .

Well, the Americans have Michael Jackson - we have to make do with a whale. But the same questions can
be asked - accident, killing by a different species
(us), whaleslaughter, or murder? My bet is that the
unfortunate deceased whale was maneuvered by his
"buddies" so that the ship would run him down.
A crime without evidence, but not without
precedent!

Suzuki's Green industry:
"We HAVE to stop the inhuman CRUISE industry, no matter what the economic costs. No I don't work in travel...., what does that have to do with anything?

Ha! On our Alberta road trip last year we made a point out of sighting all "wildlife", domesticated or not. Somewheres outside of Drumheller I was about to announce "Gopher!" when said gopher launched itself under my front wheels. When my daughter asked "What was that Daddy?", I said never mind ...

Rumor has it the Governess General was craving .....

Another damn whale talking on the cell phone when he should have been paying attention to where he was going.

Missing parts of the headline.

"Traces of marijuana found at the scene."
"Alcohol suspected in crash".
"The whale had just gone through a difficult divorce"
"Straight A student killed in crash with cruise ship".
"The whale was known to be a loner".
"HRC to investigate why no white whales are ever hit by cruise ships".
"Gay rage suspected in whale death".

Ok. I'll stop.

John Lewis: the whale's nose was missing?

were they whale watching?

Posted by: eastern paul at July 26, 2009 4:33 PM

Well-met, EP! There's far too much truth in that statement: "if it has absolutely no impact on me or my life, why then get rid of it"

mhb23re

This reminds me of an earlier incident where an autopsy showed a dead wail had died of Aids. Apparently it had been bumped by a ferry.

Doh!!! Wail=whale:0)

A whale is not a fish.

What a waste of fine oil!

Paulstuff:

Are you sure you don't mean bumped by a fairy?

Perhaps you were just being politically correct, and I'm too pedantic.

Isn't this kind of like finding half a pigeon lodged in your front bumper?

Essex incident, type of Jihad, for incursion into
his corner of the world ?

Ever since Isaw this I have been trying to find a particular picture, but I guess it never made it to the web.

About 10 years ago, one of the USN's Spruance class destroyers got put into drydock. When they emptied the water out they found out why the active sonar was performing so badly. There was a shark cooked to the sonar dome.

The old SQS 26 set put out a LOT of power, actually capable of boiling the water around it if stationary.

I smell a Royal Comission... No wait, It IS Toronto.

the sensible thing to do is ban all sharpedged bows on all boats, setup a bow-registry,...

Lets see, cruise ship, gopher... hey, y'all been watching Love boat reruns?

What was particularly disturbing was that on the CBC website, the number of reader comments this story generated outnumbered the comments made concerning the dead woman that was pulled out of the Fraser river on the same day, by approximately 25 to 1.

mmmmmm Lauren Tewes.............. sigh

Geez........ whats the big deal, maybe it just got hit by the boat ....everything does die eventually anyways.........unless of course it is Tommy Dougles......who "Ain't Dead Enough"

Missing part of the NYT headline, with apologies to gord.

Cows, calves hit hardest

This is a clear case of failure to yield to on-coming traffic. It happens.

Perhaps the carcass should be tipped onto the beach chez Suzuki on Quadra Island where it could then rot sustainably back into the local ecosystem?

With the oceans rising because of AGW , could someone in Calgary recommend a 4x4 shop that has a grille that will hold up to these pesky buggers ?

.... for the children , of course .

If only they had that $2 ultrasonic whistle .

A whale fell overboard?

Didn't someone notice she was missing in the buffet line?

But Kate, this is a Large Dead Animal

The Whale was J-walking.

BTW Kate, a Whale is not a fish; and Wales is not a country; merely a principality :-)

Oh dear, I am having a wail of a time.

MsMew @6:04 - "a whale is not a fish".

I bet Kate was hoping she'd catch just one painfully literal-minded interloper on that one. Nice kitty.

BTW did they really not notice they were pushing "70 tonnes" of extra weight?

RW - well of course it's a principality; that's why there's a Prince of Whales, duh.

Dead mamal in fact .... but who cares anyway?

Stupid useless reporters........

Lucky bastard , it was this , or Friedman's carbon footprint.

I had a friend who served on HMCS Athabaskan, in the 70's. -dp

One of my brothers, both of whom have been military, served on the destroyer HMCS Athabee in GWI.

I also knew a guy who was on the HMCS Terra Nova, simultaneously.

Recently, my brother went pirate-hunting on the Frigate Winnipeg... :)

I read Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." I would have guessed that the sharks would have chewed up that whale before landing at Vanouver.

Years ago, I was driving a 1966 Ford Fairlaine. I got a cat caught in the fanbelt, the bloody cat was dragging under my car--his rear legs and tail were hitting the pavement. At 12:00 Noon, I drive up to a "Burger Baron" in Moose Jaw Sk. The place was filled with patrons. To this that was one of my "embarrassing moments"

BTW, I have a pic of a beluga whale my dad took, somewhere amongst the pix from the post-WWII/Cold War era... Lucky mammal, didn't get hit by the CGS Edward Cornwallis, except by my dad's Brownie...

"Burger Baron" in Moose Jaw? Must be relatively new, never heard of it. I recall going to the "Bonanza" there... Ah, the weekend road trips in the '75 Volvo wagon... couldn't duplicate the past-the-top-of-the-incline "ahhhh" moments in N.B. that only occured on the rolling SK. highways. Absolutely loved the transportation museum in M.J...

Is there a ten cent bounty on whale tails ?

CS I believe it was Terra Nova that hit a dead whale. From what I remember the whale was bloated and when hit it exploded coating the Terra Nova all the way to the boat deck.
I was on Assiniboine when we ran over a whale. It seems to me that the ship bounced a half a foot but I think passing through our screws finished it off.
In both cases we definatly knew that we hit something.

mmmmmm Lauren Tewes.............. sigh
Posted by: AtlanticJim at July 26, 2009 7:07 PM "

Ms Tewes much to her regret blew all her love boat earnings.

blew them right up her nose with a bad coke habit.

I remember the 'people' magazine article.

feel free to google it, it's out there somewhere. as is Ms Tewes.

I went to high school with a pert little miss reminded me of Ms Tewes. I remember that too.

In honor of the dead whale, James Cameron and various financial backers from the Film Actors Guild ("FAG") are considering to film a sequel to Titanic. It is rumoured that Kate Winslet and Leo Dicaprio would play the parts of Victoria the fin whale and Love Boat captain George W Ahab. Also, Tina Fey may have a cameo appearance as the bloodthirsty alaskan huntress that will stop at nothing to bring fin and blubber soup to her people trying to survive the Wasilla desert heat.

Insiders say that Kate will have to consider gaining a few pounds before taking on the role.

Who would have thought that the sudden death of the cumbrous Fin whale would cause such delight, not to mention unsolicited and pitiful attempts (for the most part) at morbid whale humour. Seriously folks, one of the most valuable commodities (by the gram) is compacted whale poop, (ambergris) used to make such expensive perfumes as Dioressence, some-
thing I've never had the pleasure to smell. Life is cruel!

A Whale for the Killing. One of Mowat's novels -- it's actually not bad -- not that I like the guy's politics or anything. Those were Fin whales, too.

So , Larry , if you hurry out to the wharf where that boat is moored and shove your head up that whales ass about 5 feet you might get a whiff of that ambergris . I hope your life improves .

So Cantuc, if you can't take a joke, it must mean that your jokes stunk the most.

Just trying to help make your dream come true , larry , seriously . Did you find any more tidbits about whales in wikipedia you'd like to sharee ?

Well, it's a beautiful monday morning on the West Coast I sit down with my coffee and find tha Cantuc
has been sitting up most of the nite looking for a
fight. So okay; I didn't get the info from Google, but from a book, you know, one of those things you find in a library, that has pages with writing on them, held together by a spine ... but of course, you wouldn't know anything about something you don't have.

Funny, I've been led to believe whales where too intelligent to get themselves run over in low traffic zones. Maybe some of them chase cars and bite tires. Too bad.

Environmentalists say the noise of ships drive whales off their normal migration routes so ships have been getting quieter, now they cannot hear them coming ( total speculation based on making it up in my head ). I am sure whales can hear a cruise ship just fine, this one was deaf, so it is doubly tragic because it was disabled.

Cruise ship full of whale-watchers, the Irony is staggering, perhaps Paul Watson and the Sea Shepards should start ramming cruise ships.

Peter Jay @12:43 - I think there was also some yank who wrote a novel about a guy trying to kill a whale. Dunno about his politics.

man, that's one big freakin boat.