Consider the broader significance of whales. Many ecologists would note that there is a decades-long movement to save the whales because whales are charismatic megafauna. It is true that whales are specially appealing to our human aesthetics. International pro-whale organization Whale Call calls the songs of whales “almost spiritual”.
We have no reason to think that whales have any spirituality. Although they seem to be intelligent and communicative, humans don’t know much about what whales communicate about. Perhaps when whales sing they’re boasting about the size of the bubbles they can make underwater.
The whalesong’s appeal to humanity is inadvertent, but works in benefit of whales’ preservation. We who are interested in the broader health of marine ecosystems can scoff at this irrational appeal, but we ought to consider that the special attention given to the whale does have benefits for other animals in the ocean as well.
There is no Save The Krill organization, but many whales could not survive if krill became extinct. To save the whales, we’ve got to save the krill, and to save the krill, we’ve got to save the oceans of the Earth as a whole. To save the krill means to save every marine ecosystem with which they interact, and that’s a great deal of the ocean.
We ought not to quibble about purity of focus. A Plankton Preservation Society will not get as much support as organizations like Whale Call, but an organization like Whale Call, if intelligently managed, can become part of an international network of organizations dedicated to dealing with the grave threats building against all life in the seas, and all life on Earth.
