The wayward whales who swam from San Francisco to Sacramento are apparently now heading in the right direction, back to the ocean. There have been a number of different techniques to turn them around. One failed attempt was to play whale songs as a lure--but it seems that the wrong whale dialect was used. As the immigration bill is argued over in Washington, it is interesting--a relief, maybe?--that even other species are prone to being divided by difference. According to The Sacramento Bee :
Alaskan whales don't necessarily understand whales from Mexico. Pieter Folkens, a research associate with the Alaska Whale Foundation here trying to rescue the mom and calf, said biologists playing recorded whale calls may be speaking a foreign language. "This is a humpback probably from a different population, probably the Mexico- California population. So it's kind of like speaking Chinese to somebody from Boston, but at least you recognize that it might be another member of the same species."
Speaking of whale songs, here is Judy Collins, a folksinger who found fame in the '60's, singing a duet with whales in the 70's, of an old Scottish ballad, 'Farewell to Tarwathie'; the whales, of course, did not know the ballad was about--yikes!--hunting whales!! Had they known, I'm sure they would have walked out...I mean, swam away.
