Whale Tale

Recently a conservationist was cleaning a 17th painting by a Dutch artist depicting a seaside scene. As she worked a figure began to emerge next to a large object. The latter proved to be a beached whale, a creature which may have been painted out much later as unseemly in a painting of a refined nature. I thought it impressive that a whale was on a beach in Holland. How often do we hear of cetaceans on the beach in that neck of the woods? Were there lots of them frolicking in the salt waters surrounding Europe back then?

I also thought of J.B. Mackinnon's book The Once & Future World: Nature as it Was, As It Is, As It Could Be. I found this to be a brilliant book which explores, amongst other things, how humans have short memories subject to what he calls Shifting Baseline Syndrome. This is the idea we take the world we’re born into as normal even though it may only vaguely resemble the world of our grandparents. In my lifetime Monarch butterflies and frogs and fireflies have become threatened, not to mention many of the larger creatures of the land and sea. I lived in Newfoundland as the supposedly inexhaustible biomass of codfish was being recognized as on life support and chatted with locals who recalled great writhing invasions of caplin on the beaches.

Mackinnon writes about another 17th century painting called The Fish Market by Frans Snyders. It depicts a host of species all but one which were caught in the Wadden Sea four hundred years ago but have become scarce or disappeared. He notes that the fish of the painting are so large that they seem exaggerated, except that it is more likely that through the centuries these species have become smaller and smaller due to over-harvesting.



I want my grandchildren to live in a world of the abundance and diversity that I am convinced God intended. I am sometimes haunted by the greed of my generation in particular, which has expected so much from the Earth and given so little back. I won't give up, but I feel chastened.

Thoughts?