Expressway: Learning a whale of a lesson

What can we learn from the death of a stranded humpback whale calf last month? Was it the size of this creature, the rarity of the sighting or the utter hopelessness of the situation that captured our attention?

On this Island of ours, so heavy with the population of humans, the truth is that most wild creatures are always at risk. Loss of habitat, thousands of roadkills, birds flying into windows, and far too numerous chemical pollutants combine to make Long Island a difficult place for our wild brethren.

Creatures that have adapted successfully - Canada geese, raccoons, squirrels, seagulls and rats come to mind - are considered nuisances, things we need to control or eliminate. This strange dichotomy of an intense, and often short-lived, concern for some creatures, and outright aggression against others, was vividly demonstrated on one specific day of Newsday's reporting on the young whale's dilemma.

The whale story was front-page news, but the writer of a letter to the editor complained about enduring yet another summer of giving some beach access up to those piping plovers that "no one even likes."

A few days later, a box on the front-page led with concern about a lost hypodermic dart that bounced off the whale calf. Printed below that warning, and in a smaller font, was the news that the whale had died.

What's a wild creature to do? Can we only care about an animal when it dies in full view? Will it be front-page news when hundreds or thousands of whales are slaughtered with exploding harpoons, as countries such as Japan, Norway and Iceland gear up for full-scale whaling?

There is a problem here and, as with so many problems, it is easy to state, but difficult to solve. We are losing one of the necessary ingredients to our well-being and survival; our connection to nature. We glorify a few creatures, fear many more, and label others as vermin - for being nothing but what they are.

All the while, we lose sight of the beautifully complex and wondrously more complete picture that nature has crafted for us - if only we make the time to watch. As we do, wild creatures such as that humpback calf will still perish, but we will also observe the numerous adaptive wonders and intricate associations that make up the web of life.

That web, despite so many insults, still survives on Long Island, but it needs defenders. More important, it needs participants.

Jim Jones lives in Bayville.