Popular Culture and Literature

Abstract

A review of current human behavior and popular media highlights a contradiction in modern cultural perceptions of marine mammals. Campaigns to protect marine mammals and their habitat exist on every continent, and the number of local and national governments involved in legislative agendas related to marine mammals is growing. The recorded history of human interaction with marine mammals began with small-scale direct exploitation in pursuit of vital resources. Preindustrial commercial whaling involved the application of subsistence techniques for the realization of profit rather than direct consumables. These researchers heralded an important shift in scientific focus that accompanied the end of the grand age of whaling during the 1950s and the beginnings of “modern” marine mammal studies in the 1960s. It would be simplistic to point to one central mechanism behind the groundswell of interest in marine mammals that occurred during the second half of the twentieth century. An important influence in the perception of marine mammals by the public during the 1970s was a rapid growth in underwater images of whales and dolphins. The increased display of marine mammals in oceanaria and the growing opportunity to view them in their own world accelerated the idea that industrialized whaling had become a desecration of nature. The most significant demonstration of the cultural importance of marine mammals in modern times is the explosion of interest in excursions to view marine mammals in the wild that has taken place over the past three decades. The commoditization of marine mammals is now reaching a fever pitch with attempts to resume commercial whaling, continued growth in whale watching, increased competition for ocean resources, space-age technological advances in military and corporate attempts to control the oceans, continued destruction of ocean habitat, and the dire threat of global warming.