Anti Gravity: Whale Weight Watching; October 1998; Scientific American Magazine; by Mirsky; 1 Page(s)

Call me a schlemiel. Some weeks ago--it was in July actually--having few if any pressing assignments, and nothing particularly interesting for sure, I hooked up with an outfit called the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources, which schlepped me and a bunch of other reporters around Maine for a week and a day so we could acquire expertise in environmental issues. During this excursion, I found myself at the town of Lubec, home to salmon pens and a sardine cannery. Despite the revelation that each sardine was scissors-decapitated and gently placed in the familiar round-edged can by hand, and despite the computation that one worker, slicing for six decades, has beheaded some 300 million herring, this story has bigger fish to fry. Mammals, actually.

I contend that I am a schlemiel because it was not until a week later, as I wandered the streets of Woods Hole, on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, contemplating knocking Red Sox fans¿ hats off, that I by chance saw a flyer for a lecture on blubber. Thus did I discover Michael J. Moore. Captain Moore seeks the right whale. From a base back in Lubec.