R. A. R. Clouston • Home

How can you read the following facts and not feel a twinge of sadness or guilt?

The Taiji Butchery: Each year, thousands of dolphins are butchered alive in a cove near the Japanese town of Taiji. Government officials defend this barbaric practice by saying that these fishermen have always done this and that the world should respect cultural differences. By that same logic, we should tolerate all acts of brutality in any nation as long as there is precedent.
Depths of Depravity: The Norwegian government has increased the quota for the annual slaughter of whales by a staggering 45%. They offered no rationale, which is not surprising since there can be none. Demand for whale meat has declined, and world sentiment to save the whales is increasing. In doing so, they join the Japanese in sinking into the depths of depravity.
Spectacular Cruelty: The average life span of Orcas in the wild is forty years, and females can live well into their seventies. In contrast, the average life expectancy of an Orca in captivity is less than six years. Of the nearly two hundred Orcas captured since 1964, less than one third lived longer than ten years. Ironically, we justify this as being necessary to engender public support for these magnificent creatures while simultaneously sentencing them to death.

Despite a continuing assault on these sentient and self-aware beings who share our world, they do not seek to harm us. In fact, just the opposite is true. There can be no better example of this than when a Beluga Whale recently saved the life of a woman who was drowning in the whale’s twenty-foot deep arctic pool at an aquarium in Harbin, China. Even before the humans did, the whale sensed the woman’s distress and gently carried her to the surface, saving her life despite the fact that the whale had been sentenced to life imprisonment.

But what if there comes a day when whales and dolphins turn against us? What if they seek to destroy us as we continue to destroy them through either the brutality of the few or the apathy of the many? This is the premise of my novel titled The Tempest's Roar. I urge you to read it and if you do, I promise that you will never again look upon the deep blue seas that surround us through the same eyes. Whether you choose to believe it or not, we are not the only intelligent beings on this endangered blue marble drifting through space, this place of terrible beauty and untold potential that we call Earth but their kind knows as Planet Ocean.

Best of luck,
R. A. R. Clouston