(2002-07-30) — After several dozen pilot whales beached themselves near Cape Cod, MA, for the second time in as many days, hundreds of volunteers who had rescued them the first time, suddenly slaughtered and began to eat the highly-social aquatic mammals.
“We suddenly realized that by rescuing the whales we were upsetting the delicate balance of nature,” said Kristin Patchett, of the Cape Cod Stranding Network, who led the first rescue effort. “Darwinian natural selection makes sure that evolution moves forward with better and stronger creatures. If we rescue these obvious weaklings, we would throw off the whole random scheme of evolution.”
Patchett then returned to her task of tearing away a whale’s dorsal fin with her sharp incisors and fingernails. Oily blubber dripped from Patchett’s chin as she overlooked the feeding frenzy of fellow environmentalists who were savagely hacking at the still-twitching leviathan carcasses with rude implements like clam shells and broken driftwood.
“It’s important that we be intellectually consistent,” Patchett added. “I have contacted our friends at Green Peace, who agreed with me, and say they will now use their small boats to track whales and cull the weak and deformed from the pods.”
Green Peace spokesbeing E.B.Karing, reached by satellite phone somewhere off the coast of New Zealand, concurred with Patchett.
“It just makes sense, that humans — the most highly evolved creatures — should continue to assert our dominance, and destroy species that pose a threat to us. Whales do, after all, have larger brains than we do. Can you imagine what will happen when they evolve some opposable thumbs? We’d be done for.”