WHALE FALL / MARY KASSEL

WHALE FALL

Whale Fall (v.) - a collective term for the whale carcass, the process of dead whale fall, and the formed deepsea ecosystem.

Part One: The Fall

The reason whales are so big is because they have no natural predators. This is a generalization, but it’s true. Believe me, I watch NOVA. All the big sharks, think The Meg, went extinct leaving a wide open niche for whale-eating that no one occupied. With no one around to eat them, whales got bigger, and bigger and bigger. And, they’re so nice about it too. Gentle giants. Except for dolphins who apparently are quite mean. Give or take about 80 to 90 years, the lifespan of the blue whale, with no enormous sharks to chase them, the whale will die of natural causes. Although, being eaten is natural in the grand scheme. So, what happens next? Where do these creatures, larger than life, go when they die? No cremations underwater. First, they’ll float. All the gasses that have been building up their whole lives collect and make them buoyant for the first couple of days post mortem. Eventually, they’ll start to sink, and the currents will carry them. There are so many currents in the ocean, so many migration patterns, so many paths leading to specific places. Endless tubes of water and winds below the surface carrying bodies all over creation. Maybe they’ll end up in the one and only place where eels reproduce. Maybe they’ll end up at the bottom of the Mariana Trench and never be seen again. Somewhere too deep and too cold for the best of our technology to follow. Even the brightest lights and the toughest metals get swallowed by the darkness down there. Mostly, they’ll just sink to the ocean floor somewhere. Maybe not the deepest and coldest, but certainly nowhere they’ll be disturbed by the likes of us. The final resting place might be somewhere quiet. Somewhere gentle. Somewhere to rest at last. But, their remains will get no rest. They’ll outlive them. Be their legacy. They’ll be a vital tool to the ecosystem of the ocean floor. A feast that lasts decades.

Part Two: The Feast

The scavengers eat first. Crabs and eels, octopus and sleeper sharks feed on soft tissue and flesh picking the bones clean. What a meal for someone who may be waiting months for the next time such a gift comes their way. Before the boon of the whale arrives, they’ll have been living on marine snow. A pretty term for the waste and dead of the sea that must eventually find its way to the bottom. The ocean floor, famously inhospitable, but teeming with life straight

out of a horror movie. Fish with lightbulbs for eyes, sand eroding faster than the grains can be counted, levels of pressure that would make your head explode and crush the air of the oxygen tank in a heartbeat. What kind of creatures live where even the sun dares not shine? The kind that can make their buffet last up to eighteen months. The whale’s decomposition is slowed due to the depth and temperature, and these animals may live from meal to meal, but they’re smart enough to make this one count. Only in the ocean could this happen. An ocean so alien to us that the cold honest truth is that no one knows what’s at the bottom. Just ten percent of it has been explored. For all we know it really could be mermaids, krakens, and the wreck of Sinbad’s ship. Probably just the bones of those who went looking for them. For the whale, the bones and cartilage sink into the sediment, enriching it with nutrients practically unheard of at these depths. This can take five years. In swoop the little guys. Smaller crustaceans and wiggling sea bugs dig through the surrounding sediment searching for overlooked tissue. Dirty work, but who’s counting. It’s too dark to see any sideways glances from the snobbish cephalopods. After all, it’s easier being small in the ocean. Even if the whale lived 90 years and had no predators, you’re still eating it in the end. Part Three: The Forage

Finally, the bacteria that dares to make their home in this hostile land dissolve the fatty bits inside the bones which emit hydrogen sulfide. They spread, taking over the skeleton like moss and glowing in the darkness. A beacon to all that the food is still good and there’s still a place at the table if you’re hungry. The mussels, clams, and snails answer the call. Settling on the bones making it the seat of their colony,

perhaps for decades. By far the longest stage yet. The new life that comes from this death is incalculable. There have been entirely new species recorded found only on the bones and carcasses of dead whales. Entire categories of animals living their lives, carving out their niche, propagating their genes and we almost missed it. Even when the whale is gone, the bones finally breaking apart into dust from years of sustaining the lives of others, the impact will live on forever. The next generation of scavengers, bottom feeders, and those who scrape the last rungs of the food chain hold pieces of this whale in their bodies. Pieces that will be passed through the DNA from offspring to offspring. A biological hold stronger than a Thanksgiving tradition. Animals that could give evolution a run for its money because they just won’t die. They’ll spend lifetimes hanging on for dear life. Literally. Because what else is there to do? If you were dropped at the bottom of the ocean and told to make it work, what other choice would you have? Might as well wait it out a little longer. There could be a whale about to fall right in your lap.

Part Four: The Future

We should all become whales and never die. That way, at least, we could become useful in our crusade to live on, and not in a creepy seeing your children as yourself way. Instead of encasing ourselves in stone and staying separate from the Earth, even in death, we could embrace it. Lay our bodies in the dirt as they begin to rot away and let the mushrooms go to town. The scientists say whales mourn their dead. Do you think if they could they would build mausoleums as we do? I doubt it. If they could choose I believe they would keep things as they are. A beautiful balance predicated on millions of years of trial and error. Survival and extinction.

The ocean, the whales, and everything else swirling around down there has been here far longer than I have, and who am I to mess with perfection? But, hey, that’s what we do. We mess and mess until there’s nothing left to make messy. The ocean has not come out unscathed and the whales haven’t either. Patches of garbage, animals choking on oil, and a slow death in a fisherman’s net. These are not pretty pictures, but rest assured, the sea will have the last laugh. It was too much for us. We had to turn to the sky and reach out for space because what was right within our grasp, our own life’s blood, was too deep and too murky to understand. A black hole is scary, yes, but if a black hole opens up around the Earth tomorrow there’s nothing I can do about it. That’s not something I was meant to understand, and kudos to those who are trying. But, the ocean is life and water. I’m made of it and it’s made of me. It created us, you and me and we can’t live without it. We’ll probably drown ourselves before the ocean can do it, but I really hope we don’t. I hope somebody finds a way for us to live on, just like the whales do.

“EVEN WHEN THE WHALE IS GONE, THE BONES FINALLY BREAKING APART INTO DUST FROM YEARS OF SUSTAINING THE LIVES OF OTHERS, THE IMPACT WILL LIVE ON FOREVER. THE NEXT GENERATION OF SCAVENGERS, BOTTOM FEEDERS, AND THOSE WHO SCRAPE THE LAST RUNGS OF THE FOOD CHAIN HOLD PIECES OF THIS WHALE IN THEIR BODIES.”