A new anti-whaling book called Echoes in the Blue by New Zealand author and wildlife biologist C. George Muller is now available. The book is what publishers have termed “fact-based” fiction, and tells a compelling story about humanity’s conflict with the natural world based on evidence about illegal whaling in the Southern Ocean.

I was eager to read Muller’s latest work for several reasons. First, the way he weaves a fictional story based in real world data collected about contemporary whaling activity is akin to how I incorporated composite narrative into parts of my own dissertation about human-dolphin encounter spaces. I also think the book is timely and important. Whaling continues today despite the International Whaling Commission’s 1986 moratorium and the establishment of the 1993 South Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Whaling nations continue to ignore (or use loopholes to circumvent) International Whaling Commission rules, and whaling seems to be expanding with Japan announcing plans to kill up to 1,500 whales annually from 2007-including species classified as vulnerable and endangered on the IUCN redlist.

Echoes in the Blue is about the real-life conflict surrounding Japan’s controversial pelagic whaling and dolphin drive kills. Muller is clear about his aim: This book is undoubtedly a bid to raise wider public awareness and support for the anti-whaling cause. His website even promises that he will donate money from every book sold to Save the Whales. http://www.cgeorgemuller.com/index.htm

Several years ago, trained as both an attorney and a social scientist, I might have been uncomfortable publicly taking sides on any issue-even one related to whales and dolphins. But I have no problem now: In today’s world, there is no good reason to slaughter dolphins and whales. Why would I have ever been on the fence about the ethics of harming dolphins and whales-beings that have always been dear to my heart?

Early in my graduate career, before I had more fully developed my understanding of social constructionism, I experimented with the constructionist way of thinking in a paper about whales and whaling. To describe the politically charged dispute concerning modern-day whaling, I articulated the situation this way: Nations like Japan and Norway that want to continue their whaling practices have “constructed” whales as economic resources, while those that want to permanently end whaling and “Save the Whales!” have “constructed” whales as sentient, sapient beings worthy of a right to life. That is where my paper ended-with explanation, but without evaluation or recommendation. Emotionally and intellectually, I believed that whaling was wrong. But, in an effort to remain theoretically coherent, I held to a social constructionist framework and sacrificed my intuition to the constructionists’ position that I was just one more member of the camp that merely constructed whales as special.

However, the influence of hermeneutics, practical ethics, and the work of contemporary animal geographers corrected my acceptance of the inevitable relativism resulting from constructionism. We may have different ideas about what whales are or are not, and what we would like to use them for. But whales exist in the world’s oceans, regardless of human ideas about them. Moreover, convincing evidence suggests that whales are sentient, sapient, social animal subjects-regardless of whether we acknowledge as much. As animal beings with intrinsic moral value, I would now argue that their right to life outweighs any economic or cultural benefit claimed by (human) pro-whalers. In my analysis, this is the better (more nuanced, engaged and ethically superior) position, given the current whaling situation. By honoring an ethical, critical and interrelational perspective, the social constructionist argument was rendered not only incomplete, but downright offensive. Echoes in the Blue is a compelling drama that highlights the assuredly nonfictional moral incoherance of Japan’s contemporary whaling activities. Bravo, Muller!