Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Whale Farming on NPR

NPR airs a few comments from listeners about a previously aired story regarding whale farming. Apparently, one of the "farmers," Mr. Summers, had been teaching the whales to sing in harmony. He says, "In achieving three-part harmony in whale song, I think we we have tied nature's most wondrous sound to a great barber shop tradition." A NPR listener, however, had this to say: "Having studied music at college, I want Mr. Summers to know that what he calls three-part harmony is not. Two of the whales are plainly singing the same note. That may be clever, but it's not barber shop." Well, Mr. Summers wasn't having any of that, and he replied, "It wasn't that the whales couldn't sing in harmony, they were just too busy expressing their individuality. They weren't so tied to the group."

Touché, Mr. Summers, touché.

All joking aside, BBC News published a story about the possibility of a whale farm off the coast of Japan. That was in 2002, though, and I haven't heard anything about it since.

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