Whale Gear

I just realized that the Puget Sound Chapter of the American Cetacean Society (ACS) has a merchandise shop! Looks great, especially considering that much of it features Uko Gorter's scientifically correct and artfully done cetacean art. At an ACS meeting a few months ago I snagged a copy of Uko's Marine Mammals of the Salish Sea mini poster. I laminated it -- to keep it nice and shiny -- and put it by my desk at work to remind me of some of the animals that are in our local waters.

A Pet Peeve

Every now and then I like to mix my interests of crafting and marine biology and check out what creative marine biology-related crafts people are coming up with. I'm also a fan of Etsy, and their searchable site makes it easy to find what I'm looking for. Most of the crafts that feature whales are of the cutesy, cartoonified variety. You know the one I mean, right? It's the whale with an open mouth -- no teeth or baleen -- and no pectoral fins. Kind of like this one...


Well, I've learned to get over the misleading imagery of this whale design, but -- and here's where the pet peeve comes in -- I can't get over it when people make these designs even more scientifically inaccurate. For example, I was just browsing for some whale crafts, and found one that had a whale, like the one above, eating krill. I mean, come on! The whale looks most like a sperm whale, yet has no teeth, and would not intentionally be eating krill! (Sure, a sperm whale might ingest some krill while getting other food, but that's not the point.) It doesn't make sense, but I'm not going to message the person to tell them that this cute thing they've designed and put so much work into is wrong. I'm just not that kind of person. This type of inaccuracy seems to be contagious in the world of crafts, which is why scientifically correct crafts make me so happy when I see them.

Here are some of my favorite artist-designed, marine biology-related items:

Angler Fish shirt at Squidfire.com

Whale Huggers poster by Don McMichael at The Whale Museum

The "I Feel Pretty" Giant Isopod totebag at Questionable Content

Nudibranch Soft Sculpture by Weirdbuglady on Etsy

Arctic Print by SepiaLepus on Etsy

Whale Tails Shadow Puppet Set by Orangemoontoys on Etsy

Do you have any favorites?