Whale armor

The process of harpooning whales is readily recognized as one of the most cruel forms of hunting, and is only performed because no means of more rapidly immobilizing or killing the prey is apparent.

What is apparent is that the whales are becoming dangerously enangered, are quite majestic in their own right, and don't appear to need any killing from humans in the first place.

While opponents to whaling have long proposed destroying the ships themselves, research has found that doing so directly is illegal, and may be considered murder, or terrorism. Thus, our efforts must rightly focus on hindering the whale/harpoon interface process.

While providing whales with scuba equipment, as I previously suggested may be appropriate, it occurs to me that this has several problems: Whales aren't well known for their skills in attaching objects to their blowholes. Their blowhole, being an orifice, is likely to be especially sensitive to having things stuck in it. Moreover, many whalers attest that a whale, once it first flees, surfaces again in a surprisingly regular fashion, so that even with scuba gear, it might not occur to the whale to make use of this equippment for an extended dive period. All of this, of course, neglects to consider the possible risk of divers diseases, such as the Bends, and how it might affect a whale.

Thus, Virtucom has considered an alternative, and possibly far superior means whereby a whale might protect itself: Whale armor.

As the charges used to project harpoons should be readily discoverable, it should be relatively simple for virtucom to produce a neutrally buoyant full body armor whereby a whale can be protected.

Due to the basic cigar-shape of most whale bodies, it should be possible to design swim-in form fitting gear, so that they may don and doff the equippment in relative comfort, leaving the material to be available to other whales intering whaler-infested waters. As this allows the manufacturers to distance themselves from their product, it limits virtucom's liabilities, and thus allows for the cost-effective ability to produce larger quantities of whale armor without worrying as much about lawsuits.

Additionally, a proper set of armor may allow whales to take matters into their own hands in other ways. Virtucom research suggests that a pair, or group of fully armored adult whales, in proper condition, and acting in unison, should be able to achieve potent ramming speed against the offending vessels, thereby causing down time necessitated by whale-attack related repairs, or possibly even sinkings.