First Draft:
In War of the Whales, the true story reveals the effect of sonar technology on marine mammals, particularly beaked whales. War of the Whales takes you through events in the Bahamas, Greece, England, Madeira, and even all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The book invites you to the beautiful islands of the Bahamas. Where we are introduced to Ken Balcomb. Balcomb was simply a whale-lover & his life portrayed beaked whales. We are taken on a journey through a striking 17 whale strandings in a single day, where videos & samples were taken. Balcomb knew that something was wrong and was raised in alarm when he noticed a Navy destroyer giving off the powerful sonar technology off the coast where a whale had stranded. Thanks to Balcomb and his companions, the media is what made everything come to life. Soon Balcomb's videos made news headlines and the problem was the talk of the nation. Originally, the Navy denied it's use of sonar but eventually revealed that due to low funding the sonar testing was indeed going on in the Bahamas where the whales had stranded instead of the original plan in the Puerto Rican Island of Vieques. Not only did War of the Whales acknowledge the effects naval sonar technology is having on marine life, it also helped get up to date on whale research. We found out so many new things that we wouldn't have known otherwise. For example, beaked whales' brains appear to be larger than humans. We have also discovered that beached whales may be able to descend into much deeper waters than we thought. All in all the testing that when on to figure out what was going on with the mass strandings helped gain more leads to better understand beaked whales. Horwitz uses the characters Balcomb and Reynolds to really tie the story together. Balcomb is the passionate one, who has a love for whales and is placed between the past and the present. He was once a pilot for the Navy but it is clear who's side he really is on, the whales. Reynolds is the rule follower, the one we see in court when everything falls into place. Horwitz uses personal events of both Balcomb and Reynolds to introduce all of the characters in the book. The personal events make it feel even more real as we are taken through break-ups and both Balcomb and Reynolds are both tested on how deticated they are to their work. The book portrays a negative wrap for the U.S. Navy all in all. After the Supreme Court decisions, the navy "changed" just because they were forced to and in the long run nothing really has changed for the better. The Navy are the underdogs and are similar to other company's such as the EPA. They do not care about the whales like Balcomb did, they care about technology advances for humans only, not taking into consideration of what the effects of the new advances in technologies are doing to the rest of the planet.