Of course, I understand the need to study these wonderful animals. And, I'm highly curious to hear the results of any such study.

What I don't understand is why anyone thinks it's OK to kill such intelligent and beautiful animals, regardless of the length of their commute.

These creatures are intelligent, social, complex, playful, beautiful animals. They are worthy of moral consideration in their own right. Anyone who has been on a few whale watch trips would know this just from watching them.

Think about the intelligence, planning, and coordination necessary for bubble-net feeding. Watch a humpback playing with humans on a whale watch cruise by swimming back and forth underneath the boat, only to finally fake people out by coming up unexpectedly on the "wrong" side.

My point in all of this is simply that it's not only about impact on their survival, which is a huge issue, it's also about having the decency to recognize that humans are not the only species on the planet with rights.

We owe these animals our respect and our moral decency, if we have any.

Wanting to learn more about these great cetaceans. Major questions:1) longest migrations (realizing humpback info supercedes Gray conventional wisdom, but ? of sperm from Caribb to honey hole off New Z?; past distance communication over thousands of mi (? how many) before interference with motorized ships and ? of interference with new military mechanisms & effect on migration, reproduction, etc; depth of dives of sperms and preference for which type of squids (collosal vs giant vs mid sized). Appreciate knowledgeable answers.