A Place to Die

A herd of 150 small whales nosed their way onto a beach near Fort Pierce, Fla., last week. Boaters and state conservation agents dragged the cetaceans, of the species Pseudorca crassidens, the false killer whale, back into deep water. But the whales doggedly finned themselves onto the sand again, and 125 died. Scientists were at a loss to explain the mass death wish: perhaps a leader gone berserk, or a quirk of weather or topology that disoriented the whales' biological sonar systems. To those who see omens, it seemed that the whales were trying to tell us something. To those who have read the remarkable novel The Day of the Dolphin, the event had a haunting ring. In that book, Novelist Robert Merle fantasizes an unsettling interview between a reporter and Bi, one of the first dolphins to master English:

Reporter: Every so often you hear that a school of dolphins or whales has run aground, and when the animals are put back into the water, they insist on returning to land to die. Why do they do this?

Bi: If we die on land, we will live on land after our death.

Reporter: If I understand correctly, the earth is your paradise, isn't it?

Bi: Yes.

Reporter: And what about man? Is he your God?

Bi: I do not know.

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