SEA OF GIANTS

An unusual alliance is forming to save Sri Lanka's remarkable whales

- TRISTAN BOVE

OFF SRI LANKA'S southern coast, where the ocean drops into an indigo trench, a blue whale dives below the surf, her gargantuan size belying the grace of her movement through the silent water. Her hymn of clicks and whistles resonates through the deep, calling to her young calf.

Her kind has lived here for generations, at the pinnacle of a food chain that begins in the ocean’s depths. But her world is different from that of her ancestors. Overhead, giants of another kind carve across the sea - ships, hundreds of them, their steel hulls an invisible threat. This female had grown accustomed to the ships’ presence. But one spring morning proved to be her last.

In March 2012, the lifeless body of an 18m female blue whale was found in the harbour of Colombo, Sri Lanka’s largest city, a deep gash exposing her left flank. She had collided with The Quartz, a container ship, and was discovered draped over its bulbous bow, a spear-like protrusion at the front of the vessel. Eyewitnesses reported no smell, suggesting she had died recently.

A team disposed of the corpse out at sea but, two days later, the remains washed up on a beach south of Colombo. The dead whale was now rapidly decomposing: its flesh had turned a putrefied grey, its carcass flecked with lacerations left behind as birds pecked through the carrion. This time, the smell was unmistakeable.

The case was later documented by Asha de Vos, a prominent marine biologist in Sri Lanka. The collision alerted conservationists to the dangers whales face in the seas surrounding the island nation.