Hooked on Rescue : Emotions of U.S. Rode With Whale

A month ago, fishing guide Jack Findleton didn’t know what a humpback whale was. But when one inexplicably appeared in the Sacramento River, Findleton was hooked.

Within days, the Vietnam veteran was as driven to save the whale called Humphrey as Captain Ahab was obsessed with killing the one called Moby Dick.

He closed his business, went days without sleep and risked his life as he became captain of the fleet that herded the whale from a shallow slough where it was trapped and lured it 70 miles to the Pacific Ocean.

A Time for Tears

“Going under the Golden Gate Bridge, I had tears in my eyes, knowing it was the last time I was going to see that animal,” said Findleton, 36. “This is one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done in my life.”

In his determination to save the rare whale, Findleton was joined by a cross-section of America: scientists, construction workers, students, professionals and a politician volunteered countless hours to the rescue.

The fascination was shared by millions around the country who watched the 26-day drama unfold and whose outpouring of support for Humphrey helped compel the federal government to act.

The celebrity whale even appeared on “Nightline” and became the subject of a joke in Johnny Carson’s monologue. A department store chain bought a full-page newspaper ad to wish the whale bon voyage.

From the viewpoint of scholars, the whale’s sojourn also tapped into deeply rooted themes in American culture. Much like Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Humphrey provided a blank screen on which people could project their own emotions.

A Load of Emotions

“We’re endowing this whale with more human characteristics than he would have in his own lifetime because we’re concerned about our own feelings about him,” said Neil Smelser, professor of sociology at UC Berkeley. “All of these emotions get loaded on this whale’s humped back. He’s carrying a load of the emotional identification of our whole civilization.”

In a way, Humphrey’s choice of time and place was fortunate. Two other documented cases in this century in which whales were similarly trapped ended in the deaths of both animals at the hands of humans.

In Oregon in 1931, a killer whale that strayed 110 miles up the Columbia and Willamette rivers was harpooned by a retired whaler, pickled in formaldehyde and carted around the countryside on exhibit.

In Newfoundland in the 1960s, a pregnant finback whale trapped in a lagoon was used for target practice, and eventually died of a massive infection from the wounds.

Humphrey, one of only 10,000 humpbacks left in the world, was lucky. Unlike the previous emissaries from the deep, Humphrey benefitted from a growing concern about the environment and the slaughter that has brought the great whales to the verge of extinction.

“The whale has become the (environmental) symbol of the 1980s--a big, friendly beast to be protected--and here one shows up in our own river,” said sociologist Smelser. “It’s almost a social movement to save the whale.”

A Gentle Hero

Smelser and other scholars, scientists and participants in the rescue offer many reasons to explain the nation’s--and their own--fascination with the wayward whale.

In a world dominated by bad news, the story of the wrong-way whale offered relief. A warm-blooded mammal like ourselves, Humphrey was a gentle hero who threatened no harm.

Humphrey was the “underwhale,” fighting for survival against the odds, said Alan Dundes, a professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley.

Dundes and Smelser likened Humphrey to the tourist who takes a wrong turn on a Los Angeles freeway, the rugged individual in an alien world, an innocent gone astray, a renegade in a quest for freedom.

“Here’s somebody who said, ‘To hell with the system. I’m going my own way,’ ” Dundes said. “He didn’t follow the crowd. Here’s a whale who has a mind of his own.”

Added Smelser: “This is a huge, powerful, monstrous beast floundering around helpless. It excites such ambivalence in people’s minds.”

A Glimpse of Nature

For thousands of people drawn to the river to see Humphrey, it was a rare chance to witness a part of nature most would otherwise never see.

And for the scores of people directly involved in the rescue, it was an opportunity for self-sacrifice and temporary escape from the problems of their own lives.

But Humphrey gave Jack Findleton something even more precious: the chance to recover a measure of the humanity he lost in Vietnam.

Findleton returned from Vietnam in 1968 embittered and ashamed. Even now, he doesn’t like to talk about his part in the war.

“I felt like a bad guy for saving my life,” he said. “It’s not something I’m proud of. I did what I had to do to survive after I watched all my friends die.”

A Need to Respond

But when he saw Humphrey wandering, apparently lost, in the Sacramento River, Findleton dropped everything to help.

“In my own small way, this is my way of making up for what I did then,” he said. “It made me feel like I was a good guy because I could save the animal’s life. It has shown me sensitive feelings that were buried for years.”

In his obsession for the whale, he ignored his wife, his children and his own welfare. Over three weeks of whale herding, he lost 15 pounds.

The most dangerous moment for Findleton and the river fleet came when the animal was trapped behind the small Liberty Island bridge.

In a dramatic warning to the boats to back off, the leviathan lifted its huge pectoral fin out of the river and slapped it repeatedly on the water’s surface.

But an hour later, two boats edged forward, the first piloted by Findleton and the second by Barry Canevaro, who is also a fishing guide on the river.

‘Could Have Killed Me’

One at a time, they drove gingerly over the trapped whale to urge it onward. Slowly, they felt the powerful animal lift up each of their vessels. Then, within minutes, the whale squirmed its way under the bridge to freedom.

“I rode Humphrey,” Findleton joked later, but added seriously, “He could have killed me.”

As Findleton led the fleet of private and military vessels down the river, he developed a special bond with the whale. He believed the animal learned to recognize his boat and surfaced each morning nearby to say hello. Like others involved in the operation, Findleton often talked to the whale, and sometimes thought the animal understood.

And after Humphrey was safely out to sea, Findleton told his wife for the first time that he had been decorated in Vietnam.

“I will tell the story of the fish that got away forever,” he said.

A Different Connection

Debbie and Mark Ferrari’s obsession with the humpback whale began much earlier.

Since the 1970s, the husband-and-wife team of marine biologists has studied the species in Hawaii each winter by swimming with them for extended periods.

During the rest of the year, they live in the San Francisco Bay Area, trying to earn enough money to finance their research of the highly intelligent creatures.

“There’s something special about them that seems to attract everyone,” Debbie Ferrari said. “They are able to communicate a certain kind of love. They help you see the beauty of all nature.”

When chance brought Humphrey within a dozen miles of their home, they launched a personal crusade to save the animal.

As the whale swam farther and farther inland, the Ferraris followed it up the river and inspired the operation that ultimately returned Humphrey to the sea.

Support From Public

The Ferraris were deeply gratified by the outpouring of support for the whale and the public’s recognition that the humpback is a seriously endangered species.

“People are becoming more and more aware that there are other things on this planet besides mankind,” Mark Ferrari said. “We live in an artificial world. What Humphrey did was force us to look at ourselves--to take a step further into the real world.”

When state Sen. John Garamendi arrived at the rescue operation’s informal command center in Rio Vista, many thought he was attracted merely by the presence of the TV cameras.

But like so many of the volunteers who initially came just for a day, the Demcocrat from nearby Walnut Grove stayed on.

Garamendi, who had recently backed out of the 1986 race for governor, threw himself into the campaign to save Humphrey.

He became a leader of the rescue operation and was instrumental in pushing the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency with jurisdiction over the whale, to authorize renewed efforts to rescue the animal.

“Here’s this huge wild animal right in among us,” Garamendi said. “If you can’t take care of one, then you have no way to argue honestly that you care about the rest.

“Something about that whale did catch my imagination. He’s become a symbol of the individual being trapped, of the desire to be free,” he said.

Earlier in this century, a trapped whale aroused different emotions among the people of North America. For some, a whale in such a predicament was a source of sport.

In Oregon 54 years ago, a killer whale swam from the Pacific all the way to Portland, getting stuck much like Humphrey in a slough behind a small bridge.

One Became a Target

“People came from all over western Oregon and Washington to line the rail of the highway bridge and watch for the whale,” recalled geologist John C. Manning, who was about 10 years old at the time.

The locals called their whale “Ethelbert.” But some of the townspeople tried to net it, some tried to gaff it and others shot at it, according to accounts in the Portland Oregonian.

Finally, after the whale had lived for two weeks in the slough, retired whaler Ed Lessard and his son, Joe, harpooned the animal, preserved the carcass and charged people admission to look at it.

The Lessards were convicted of killing a fish in an illegal manner and fined $200 each. But the conviction was overturned on the grounds that the whale was not a fish.

The Newfoundland case of 1967, involving a finback whale trapped in a lagoon on the coast, was recounted by Canadian naturalist Farley Mowat in his bitter book, “A Whale for the Killing.”

Story Ends in Death

The inhabitants of the little town of Burgeo shot the pregnant whale hundreds of times and slashed its back with a speedboat. Despite Mowat’s internationally publicized effort to save the whale’s life, it died.

But Mowat is heartened by the public’s response to Humphrey and attributes it to a growing appreciation for other forms of life.

“I think mankind is belatedly learning to be humane,” he said in an interview. “We’ve learned enough about the whales to know they live in an almost perfect environment. A lot of people wish they could be like the whales, roll around in the deep and sing beautiful songs. It’s a happy thought in an unhappy world.

“We don’t know very much about these animals,” he continued. “We don’t know very much about ourselves either. But we know less about these animals.”