A Jesuit And The Leviathans

Whales appear to be making a comeback in the waters where they were once hunted to near extinction.
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer April 28, 2008
STRAIT OF MAGELLAN, CHILE -- From the earliest days of exploration, mariners in Chile's cool southern waters marveled at the abundance of whales.

A Jesuit naturalist wrote of the sea "boiling" with the spouts of the leviathans. Among 19th century Nantucket boatmen, the island of Mocha was notorious as the stamping grounds of "Mocha Dick," an ill-tempered sperm whale riddled with harpoons.

Why Herman Melville opted to substitute "Moby" for "Mocha" remains unclear, but literary detectives believe the vengeful whale helped inspire his dark classic. Now, almost two centuries after the commercial carnage of Melville's era and 22 years after an international whale-hunting moratorium went into effect, some whales appear to be making a comeback off Chile's coast, where a proliferation of islands, fiords, peninsulas and straits creates tens of thousands of miles of shoreline.

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