The Penn Cove Roundup

Ted griffin awoke with a start, but he wasn’t sure why. It was a warm night in August 1970, and all seemed calm and quiet. Water lapped against the boat’s hull as the lights of Coupeville flickered a mile and a half away. Yet something wasn’t right. The breathing of the whales behind the capture nets sounded clipped and nervous. “How long have they been blowing that way?” he asked the two men on watch. “Blowing? What way?” they answered. “All night I guess.” Straining his eyes in the dark, Griffin scanned the enormous pen, anchored just off the old Standard Oil dock. Everything seemed to be in order—except on the north side. The marker lights there were too far apart. He roused Goldsberry, and the partners jumped into a skiff to investigate. When they reached the floating lights, Griffin stared down at a loose cork line, puzzled. The net looked split. “Not split—cut!” yelled Goldsberry. “And in more than one place.” Griffin couldn’t believe it. Suddenly the orcas’ anxious breathing made sense. During the night, someone had slashed a section of the net. Large portions of loose mesh now drifted in the current, threatening to drown any whales nearby. Griffin and Goldsberry shouted for their crew, and in the following hours everyone worked feverishly in the dark—reattaching lines, mending mesh, anchoring nets. Had they reacted in time? Had the animals managed to avoid danger? Griffin needed to find out. Donning his wetsuit, he slipped over the cork line and into Penn Cove’s murky waters. At first, he was hopeful. All the whales seemed to be swimming near the surface. But a moment later, his eye caught a shimmer of white—perhaps a shark caught in the net? No, it was a tiny orca calf, no more than eight feet long. Ensnared in a floating portion of mesh, the little whale hung lifeless, head down. Other divers found two more, also calves. Initially, Griffin felt only nausea, but that soon gave way to rage. He wanted to lash out at those responsible.