Conclusions

Whales still symbolize the West’s dominion over the earth and its inhabitants. The seventeenth-century cetaceous unit’s legacy is felt in contemporary news media and documentaries, which employ a similar rhetoric of empirical investigation suggesting credibility. Goltzius-influenced photographs of stranded whales now elicit sympathy for the animals as symbols for humanity’s deleterious effects upon the earth. Environmental narratives speak of human stewardship, caring for and repairing whale populations and our shared ecosystem. The Florence, Oregon, stranded whale and its disposal demonstrates the detrimental risk of such hubris. While the cetaceous unit continues to represent humanity’s dominance over nature via global trade and fishing, beached whales still present an omen: that our planetary depredations will prove harmful to all.