Haven't seen it, but the commercials seem to show the holes being cut every 100 yds or less; very labor intensive. I'm sure the whales, even the little calf, can swim much, much farther that this. They could be led by generating underwater noises at each successive hole, or even broadcasting appropriate whale "speech"; all cetaceans have incredible hearing, some able to hear sounds hundreds of miles away. Is this explained in the movie?
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What you describe as the whales ability to hear sounds from hundreds of miles away has nothing to do with the incredible hearing of whales, and everything to do with their ability to make noises, dive deep, and hold their breath. It's only in sweet spot in the ocean's stratification where the density of salt and temperature enable sound to be carried across the ocean. There whales have figured out they can sing to each other from across the ocean. But that really has absolutely nothing to do with digging holes in ice.
I don't know how far the holes were in real life, or if this movie portrayed them accurately, but I would guess off the top of my head, in a life or death situation where your only reason for being there is to save the whales, you might start small and see if you can get them to move at all. Then maybe up the ante.
maybe HEALTHY whales can swim much further but the whales were probably starving and exhausted and NOT in the best of shape meaning they would not be able to swim as far before resurfacing for air as the average whales of their species?
shareYeah, I thought they could have spread them out a bit further but I doubt they had anyone on hand to tell them what the optimal spacing was.
"They who... give up... liberty to obtain... safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
It's like working on an engine: try with the easiest, quickest and simplest things first. Try digging one twice as far, at least, and, if it doesn't work, halve the distance, etc. You haven't wasted you first, distant, hole since it will be just another in a line of them, and you can potentially save a lot of time and labor; perhaps distancing them even further once the whales caught on.
share"or even broadcasting appropriate whale 'speech'"
And how would they know what was "appropriate?" What if they broadcast sounds into the water that made the whales afraid to go anywhere near the source of the sounds? It's not like there's a whale sound dictionary they could have consulted...
Actually, I understand that marine biologists have in fact worked out a simple whale dictionary. Obviously not very reliable or detailed, but a workable one.
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