Moby Dick (Rhine)
Moby Dick was a beluga or white whale that caused a sensation in 1966 along the Lower Rhine and then throughout Germany and the Netherlands . It was named after the novel Moby-Dick by Herman Melville .
Discovery and Persecution
On May 18, 1966, boatmen reported a white whale in the Rhine to the water police near Duisburg . This first made a test for blood alcohol on the reporters , but it turned out negative. In fact, a white whale was swimming in the river, 300 kilometers away from the sea and thousands of kilometers from the beluga's usual habitat, the arctic waters.
According to press reports, the whale was originally intended to be taken to an English zoo. However, the transport ship almost capsized in a hurricane and the whale was washed into the North Sea shortly before reaching the English coast . From there it reached the Rhine via the port of Rotterdam .
Wolfgang Violence , the director of the Duisburg Zoo , tried to master the unusual guest in the Rhine with nets and tranquilizers . Activists tried to disrupt the hunt by from an airship from oranges tossed into the Rhine to divert attention from a paint-like marker buoy, the fortified a sniper with a shot under the skin. Outrage among the population and official protests from the Netherlands ultimately led to the attempts to catch them being stopped.
Initially, the whale, quickly known as “Moby Dick”, turned again towards the sea, but stopped in front of the Kornwerderzand lock , which was opened especially for it, and swam up the Rhine again. Accompanied by numerous onlookers , he swam to Bonn , where his appearance interrupted a federal press conference. He only turned around shortly before Rolandseck and was seen three days later, on June 16 at 6:42 p.m., for the last time reaching the open sea near Hoek van Holland .
reception
The appearance of Moby Dick in the Rhine is considered to be the beginning of the animal protection and environmental movement in Germany. Stephan Koester's documentary Moby Dick worked out the dystopian content of the Rhine journey in 2000/2001 . In 1976 the Rhine ship Moby Dick was named after the whale in Bonn .
Web links
- Water Police of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia: The Whale Year 1966 ( Memento from November 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- Tran and tears Der Spiegel 23/1966 from May 30, 1966
- WDR reference date: The Moby Dick from the Rhine ( Memento from June 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- The White Whale (2000/2001) , documentary film. Review: Dietmar Bartz: 'Moby Dick' and the poisonous Rhine . taz , August 28, 2001, online