it. Two-ply, three- ply and no doubt multi-ply
too. In short, cashmere has caught on,
big time, most noticeably during winter holidays.
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| Cashmere goat |
That’s not good.
As one scientist explains, “Demand for Cashmere Is Harming
the Environment” – specifically, the cold, arid pastureland of the steppes of China
and Mongolia, where herders have historically raised sheep, horses, yaks,
camels and other animals.
But since it takes goats to produce cashmere fabrics from
their soft downy undercoat, and cashmere is so in demand, herders increase the
number of goats in their livestock.
And that’s not good either.
Unlike other animals, goats “eat plants down to the roots so
they cannot regrow, degrading habitat and causing soil erosion.” That leads to soil damage, and goats that
graze on inferior rangeland produce inferior fibers, which find their way into
to affordable-but-lesser cashmere sweaters.
 |
| Yak |
So the degeneration of pastureland – and cashmere –
continues, while efforts to come up w/ sustainable production practices are
only beginning. One suggestion consumers
are likely to reject is to forgo cashmere altogether, even though they could opt
instead for soft fabrics from sheep, yaks or camels: greater quantity for less
ecological damage.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/16/opinion/holidays-environment-cashmere.html
As with African elephants, “conservation” is a meaningful
word today. Now, move mentally to the US
Pacific Northwest, where veterinarians have taken on a massive challenge:
helping conserve a population of endangered orcas, aka “killer whales.”
 |
| Orca |
About 75 in number, these so-called “Southern Residents”
have earned scientists’ interest, motivating them to devise new ways to
“perform veterinary exams on a wild, multi-ton marine mammal that might surface
for only seconds at a time.”
The scientists have developed methods — including an experimental
“breath-collecting drone” – to capture parts of the “clouds of mist” expelled
from the whales’ blowholes! They’re also
moving toward more ways to assess these whales to learn what’s normal for them
and to decide when intervention may be called for.
BTW, the videos with this article are noteworthy.
In the belly of the . . . whale
 |
| Giant squid |
In Daniel Kraus’s novel, Whalefall, a young man named
Jay enters the ocean off California to find his suicidal father’s remains. Minus a few key elements of his diving gear, he
plans to search the sea floor where he knows his father, secretly weighted
down, slipped off the small boat a friend was piloting.
Once beyond the coast and near the canyon, he encounters a giant squid, is wrapped in a tentacle and sucked into the mouth of a sperm whale. (It doesn’t matter that he’s only “by-catch” in the whale’s pursuit of the squid.)
 |
| Sperm whale |
With his oxygen running out, his strength ebbing and his injuries mounting, Jay struggles inside the whale’s first of four stomachs, adapting the detritus he encounters into escape tools and playing back his father’s extensive whale knowledge and respect.
Even though I know zip about diving and simply skimmed over chapter names and other exotica, Whalefall was compelling reading — a real adventure story, with fascinating details about sperm whales, especially this one, allied with Jay in his escape efforts.
(Years ago, my husband and I traveled to the canyon off the NJ
coast in a friend’s commercial fishing boat – a night-time voyage to a tremendously
deep place that I was too naïve, or dopey, to be apprehensive about.
(While there were no encounters with squid or whales, it was
exciting enough: while we napped below in the dark, a large mackerel hook fell
from a ceiling mount onto my chest – a big rat in transit, I was sure. Later, starting at dawn, the crew winched huge lobster
traps up onto the long deck. . . .)
A timely resolve
Finally, since it’s that time of year, this line from New
Yorker online “humor”: “One whale says to another: “My New Year’s
resolution is to lose thirty-eight thousand pounds.”
#