Bulk Food

This story has that certain verissimilitude that speaks of first-hand experience.

During my brief tenure as a credentialed whore at UBC’s Marine Mammal Unit, I interacted extensively with aquarium apologists, animal rights activists, and behind-the-scenes grunts in their natural habitats. I observed them. I took notes. I resisted the temptation to toss them cookies as a reward for their performances, as I resisted the (somewhat stronger) temptation to break their fucking skulls over the endless political bullshit that kept me from doing any real biology.

What I couldn’t resist was the temptation to write this story. I had a lot of help from my collaborator—not so much on the biology perhaps, but definitely on the funny bits. “Bulk Food” first appeared in On Spec in 1999; the illustration that ran with it is on display in the Gallery.

The science—the resident/transient stuff, the infant-mortality rates, all the chrome that predates The Breakthrough—is pretty much legit. Race Rocks is a real marine mammal hangout. Those familiar with the layout of the Vancouver Public Aquarium might experience a certain sense of deja vu as they follow Doug Largha on his adventures. The characters themselves are, sadly, more real than you’d like to believe; in fact, even the names bear a certain (but utterly nonprosecutable) similarity to actual public figures on both sides of the whales-in-captivity debate.

God help me, looking back I almost miss those duplicitous scumbags.