Last week, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper rejected President Bush’s attempt to exempt the U.S. Navy from laws protecting endangered whales. The judge noted that President Bush’s order was constitutionally suspect, leaving her injunction against sonic blasts in place. Such underwater bursts put whales and other marine mammals at risk. They are also part of a long relationship between whales and human warfare.

For much of the 20th century, the typical lab of a whale biologist was about 20 feet above the open sea. On the flensing deck of factory whaling ships, cetologists examined blubber thickness, stomach contents, gonads and earwax layers. They learned a lot about dead whales: What they had eaten and when they had become sexually mature. The layers of wax provided an indication of age.