Whale Week Fact 1: Whales are old!

Whales are really old. There are undoubtedly some young whale punks out there skateboarding on icebergs and such, but the whales who have been around for awhile are impressively ancient. The best way of dating a whale is looking at aspartic acid in its eye lenses, but the AWESOMER way of dating a whale is by finding extremely old harpoons embedded inside of it. Evidence (harpoon-based and otherwise) has shown that whales can reach over 200 years old. I linked to the Times article first so you wouldn't think this was an internet hoax, but this Daily Mail piece is worth checking out as well--it includes photos of the harpoon fragments as well as this quote from whaling expert John Bockstoce:

"It probably hurt the whale, or annoyed him, but it hit him in a non-lethal place," said Mr Bockstoce. "He couldn't have been that bothered if he lived for another 100 years."

You know how long sharks live? About twenty years. Sharks could never be elected President, never drive a rental car at reduced rates--in fact, only Doogie Howseresque shark prodigies would ever even graduate college. Do we really want to live in a world that celebrates that kind of laziness? Down with Shark Week, up with Whale Week!