The planet's last few thousand blue whales gathered around the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior in the Bering Sea at approximately 9:45 a.m., thanking the activists on board for their good intentions, but also stating that the oceans had become so polluted, they had decided it was simply not worth going on.
"We really appreciate all you've done for us, but now you need to let us die," intoned a 170-ton blue whale through a series of deep and mournful vocalizations. "I swallowed two plastic coolers, a tire, and about a hundred gallons of oil this morning. Is that any way to live?"
The whale reportedly delivered an angry 45-minute speech complaining about the debilitating noise of naval sonar, excruciating collisions with massive ocean vessels, the lack of mates who haven't been tagged for some scientific experiment, depleted sources of krill, and the very high likelihood of getting cancer from the PCBs in the water.
"I know you've been really excited about helping us ever since that whole 'Save the Whales' craze began back in the '70s," the whale said. "But I think we can agree that the past 35 years have basically been a death march, so let's just part ways."
"We had a good run," added the creature, who requires 1.5 million calories each day to survive. "But species come and go. It's a natural cycle and we are at peace with it.
The consortium of blue whales admitted they had begun beaching themselves on purpose, and ordered the environmentalists to stop wasting time organizing volunteers who only prevent the suicidal creatures from experiencing the sweet release of death. They also urged the activists to end their practice of collecting signatures for petitions and to put their efforts into something that has a chance of succeeding, such as saving historic buildings.
The massive whales reportedly let out anguished moans and slapped their 10-foot flippers against the water in frustration, explaining that they were "obviously at an evolutionary dead end, not having developed the ability to breathe garbage."
"If Greenpeace really cared, you wouldn't let us suffer like this," one whale said. "Sure, maybe you helped stabilize our population for a while, but our lives totally suck. Besides, with global warming and everything, all ocean life is going to die anyway, so why prolong the agony?"
Though the largest creatures ever to inhabit the planet insisted that the environmental group could only help them by encouraging Japan to keep hunting them and deploying as many exploding harpoons as possible, Greenpeace spokesperson Jill Kirkpatrick said the organization was reluctant to follow the blue whales' orders to abandon efforts to protect them.
"A lot of us have invested years of their lives to saving the whales," Kirkpatrick said. "The whales will die off when we say they'll die off."
The giant ocean mammals finally suggested that if the environmentalists couldn't bring themselves to allow the whales to go peacefully, they could always look at the hours upon hours of documentary footage of the forlorn creatures to recall their once-majestic ways.
"I know it's hard to say goodbye, but you'll understand it someday yourselves," the magnificent whale said as its 102-foot-long body breached the water. "In fact, you'll be begging for the same thing in about 25 years."
(the onion)
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