[caiobegotti]

That's sad, yet beautiful in some way. My first thought was "wow, this whale managed to survive the japanese whalers for that long" but perhaps the japanese don't hunt that far north in the pacific and the fact it's a lone whale doesn't attract much attention. Since they are social animals and the individual is not malformed I would guess the deafness theory makes a lot of sense, but so does being a hybrid (thus a rejected individual). That is quite a story, thanks for sharing.