Johannesburg - So, the geniuses running the Middle East have done it again. Houthi pirates hijacking ships, Iran and Israel playing grab-ass with nukes…and now the whales are paying the price. Turns out, all that shipping rerouting around South Africa to avoid the latest geopolitical clusterf*ck is causing problems for the poor, blubbery bastards.

Remember back in 2023? Good times. Houthi rebels snagged a British-owned ship near Yemen, kicking off this whole mess. Now, according to the IMF's PortWatch report (because of course the IMF is tracking whale-shipping collisions – eye roll), about 89 commercial vessels cruised around the Cape of Good Hope between March and April. Last year? A measly 44. The difference? Now we have another war brewing.

Professor Els Vermeulen, some tree-hugger from the University of Pretoria's Whale Unit, is wringing her hands about it. She went to the International Whaling Commission (AKA the Global Woke Cabal) to whine about it. Her team overlaid “distribution models of different whale species” with shipping routes. Translation: they looked at maps and said, “Gee, those ships are going where the whales are!” Profound.

Apparently, these whales are getting clipped by tankers, then sinking to the bottom of the ocean. She calls it “cryptic mortality.” Sounds like a metal band. The solution? Tweak the shipping routes (like that'll happen) and slow down the ships (yeah, right). More data is needed of course because the only thing scientists love more than whales are grant money. Vermeulen and her team want to fly around in planes and boats to count whales. Gotta pay the bills somehow!

She says it's nice to see everyone coming together to solve this. Translation: she's looking for a handout. The onus is on the scientific community to “come up with reliable data.” In other words, “gimme money!”

So, let’s recap: Middle East madness leads to shipping chaos, which leads to potentially squished whales. What's next? World War III fought with electric scooters? Stay tuned, folks. The clown world is just getting started.