For many years now, I have been baffled - baffled beyond domestic or everyday bafflement - by the obsession some have with certain forms of mammalian sea life.
I think the whole business started with dolphins, which some people hoist so high upon a pedestal there is scarcely enough oxygen to breath.
What is particularly irksome is the way the poor creatures are laden with many human qualities by these people, not least a remarkable level of intelligence.
Funny, then, that it was humans who invented the internal combustion engine; the silicon chip; modernist architecture; and discovered early on that living on land was much drier and warmer than living in the sea.
Who is looking more intelligent now? It is not only dolphins that people get obsessed with; whales, too, seem to capture the imagination of the easily led.
This obsession raises its head publicly when these creatures decide to strand themselves en masse on New Zealand beaches, and it is this occurrence that Death on the Beach (Documentary Channel, Tuesday November 23, 9.30pm) investigates.
New Zealand is apparently a hot spot for whale strandings, with about 700 a year ending up on the shore.
Strangely, despite the whales having clearly made up their mind on the issue, small armies of sensitive types mobilise to force the blubbery animals back into the water.
Despite the fact they are inclined to beach themselves again, often within days.
University of Auckland molecular ecology and evolution Professor Scott Baker says whales are highly intelligent creatures who are "apparently committing suicide".
"The animals are not confused," he says.
"They choose to strand themselves, and when they're pushed off, they choose to strand themselves again."
I would too if I was forced to live in the sea, and if I was "saved" by one of the weeping loons who make a brief appearance in Death on the Beach.
Te Papa collection manager Anton van Helden puts the fascination with whales down to them being "a large mammal that doesn't want to eat us".
He asks the pertinent question whether the efforts to refloat the whales is a benefit to the whales, or a benefit to those who push them back into the water.
Death on the Beach, which includes narration by Robyn Malcolm, and music by Anika Moa, is a little brief in its investigation of these matters, and drifts on to look at Maori use of whale bones and marine scientists who track humpback whales.
But it is an occasionally interesting look at the relationship some create with overgrown fish.
*For those readers who agree with my views on this important matter, visit and enjoy the Anti Dolphin League website http://www.antidolphinleague.co.uk The league is dedicated to the total eradication of dolphins.