You seem to be missing the point of the OP wittingly. It's inconsequential that playing the animation at its normal speed would be a bad idea, what is also important is the effect it will have on an average reader of the Independence, the most obvious impression is that the whale is running for its life, which makes this disingenuous.
I don't know enough about how whales perceive time, distance and the unnatural disturbances coming in with the speed of sound in water to know whether the playback speed is misleading in reflecting the whales feelings or not.
The "obvious impression" you are talking about might not be as obvious as you think it is. For me at least it helped in seeing two interesting patterns: whale roams around and seems to change direction when a ship drives into it's path. Sometimes though it seems to go specifically into the area where a ship "just" drove through.
What was clear to me is that that dot would move differently without ships around it.
