re: if humans were intelligent
Slap your brain into gear. We're not talking about somebody coming out of an alley and carjacking your ride.
We're talking about creatures that can swim up to 25 mph, and can hear boat noises from miles off--even sailing ships. If you're postulating true intelligence and communication, at some point you have to wonder why some kind of organized effort to avoid whale hunters never developed over the centuries.
I can understand how maybe they could be run down by modern heavily-equipped motorized ships (which can be heard hundreds of miles off by whales) or air spotters, but humans have been managing to kill whales since we learned how to make skin canoes.