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Books on Whales
With 102 black-and-white illustrations and 24 pages in color From the Inside Flap The Book of Whales celebrates the beauty, the grandeur, the fascination, of this planet's thirty-three species of whale -- from the legendary humpback, sperm, and blue varieties to the equally alluring but lesser-known ginkgo-toothed, goosebeak, and scamperdown. With 102 black-and-white illustrations and 24 pages in color Continue Reading At Amazon.com
Whale (DK Eyewitness Books) (Hardcover) Here is a spectacular and informative guide to whales, dolphins, seals, and manatees. Superb color photographs of dolphins, killer whales, walruses, and more offer a unique "eyewitness" view of these mysterious sea creatures - what they look like, how they behave, and their battle for survival. See the whiskers of a walrus, inside the mouth of a killer whale, dolphins at play, male elephant seals fighting, the way a blowhole works, a carved sperm whale's tooth, and a 19th-century blubber pot. Learn how deep a sperm whale can dive, how whales use bubbles to catch fish, why sea lions bark like dogs, what baleen is used for, and why killer whales come up on the beach. Discover how humpback whales communicate, why whales leap, the world's biggest baby, why the future of whales, seals, and dolphins is threatened, why whales migrate thousands of miles, and much, much more! Continue Reading At Amazon.com
Face to Face With Whales (Face to Face with Animals) (Hardcover) You slip over the side of your boat, descending deep into the dark realm of the Earth’s largest creature. Then the whale starts to sing, just feet away from you. You record the sounds, hoping one day to understand their language. Their music is a rare glimpse of this majestic mammal’s unknown world. Photographer Flip Nicklin brings you face to face with whales as they communicate, nurse their young, and surface dramatically for air. Meet these intelligent, social creatures in their natural habitat; learn of the different kinds of whales, from humpbacks to belugas; discover how we can aid their recovery from years of overhunting; and how we can protect their environment. Continue Reading At Amazon.com
Watching Giants: The Secret Lives of Whales (Hardcover) Kelsey, a scientist and author (Saving Sea Otters), meditates in 20 linked essays on the resident and visiting cetaceans-including whales, dolphins and orcas-of the Gulf of California. To convey what's known and suspected about the underwater mammalian lifestyle, Kelsey interviews dozens of contemporary ocean scientists-Exequiel Ezcurra, Bruce Mate, Fred Sharpe, husband-and-wife team Hal Whitehead and Linda Weilgart-and places their research in context alongside data on African elephant herds, antelope and wildebeest feeding strategies, the behaviors of predators and (especially) the dynamics of her own family (mom to two young daughters, Kelsey's first chapter is titled "Extreme Motherhood"). Focusing on social relationships and culture, Kelsey finds research (including submarine observations of sea-floor whale carcasses) that reveals some critical and previously unsuspected roles. Brilliant at pursuing seemingly unrelated trails back down the blowhole, Kelsey illuminates the "humanity" of whales, and the human threat to them; for instance, she explains why canned tuna is never really "dolphin safe" (motorized boats used to herd dolphins away from tuna cause sonic chaos, separating mothers from pups with often fatal results). Kelsey's cogent, compassionate work makes clear the sophistication and importance of whale communities, and how current efforts to save them may not be enough. 30 color illus. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Continue Reading At Amazon.com
Harpoon: Into the Heart of Whaling (Merloyd Lawrence Book) (Hardcover) From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Darby, an Australian journalist who has covered the whaling industry and the international politics of whaling since the founding of the International Whaling Commission in the early 1960s, has produced a definitive work on the past and the present of whaling. Although he does provide background material from the 19th century and earlier, his emphasis is on the 20th century industrial whaling boom, when flensing stations on shore and on ships processed dozens of whales each day. With each new technology (faster steamships, mechanical harpoons), more and more species became vulnerable-Darby, in fact, organizes his history by species, beginning with the Right Whales-and heartbreaking accounts of the killing make this excellent book a difficult read. Aside from usual suspects (the Soviet Union and Japan in the Southern Ocean), Darby finds whaling piracy in the birth of the famed Onassis family fortune. Darcy tracks international efforts to curb whaling, which have been stymied through the years by diplomatic maneuvers and outright fraud, concluding that decades of work by both ecologists and governments have still not guaranteed that any species will survive human predation; one hopes his exceptional history will act as a bulwark. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Continue Reading At Amazon.com
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The Book of Whales
