In this innovative book which combines real-life stories and practical advice, Peter Benchley draws on more than 30 years of experience on and under the water, to help the reader approach the ocean and its inhabitants with the understanding and respect they deserve.

He describes the many types of sharks, and the few that pose a genuine threat to man, what is and what is not known about shark behaviour, the odds against an attack, and how to reduce these odds even further, all reinforced by personal experience: the mistakes he has made and the personal perils he has encountered while producing countless articles and television documentaries as well as his novels.

Benchley tells us how to swim safely, how to read tides and currents, and how to survive when danger suddenly strikes. He discusses what to tell children about sharks and the sea and how to develop a healthy respect for the sea.

Although the United States and other affluent nations havemore than an adequate food supply, other nations daily facethe specter of starvation. The world now has a critical population/food dilemma of potentially major proportions. Production fromthe sea and the land is not keeping pace with a world populationthat is doubling every thirty-five years. Unless this age-oldMalthusian problem is solved, millions face starvation and ultimatelydeath.The situation has stimulated substantial international interestin the sea as a source of food and raw materials. The potentialof the sea-not as a panacea, but as an important source of proteinto augment the world's food supplies and thereby as a meansof mitigating the crises we face-is a continuing theme throughoutthis book. At present, fish provide approximately 9 percentof the world's protein. Fish are sought not only for food butalso for recreation and pleasure. What forces determine the presentsupply and demand for fishery products? More important,what steps are needed to utilize the full potential of the sea asa source of food and recreation? This book explores these forcesand thus provides an insight into food potential from the sea.

Britain's shallow seas are a mysterious domain. They remain largely unseen and unexplored except by marine scientists and divers, who have been documenting their wondrous discoveries over many years. Now, a wealth of information about what lives on and in the seabed has been brought together in one sumptuously illustrated volume. Keith Hiscock describes the incredible variety of marine life that exists around Great Britain, providing a foundation of knowledge for those interested in the natural history of the shallow seabed. He explains how findings are gathered and organised, as well as showing what is out there and how it works. Fascinating, beautiful and often fragile, the habitats and marine life described are essential to the health and productivity of our oceans. Without an adequate, shared understanding of what and where they are, how can we identify and protect them? Exploring Britain's Hidden World is the culmination of 50 years of research by the author to better understand where different subtidal seabed habitats occur and how their associated marine life has come to exist. That quest draws on a rich vein of knowledge obtained by many naturalists, scientists and divers who, for almost 200 years, have described seabed communities and sought to understand their structure and function. Using a minimum of technical terminology, Keith Hiscock combines his interests in marine biology, diving and photography to inform, inspire, and leave a vivid and lasting impression of the marine habitats and species around Britain. He hopes this book will provide new insights, much pleasure, and perhaps some surprises too.

LONGLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2022 'A remarkable and powerful book, the rarest of things ... Nicolson is unique as a writer ... I loved it' EDMUND DE WAAL Few places are as familiar as the shore - and few as full of mystery and surprise. How do sandhoppers inherit an inbuilt compass from their parents? How do crabs understand the tides? How can the death of one winkle guarantee the lives of its companions? What does a prawn know? In The Sea is Not Made of Water, Adam Nicolson explores the natural wonders of the intertidal and our long human relationship with it. The physics of the seas, the biology of anemone and limpet, the long history of the earth, and the stories we tell of those who have lived here: all interconnect in this zone where the philosopher, scientist and poet can meet and find meaning. In this blend of fascinating, surprising ecology and luminous human history, Adam Nicolson gives an invitation to the shoreline. Anyone who chooses can look beyond their own reflection and find the marvellous there, waiting an inch beneath their nose.

With simple organization, this guide tells the individual stories of 213 shelled mollusks using descriptive accounts, distribution maps, and color photographs. Accounts feature glimpses of each seashell's former life as a living creature. The organization and descriptions as well as the photographs make shell identification easy.

A tale of obsession and very big fish from Jeremy Wade, the presenter of ITV's RIVER MONSTERS. Over ten feet long, it weighs in at nearly a quarter of a ton. Covering its back are armoured plates made of bone. Five hundred stiletto-sharp teeth line its long crocodilian jaws. It's a prehistoric beast of staggering proportions; a fearsome creature from the time of the dinosaurs. But the Alligator Gar, an air-breathing survivor from the Cretaceous period is still with us today, patrolling inland rivers, hunting in murky waters shared by human communities. And for Jeremy Wade, described as the 'greatest angling explorer of his generation', the Gar and other outlandish freshwater predators have been an obsession for all his adult life. With names like Arapaima, Snakehead, Goonch, Goliath Tigerfish and Electric Eel, many of them have acquired an almost mythical status. In a quest that has taken him from the Amazon to the Congo, and from North America to the mountains of India, Wade has pursued the truth about these little known, often misunderstood animals. Along the way he's survived a plane crash, malaria and a fish-inflicted blow to the chest that, according to a later scan, caused permanent scarring to his heart. In RIVER MONSTERS, Wade delivers a sometimes jaw-dropping blend of adventure, natural history, legend and detective work. It reads like a hunt for the Loch Ness Monster. But it's all true. These are fisherman's tales like you've never heard before. The stories of the ones that didn't get away ...

Two-thirds of our planet lies out of sight of land, just offshore beyond the horizon. What wildlife might you find out there? And how might you identify what you see? This Offshore Sea Life ID Guide, designed for quick use on day trips off the West Coast, helps you put a name to what you see, from whales and dolphins to albatrosses, turtles, and even flyingfish. Carefully crafted color plates show species as they typically appear at sea, and expert text highlights identification features. This user-friendly field guide is essential for anyone going out on a whale-watching or birding trip, and provides a handy gateway to the wonders of the ocean. * First state-of-the-art pocket guide to offshore sea life* Over 300 photos used to create composite plates * Includes whales, dolphins, sea lions, birds, sharks, turtles, flyingfish, and more* Accessible and informative text reveals what to look for * Great for beginners and experts alike

Get ready for an epic mission INSIDE a water dragon in Alex Neptune's third fast and funny adventure - perfect for fans of Percy Jackson and Dragon Realm! The sea creatures near Haven Bay are acting very strangely, attacking boats, and Alex senses some dark power is controlling them. When he tracks down his friend the water dragon, he finds it's been infected too. If he can't find a way to stop it, the deadly parasite it's carrying could spread throughout the seas. After battling storms, electric eels and an army of angry crabs, Alex realises that the only way he and his team can save the dragon and all their ocean friends is by going inside the dragon...gulp!

From editors David Joy and Eric Rickstad comes Gather at the River, an anthology of twenty-five remarkable essays on fishing from an ensemble of contemporary authors. Their experiences explore the ways we come to water, for renewal and reverie, or to simply stand waist-deep in a river and watch the trout rise. Gather at The River is more than a collection of big fish stories; it's Ron Rash writing about the Appalachia of his youth and C.J. Box revealing the river where he wants his ashes spread. It's Natalie Baszile on a frogging expedition in the Louisiana Bayou and a teenaged Jill McCorkle facing new realities of adulthood on Holden Beach, North Carolina. This is an anthology about friendship, family, love and loss, and everything in between, because as Henry David Thoreau wrote, "it is not really the fish they are after." The contributors are an eclectic mix of critically acclaimed writers including New York Times Bestselling Authors Ron Rash, Jill McCorkle, Leigh Ann Henion, Eric Rickstad, M.O. Walsh, and #1 Bestseller C.J. Box. Some of the proceeds of every sale will benefit C.A.S.T. for Kids, public charity that joins volunteers who love to fish with children who have special needs and disadvantages for a day of fishing in the outdoors.

Hope is the new icon of the Natural History Museum, a stunning 9,000 pound, 82-foot-long blue whale skeleton. Suspended by steel wires and captured in a majestic swooping posture, her reconstruction is a work of art as well as a feat of engineering. Her story begins in 1891 when she was found beached off the coast of Ireland. A lucrative find for a local fisherman, her skeletal remains were sold to the Museum. The project to restore her took three years to complete, including 10 months of painstaking laboratory work to clean and repair each of her 221 bones. Combining the latest scientific research into the blue whale with behind-the-scenes imagery, this book sheds new light on the largest creature ever to have lived on Earth.

'Scales's genuine appreciation and awe for fish are contagious.' Science

'Delightful' New Scientist

Seventy per cent of the earth's surface is covered by water. This vast aquatic realm is inhabited by a multitude of strange creatures and reigning supreme among them are the fish.

There are giants that live for centuries and thumb-sized tiddlers that survive only weeks; they can be pancake-flat or inflatable balloons; they can shout with colours or hide in plain sight, cheat and dance, remember and say sorry; some rarely budge while others travel the globe restlessly. And yet the mesmerising and complex lives of fish remain largely underrated and unseen, living hidden beneath the waterline, out of sight and out of mind.

Helen Scales is our guide on an underwater journey, as we fathom the depths and watch these animals going about the glorious business of being fish. As well as the fish, we meet devoted fishwatchers past and present, from voodoo zombie potion hunters and scientists who taught fish how to walk to nonagenarian explorers of the deep sea.

Woven throughout are vignettes of Helen's own aquatic explorations, from eerie nighttime dives with glowing fish and up-close encounters with giant manta rays, to floating in the middle of a swirling shoal being watched by thousands of inquisitive eyes.

As well as being a rich and entertaining read, this book will inspire readers to think again about these animals and the seas they inhabit, and to go out and appreciate the wonders of fish, whether through the glass walls of an aquarium or, better still, by gazing into the fishes' wild world and swimming through it.

'Engaging and informative' The Economist

In a Panamanian pond, male tungara frogs (Physalaemus pustulosus) gather in choruses, giving their "advertisement" call to the females that move among them. If a female chooses to make physical contact with a male, he will clasp her and eventually fertilize her eggs. But in vying for the females, the males whose calls are most attractive may also attract the interest of another creature: the fringe-lipped bat, a frog eater. In the Tungara Frog, the most detailed and informative single study available of frogs and their reproductive behavior, Michael J. Ryan demonstrates the interplay of sexual and natural selection. Using techniques from ethology, behavioral ecology, sensory physiology, physiological ecology, and theoretical population genetics in his research, Ryan shows that large males with low-frequency calls mate most successfully. He examines in detail a number of explanations for the females' preferences, and he considers possible evolutionary forces leading to the males' success. Though certain vocalizations allow males to obtain mates and thus should be favored by sexual selection, this study highlights two important costs of such sexual displays: the frogs expand considerable energy in their mating calls, and they advertise their whereabouts to predators. Ryan considers in detail how predators, especially the frige-lipped bat (Trachops cirrhosus), affect the evolution of the tungara frog's calls.

"After five decades, twenty books, and countless columns, [John Gierach] is still a master," (Forbes) and his newest book only confirms this assessment, along with his recent induction into the Flyfishing Hall of Fame. In A Fly Rod of Your Own, Gierach brings his ever-sharp sense of humor and keen eye for observation to the fishing life and, for that matter, life in general. Known for his witty, trenchant observations about fly-fishing, Gierach's "deceptively laconic prose masks an accomplished storyteller...his alert and slightly off-kilter observations place him in the general neighborhood of Mark Twain and James Thurber" (Publishers Weekly). A Fly Rod of Your Own transports readers to streams and rivers from Maine to Montana, and as always, Gierach's fishing trips become the inspiration for his pointed observations on everything from the psychology of fishing ("Fishing is still an oddly passive-aggressive business that depends on the prey being the aggressor"); why even the most veteran fisherman will muff his cast whenever he's being filmed or photographed; the inevitable accumulation of more gear than one could ever need ("Nature abhors an empty pocket. So does the tackle industry"); or the qualities shared by the best guides ("the generosity of a teacher, the craftiness of a psychiatrist, and the enthusiasm of a cheerleader with a kind of Vulcan detachment"). As Gierach likes to say, "fly-fishing is a continuous process that you learn to love for its own sake. Those who fish already get it, and those who don't couldn't care less, so don't waste your breath on someone who doesn't fish." A Fly Rod of Your Own is an ode to those who fish that "brings a skeptical, wry voice to the peril and promise of twenty-first-century fishing" (Booklist).

The Pacific Ocean off the west coast of North America - ranging from the south coast of Alaska to the Equator - encompasses many marine environments, from warm tropics to cold temperate waters, and from the shallow continental shelf to deep ocean canyons. A diverse number of marine mammals have adapted characteristics to survive and prosper in each of these environments. Beaked and sperm whales spend their time in the deep ocean. Most dolphin species favour warmer waters, while a few prefer cooler climes. Porpoises avoid the tropics altogether. Harbour seals stay near the temperate coast, as do sea otters.
"Marine Mammals of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest" depicts all fifty species of living marine mammals known to inhabit these waters, including the smallest (the sea otter, from the order Carnivora) and the largest (the blue whale, from the Mysticeti suborder of Cetacea). Here, featured in beautiful, full colour illustrations and photos, are all the whales you are likely to see in BC and the Pacific Northwest - from humpbacks, greysand orcas, to bottlenose dolphins and Dall's porpoises - as well as sea lions and five species of seals. This three-fold handy pocket guide also includes a habitat key, identification tips, marine mammal-watching guidelines and an illustrated glossary of common visible behaviours of marine mammals in the wild.

Visitors to South-East Asia are usually astonished at the profusion of marine life that exists in this biodiversity hot-spot. Reef Fishes of South-East Asia is a comprehensive and easy-to-follow guide to this rich diversity. Covering the waters off the coasts of Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines, this compact book, illustrated with vibrant colour photographs, is an essential companion for anyone interested in the undersea world, from the casual snorkeller to the most experienced diver. It includes concise descriptions of 270 species of fish, corals and invertebrates, accompanied by 300 full-colour photographs, and information on habitat, diet and behaviour. Clear line drawings are provided for quick identification of fish families, and a short introduction covers reef conservation and practical tips to help you get the most out of your visit to the region.

How often have you visited the seashore and wished you knew more about the diverse and alien wildlife found on the UK's coastline? There are incredible stories to discover about our coastal species so if the tantalising glimpses you've caught of this semi-aquatic environment between the tides has left you curious to learn more, the RSPB Handbook of the Seashore is for you. It will help you to easily identify and learn about the life cycles and anatomy of the species you discover, and features useful sections on the tidal cycle, how to read tide tables, where to look, conservation and climate change concerns, and who to call should you come across something unexpected on your next beach visit. Featuring over 200 species accounts - each with a photo, full description, and details of distribution and zonation - this brand new guide is written throughout in engaging text suitable for families, students and anyone who loves to visit the seashore.

This friendly, practical guide includes everything you need to know to pick up a spade, put in a pond and help wildlife flourish right outside your back door. Ponds are vital oases for nature. They are nursery grounds, feeding stops and bathing spots. They are genetic superhighways and vibrant ecosystems each brimming with life, interactions and potential. And they are for everyone. In The Wildlife Pond Book, Jules Howard offers a fresh perspective on ponds and encourages gardeners to reach for a garden spade and do something positive to benefit our shared neighbourhood nature. As well as offering practical tips and advice on designing, planting up and maintaining your pond, Jules encourages readers to explore the wildlife that colonises it with a torch, a microscope or a good old-fashioned pond-dipping net. With a foreword by award-winning wildlife-gardening author, Kate Bradbury, this helpful new guide includes a section outlining the hundreds of organisms that may turn up in your pond and is packed with creative ideas that have been tried and tested by author Jules Howard, an avid pond-builder, prolific pond-dipper and passionate voice for freshwater conservation for more than fifteen years. So, no matter how big your outdoor space is, The Wildlife Pond Book is the guide you need to create your very own haven for nature.