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Books > Sport & Leisure > Natural history, country life & pets > Wild animals > Aquatic creatures
Great and unforgettable stories about the passion of fishing by some of the world's best writers.
Since "Jaws" scared a nation of moviegoers out of the water three decades ago, great white sharks have attained a mythical status as the most frightening and mysterious monsters to still live among us. Each fall, just twenty-seven miles off the San Francisco coast, in the waters surrounding a desolate rocky island chain, the world's largest congregation of these fearsome predators gathers to feed. Journalist Susan Casey first saw the great whites of the Farallones in a television documentary. Within months, she was sitting with the program's two scientists in a small motorboat as the sharks - some as long as twenty feet, as wide as a semitrailer - circled around them. From this first encounter, Casey became obsessed with these awe-inspiring creatures, and a plan was hatched for her to join the scientists and follow their research. "The Devil's Teeth" is the riveting account of that one fateful shark season. An exhilarating adventure story, "The Devil's Teeth" offers a glimpse into a violent, uncivilized world ruled by nature's most powerful and mysterious predators, a world where man is neither wanted nor needed.
Beaches, marshes, mangroves; cliffs, deserts, forests; bays, deltas, estuaries - coastlines take many different forms and are put to very different uses. From deserted beaches to busy ports, from pretty fishing villages to a surfers' paradise, a salt marsh to a ship-breakers' yard, Coasts celebrates where the land meets the sea. From beautiful coastal paths to the shipwrecks left high and dry in the Aral Sea, from world famous locations such as Copacabana Beach in Brazil and Big Sur in California to the little explored coastlines of Yemen and Oman, from Algeria to Antarctica, the Amalfi Coast to the Dead Sea, the book celebrates a huge range in coastlines from all around the world. Including nature reserves and tourist resorts, rugged landscapes and desert island tranquility, fjords and fossils, eroding cliffs to whole towns lost to the waters, the book explores coastlines in all climates and conditions around the globe. Presented in a landscape format and with captions explaining the story behind each entry, Coasts is a stunning collection of images and stories.
Off the coast of California, running from Santa Barbara to La Jolla, lies an archipelago of eight islands known as the California Channel Islands. The northern five were designated as Channel Islands National Park in 1980 to protect and restore the rich habitat of the islands and surrounding waters. In the years since, that mission intensified as scientists discovered the extent of damage to the delicate habitats of these small fragments of land and to the surprisingly threatened sea around them. In Restoring Nature Lary M. Dilsaver and Timothy J. Babalis examine how the National Park Service has attempted to reestablish native wildlife and vegetation to the five islands through restorative ecology and public land management. The Channel Islands staff were innovators of the inventory and monitoring program whereby the resource problems were exposed. This program became a blueprint for management throughout the U.S. park system. Dilsaver and Babalis present an innovative regional and environmental history of a little-known corner of the Pacific West, as well as a larger national narrative about how the Park Service developed its approach to restoration ecology, which became a template for broader Park Service policies that shaped the next generation of environmental conservation.
A thrilling guided tour through the world of sharks and their
relationship with human communities around the globe.
Multiple use of natural waters and watersheds poses many practical problems, some of which are clearly limnological, relating for example to carrying capacities oflakes, deterioration of water quality and fisheries management. It is thus important to consider limnological aspects when making decisions in the field of water management. To further this attitude the Finnish Limnological Society considered 'Lakes and Water Management' to be a suitable theme for the Society's Jubilee Symposium, held in Helsinki on 22-23 September, 1980 at the Viikki Campus of the University of Helsinki, to mark the Society's 30th Anniversary. The Finnish Limnological Society has arranged nationallimnological symposia everyone or two years. The papers presented at these symposia have been published in the series 'Limnologisymposion' (in Finnish or Swedish, with short summaries in an internationally spoken language). Due to financial difficulties, the series was terminated as of the symposium in 1979. When preparing the 30th Anniversary of the Finnish Limnological Society, the Governing Board of the Society decided to arrange an international symposium on a theme relevant to modern limnology both in Finland and elsewhere. The selected results of the successful meeting on lakes and water management, which was attended by 220 people from 7 countries, are presented in this volume.
This volume is based on the proceedings of a conference held at Florida State University in April, 1978. This conference was supported by the Florida State University Graduate Research Council, the Department of Biological Science (F. S. U. ), and the Center for Professional Development and Public Service. Particular recogni tion should be made of the efforts of Dr. Anne Thistle in the organization of the conference and the completion of this book. Julia K. White and Sheila Marrero produced the typescript. The principal objective of the conference was to assemble a group of marine scientists from diverse disciplines to discuss the state of marine ecology with particular attention to new research directions based on previous studies. Emphasis was placed on the integration of different research approaches and on the application of established procedures to various environmental problems. An effort was made to eliminate traditional disciplinary boundaries which often hinder our understanding of marine systems. There was generally wide latitude for review and speculation concerning such topics as physico-chemical processes, productivity and trophic interactions, population distribution and community structure, and natural or anthropogenic disturbance phenomena. Throughout, the usual miniaturization of the scope of discussion was subordinate to a frank appraisal of the present status of marine research. Although many introductory ecological texts stress the so called ecosystem approach, individual marine research projects seldom encompass this broad course. There is, in fact, a real need for system-wide studies at both the theoretical and applied levels."
'Bobby's oyster travelogue is an ambitious, one-of-a-kind piece that shines a spotlight on the extraordinary and the everyday of the industry. It's the stuff that oyster bucket lists are made of' Julie Qiu, In A Half Shell blog 'A masterpiece' Sandy Ingber, Executive Chef of the Grand Central Oyster Bar, New York 'An amazing tome . . . The stories behind each oyster and location are informative, in depth, but, most importantly, fun' Michel Roux Jr The oyster. Ostrea edulis. 'Edible bones'. The Great British oyster is deeply embedded in our geographical, historical and socio-cultural landscape. Five-thousand-year-old oyster shells have been discovered in the northern reaches of Scotland, and oyster shells are littered along the extinct riverbeds deep beneath the London of today. A highly prized delicacy of the Romans, the oyster has always been a class leveller: an everyman food of the poor during the Victorian age to a food of decadence during the twentieth century. It is a superfood; a biological water meter; an ecological superpower. The oyster card, 'the world is your oyster' - it has even crept into our language. Bobby Groves, Head of Oysters at the Chiltern Firehouse, takes us on a wonderful journey of the British oyster, a five-thousand-mile motorcycle odyssey of Britain's spectacular coastlines. He vividly brings to life this strange and marvellous creature, shining a light on its rich and vibrant history, its cultural impact and ecological importance as well as those oyster folk who work so hard to protect them. Part travelogue, part social history, Oyster Isles is a celebration of the much-loved yet much-misunderstood British oyster.
The idea of convening an international workshop on hypertrophic ecosystems originated during the 20th S.I.L. Congress in Copenhagen. A group of about 30 delegates met there in an informal gathering to discuss the specific problems of lakes which have reached a noxious stage of eutrophication. This ad hoc group realized its own specific identity within the limnological community and suggested the organization of a specialized future meeting on hypertrophic ecosystems. After two years of preparatory work, the workshop was fmally held in Vaxjo, Sweden, between September 10 and 14, 1979, on the premises of the University campus. The Institute of Limnology, University of Lund (Professor Sven Bjork), undertook the task of host and organizer. The City ofVaxjo and the University of Lund co-sponsored the event, which was held under the auspices and patronage of the Societas Internationalis Limnologiae. The objective of the workshop was to seek better understanding of highly-eutrophic, disturbed and unstable aquatic ecosystems (lakes, reservoirs and ponds developing noxious algal and bacterial blooms, fluctuating in their water quality on a daily and seasonal scale, producing gases, off-flavor and toxic substances, experiencing periodic anoxia and massive fish kills, etc.), Le., systems requiring corrective measures and new concepts for their solution beyond those generally accepted for 'normal' eutrophic systems.
Improve Your Skills with This Simple Guide to Catching FishGet started fishing or get better at it with secret tips and easy-to-follow instructions. Skip all the fluff and go straight to the information you want to know in this photo-illustrated booklet. Pocket-size format-easier than laminated foldouts Introductory information for beginners, including everything you need to know about rods, reels, lines, lures, and more "Target species" section focusing on desirable types of fish, with equipment recommendations and tricks for catching each species Ideas for preparing your fish for the table Expert author with a lifetime of experience
Illuminating the conditions for global governance to have precipitated the devastating decline of one of the ocean's most majestic creatures The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) is the world's foremost organization for managing and conserving tunas, seabirds, turtles, and sharks traversing international waters. Founded by treaty in 1969, ICCAT stewards what has become under its tenure one of the planet's most prominent endangered fish: the Atlantic bluefin tuna. Called "red gold" by industry insiders for the exorbitant price her ruby-colored flesh commands in the sushi economy, the giant bluefin tuna has crashed in size and number under ICCAT's custodianship. With regulations to conserve these sea creatures in place for half a century, why have so many big bluefin tuna vanished from the Atlantic? In Red Gold, Jennifer E. Telesca offers unparalleled access to ICCAT to show that the institution has faithfully executed the task assigned it by international law: to fish as hard as possible to grow national economies. ICCAT manages the bluefin not to protect them but to secure export markets for commodity empires-and, as a result, has become complicit in their extermination. The decades of regulating fish as commodities have had disastrous consequences. Amid the mass extinction of all kinds of life today, Red Gold reacquaints the reader with the splendors of the giant bluefin tuna through vignettes that defy technoscientific and market rationales. Ultimately, this book shows, changing the way people value marine life must come not only from reforming ICCAT but from transforming the dominant culture that consents to this slaughter.
Under the Sea-Wind marks the beginnings of one of the most significant careers in nature writing. In it Rachel Carson celebrates the mystery and beauty of birds and sea creatures in their natural habitat, conjuring the atmosphere of the shore and the open sea and the delicately balanced, fragile struggle for life along the shoreline.
Beginning life in the Sargasso Sea, the eel travels across the ocean, lives for twenty or so years, and then is driven by some instinct back across the ocean to spawn and die. And the next generation starts the story again. No one knows why the eels return, or how the orphaned elvers learn their way back. One man discovered, after many adventures, the breeding ground of all eels ? and he is the hero of this book.
Because every drug certified by the FDA must be tested using the horseshoe crab derivative known as Limulus lysate, a multimillion-dollar industry has emerged involving the license to bleed horseshoe crabs and the rights to their breeding grounds. William Sargent presents a thoroughly accessible insider's guide to the discovery of the lysate test, the exploitation of the horseshoe crab at the hands of multinational pharmaceutical conglomerates, local fishing interests, and the legal and governmental wrangling over the creatures' ultimate fate. In the end, the story of the horseshoe crab is a sobering reflection on the unintended consequences of scientific progress and the danger of self-regulated industries controlling a limited natural resource. This new edition brings the story up to date as companies race to manufacture alternatives to the horseshoe crab blood, which is now essential for testing vaccines such as those developed to counter COVID-19. However, horseshoe crab populations are still dwindling, with profound implications not only for the future of the crabs themselves but also for the ecosystems that depend on them.
Alaska pollock is everywhere. If you're eating fish but you don't know what kind it is, it's almost certainly pollock. Prized for its generic fish taste, pollock masquerades as crab meat in california rolls and seafood salads, and it feeds millions as fish sticks in school cafeterias and Filet-O-Fish sandwiches at McDonald's. That ubiquity has made pollock the most lucrative fish harvest in America-the fishery in the United States alone has an annual value of over one billion dollars. But even as the money rolls in, pollock is in trouble: in the last few years, the pollock population has declined by more than half, and some scientists are predicting the fishery's eventual collapse. In Billion-Dollar Fish, Kevin M. Bailey combines his years of firsthand pollock research with a remarkable talent for storytelling to offer the first natural history of Alaska pollock. Crucial to understanding the pollock fishery, he shows, is recognizing what aspects of its natural history make pollock so very desirable to fish, while at the same time making it resilient, yet highly vulnerable to overfishing. Bailey delves into the science, politics, and economics surrounding Alaska pollock in the Bering Sea, detailing the development of the fishery, the various political machinations that have led to its current management, and, perhaps most important, its impending demise. He approaches his subject from multiple angles, bringing in the perspectives of fishermen, politicians, environmentalists, and biologists, and drawing on revealing interviews with players who range from Greenpeace activists to fishing industry lawyers. Seamlessly weaving the biology and ecology of pollock with the history and politics of the fishery, as well as Bailey's own often raucous tales about life at sea, Billion-Dollar Fish is a book for every person interested in the troubled relationship between fish and humans, from the depths of the sea to the dinner plate.
'Armed with this intrepid survey, we can see a brave new world down there on the beach ... Exquisite revelation, of the most wonderful, watery kind.' - Philip Hoare For many, the highlights of seaside holidays are rockpooling and gathering the glorious array of shells left strewn on the beach after the receding tide. Attracted by the infinite variety of shapes and colours, visitors can never resist making a souvenir collection of their own - but little do they suspect the fascinating lives of the animals who once occupied them. What if each shell had a story of its own to tell us, if only we knew the language? Mr Street's delightful, informative guide uncovers the secret history of each common shell, revealing not only which marine creature once inhabited it but the unique challenges of its watery habitat it had to solve. From barnacles to oysters, cockles to sea slugs, winkles to carnivorous snails, molluscs and lesser-known members of the octopus family, Shell Life on the Seashore is the essential primer for recognising and collecting both these curious specimens and the 'empties' they leave behind - and will greatly increase the old-fashioned pleasures of a coastal holiday for all the family.
How to recognize and avoid running afoul of the creatures that bite or sting, are poisonous when eaten, or are otherwise potentially harmful. A handy reference for swimmers, boaters, divers, anglers, and water-lovers.
The watery habitats of the world are home to a more varied and concentrated array of animal life than anywhere on dry land. This guide contains an explanation of how certain key animal groups have evolved to live and breed within their different environments. The detailed directory section provides a comprehensive overview to the vast array of marine and freshwater life that inhabit the globe. Each profile features a descriptive identification guide and contains a map to pinpoint distribution, plus information on habitat, size, breeding and more. This visual encyclopedia offers an insight into the wonderful world of freshwater and marine creatures.
Each year, thirteen million anglers enjoy the sport of saltwater angling in the United States, generating an estimated $30 billion in sales and supporting nearly 350,000 jobs. Recreational saltwater fishing, however, can significantly impact species of concern-species overfished or experiencing overfishing. Traditional angling controls bag and size limits and restricted seasons have fallen short in controlling fishing impacts and reducing conflicts among fishing and non-fishing interests. Evolving Approaches to Managing Marine Recreational Fisheries offers ways of overcoming such problems while providing anglers and the recreational service industry greater regulatory flexibility to enjoy the fruits of sportfishing. It features fourteen internationally recognized fishery experts presenting the pros and cons of using individual fishing quotas (IFQs), game tags, and angler management organizations (AMOs) in managing marine recreational fisheries, presenting both theoretical and practical solutions to help move recreational fisheries management to a new and improved level."
The Indo-Pacific region is the dream destination for all SCUBA divers and snorkelers. The coral reefs in this region are bursting with marine life and are home to more animal species than any other diving spot in the world – more than 40 per cent of all coral reef fishes known worldwide. Added to this, the waters are crystal-clear, giving the best chance of viewing the underwater stars. Top-quality, close-up photographs of each species (in some cases including juvenile or sub-adult variants) are accompanied by detailed information listing identifying features, size, biology and distribution. The introductory section focuses on specific types of behaviour, such as mimicry, cleaning stations and the symbiotic relationships between various species. The species descriptions that follow are grouped in three chapters on fishes, invertebrates, and reptiles and sea mammals. Covering Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Maldives, Mauritius, Melanesia, Micronesia, the Philippines, Polynesia, Seychelles, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand, and describing over 800 species, this book is an invaluable identification guide.
The coelacanth (see-lo-canth) is no ordinary fish. Five feet long, with luminescent eyes and limb like fins, this bizarre creature, presumed to be extinct, was discovered in 1938 by an amateur icthyologist who recognized it from fossils dating back 400 million years. The discovery was immediately dubbed the "greatest scientific find of the century," but the excitement that ensued was even more incredible. This is the entrancing story of that most rare and precious fish -- our own great-uncle forty million times removed.
Who hasn't fantasized about the unique thrill of working among charismatic and clever dolphins in the wild? Now we no longer have to rely solely on our imaginations . With Dolphin Confidential, Maddalena Bearzi invites all of us shore-bound dreamers to join her and travel alongside the dolphins. In this fascinating account, she takes us inside the world of a marine scientist and offers a firsthand understanding of marine mammal behavior, as well as the frustrations, delights, and creativity that make up dolphin research. In this intimate narrative, Bearzi recounts her experiences at sea, tracing her own evolution as a woman and a scientist from her earliest travails to her transformation into an advocate for conservation and dolphin protection. These compelling, in-depth descriptions of her fieldwork also present a captivating look into dolphin social behavior and intelligence. The central part of the book is devoted to the metropolitan bottlenose dolphins of California, as Bearzi draws on her extensive experience to offer insights into the daily lives of these creatures as well as the difficulties involved in collecting the data that transforms hunches into hypotheses and eventually scientific facts. The book closes by addressing the critical environmental and conservation problems facing these magnificent, socially complex, highly intelligent, and emotional beings. An honest, down-to-earth analysis of what it means to be a marine biologist in the field today, Dolphin Confidential offers an entertaining, refreshingly candid, and always informative description of life among the dolphins.
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 |
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