In "Listening to Whales, Alexandra Morton shares spellbinding stories about her career in whale and dolphin research and what she has learned from and about these magnificent mammals. In the late 1970s, while working at Marineland in California, Alexandra pioneered the recording of orca sounds by dropping a hydrophone into the tank of two killer whales. She recorded the varied language of mating, childbirth, and even grief after the birth of a stillborn calf. At the same time she made the startling observation that the whales were inventing wonderful synchronized movements, a behavior that was soon recognized as a defining characteristic of orca society.
In 1984, Alexandra moved to a remote bay in British Columbia to continue her research with wild orcas. Her recordings of the whales have led her to a deeper understanding of the mystery of whale echolocation, the vocal communication that enables the mammals to find their way in the dark sea. A fascinating study of the profound communion between humans and whales, this book will open your eyes anew to the wonders of the natural world.

From vividly colored underwater photographs of Australia's Great Barrier Reef to life-size dioramas re-creating coral reefs and the bounty of life they sustained, the work of early twentieth-century explorers and photographers fed the public's fascination with reefs. In the 1920s John Ernest Williamson in the Bahamas and Frank Hurley in Australia produced mass-circulated and often highly staged photographs and films that cast corals as industrious, colonizing creatures, and the undersea as a virgin, unexplored, and fantastical territory. In Coral Empire Ann Elias traces the visual and social history of Williamson and Hurley and how their modern media spectacles yoked the tropics and coral reefs to colonialism, racism, and the human domination of nature. Using the labor and knowledge of indigenous peoples while exoticizing and racializing them as inferior Others, Williamson and Hurley sustained colonial fantasies about people of color and the environment as endless resources to be plundered. As Elias demonstrates, their reckless treatment of the sea prefigured attitudes that caused the environmental crises that the oceans and reefs now face.

Sea turtle populations around the world are endangered, and in recent years tourism has been a critical element in worldwide efforts to save them. More travelers seek meaningful experiences that bring them close to nature and wildlife, and opportunities to interact with and help sea turtles now exist at locations around the globe, from remote beaches to urban labs. In "A Worldwide Travel Guide to Sea Turtles, "a scientist, a conservationist, and a journalist have come together to provide a guide to the places where people can view sea turtles and participate in authentic conservation projects. Covering five continents and including the South Pacific and Caribbean, the authors direct readers to the parks, reserves, and research sites where they can responsibly observe turtles in the wild, especially nesting beaches where people can see female sea turtles lay eggs and hatchlings make their harrowing journey from nest to sea. Options for on-site lodging and other amenities are included, if available, as well as details of other nearby attractions that travelers may wish to include in their itineraries.

Other than that it tastes delicious with butter, what do you know about the knobbily-armoured, scarlet creature staring back at you from your fancy dinner plate? From ocean to stock pot, there are two sides to every animal story. For instance, since there are species of lobsters without claws, how exactly do you define a lobster? And how did a pauper's food transform into a meal synonymous with a luxurious splurge? To answer these questions on behalf of lobster the animal is Richard J. King, a former fishmonger and commercial lobsterman, who has chronicled the creature's long natural history.

Part of the Animal series, King's "Lobster" takes us on a journey through the history, biology, and culture of lobsters, including the creature's economic and environmental status worldwide. He describes the evolution of technologies to capture these creatures and addresses the ethics of boiling them alive. Along the way, King also explores the salacious lobster palaces of the 1920s, the animal's thousand-year status as an aphrodisiac, and how the lobster has inspired numerous artists, writers, and thinkers including Aristotle, Dickens, Thoreau, Dali, and Woody Allen.

Whether you want to liberate lobsters from their supermarket tanks or crack open their claws, this book is an essential read, describing the human connection to the lobster from his ocean home to the dinner table.

Clams, oysters, and scallops have long been among the most popular seafood. Provided here is a unique and extensive examination of them, colorfully illustrated with over 350 alluring postcard and trade card images, some dating back over 100 years. A thorough text discusses the lives of these bivalves, how and where they are harvested, historical marketing strategies, their cultural and social significance, and much more. Also included is an informative look into clam bars, oyster houses, and other eateries past and present, large and small. There is also a chapter devoted to shellfish humor and a sampling of tasty recipes for readers to try. Prices are given for the cards used as illustrations. Anyone with an interest in seafood, history, or postcards will surely want to add this title to their library.

While writing this book, Steve Jones had beside him the coral brooch that his sea captain grandfather brought back across the Indian Ocean as a gift for his wife. This simple object is a starting point for a dazzling narrative that touches on a number of the most important issues facing us today. Following in the footsteps of Darwin and Captain Cook, Jones reveals what coral has to tell us about the human genome project, cloning, and the possibility of a cure for cancer and genetic diseases; what insights it can offer us into the future of trade in oil and other forms of carbon; how it is linked to the fluctuations in weather patterns that have lead to destruction along the coasts of the Americas and the Far East. Finally, Jones considers what coral - exploited and destroyed in many ways and under siege from climate change - tells us about the likely future of the planet and humankind: it is a warning that both may be close to the point of no return. CORAL: A PESSIMIST IN PARADISE is an inspired, eclectic book that links science with history, literature, politics and myth. It belongs to a vivid tradition of thinking and writing about humankind and its place in nature.

"Deep Cuba recounts Bill Bellvielle's month-long journey around the island in the company of American and Cuban marine biologists and a Discovery Channel film crew. From coral reefs to mangrove swamps to a submerged volcanic mountain, the voyagers encountered sublimely wild places unseen before by anyone from the United states--or even by many Cubans.

Killers of the Seas is a rousing, scientifically sound survey of all the sea creatures that instill dread in the hearts of humans. Edward Ricciuti, a science writer with a passion for scuba diving and oceanographic expeditions, has swum eye-to-eye with a killer whale, tagged and captured sharks, and had numerous tense exchanges with barracuda, moray eels, and stingrays.
Supplementing his own experiences with interviews that feature scores of the world's leading marine biologists, Ricciuti explores the latest research and the lingering legends of oceanic and freshwater predators including: sharks and shark attacks (including the little-known horned goblin shark); the incredibly venomous Japanese puffer fish ("fugu" when cooked); the ominous migrations of Pacific sea snakes through the Panama Canal; the aquatic Borgia, a tiny blue-ringed octopus that can kill a man in seconds; the monsters of the seas - legendary, prehistoric, and possibly still alive and well.
Killers of the Seas also includes the fascinating evolutionary and environmental factors that make these creatures and many others behave as they do.

Acclaimed as the premier chronicler of America s complex relationship with our oceans (Honolulu Weekly), David Helvarg has also been a war correspondent, investigative journalist, documentary producer, and private investigator. The one constant in his adventurous life has been love for the sea. His personal story of love, loss, and redemption, Saved by the Sea is also a profound, startling, and sometimes funny reflection on the state of our seas and the intimate ways in which our lives are linked to the natural world around us."

In the second half of the 18th century, F.M. Regenfuss (the Royal Engraver to King Frederic V of Denmark) created a set of 12 hand-coloured plates with 78 figures - masterpieces from both the aesthetic and zoological point of view - each showing a number of beautifully arranged shells. These illustrations are so accurate that nearly all species shown can be easily recognized. The original French texts were translated, and an expert from the Zoological Museum of Amsterdam compared the hand-coloured plates and the accompanying texts with modern nomenclature; thus both the original and the recent scientific names of all species are given. At last, this extremely rare book is available in digital form for everyone interested in shells or just in the art of scientific drawing unattained in the years after Regenfuss.

Estuaries and Wetlands are important coastal resources which are subject to a great deal of environmental stress. Dredging, construction, creation of intertidal wetlands, regulation of fresh- water flow, and pollution are just a few of the activities which affect these coastal systems. The need to predict the effects of these perturbations upon ecosystem dynamics, particularly estuarine fisheries, as well as on physical effects, such as sedimentation and salt intrusion, is of paramount importance. Prediction requires the use of models, but no model is likely to be satisfactory unless fundamental physical, chemical, sedimentological, and biological processes are quantitatively understood, and the appropriate time and space scales known. With these considerations in mind, the Environmental Laboratory, U. S. Army Engineer Haterways Experiment Station,* Vicksburg, Mississippi, sponsored a workshop on "Estuarine and Wetland Processes and Water Quality Modeling" held in New Orleans, June 1979. The contents of this volume have been selected from the workshop papers. The resulting book, perhaps more than any other symposium proceed- ings on estuaries and wetlands, attempts to review important pro- cesses and place them in a modeling context. There is also a distinct applied tinge to a number of the contributions since some of the research studies were motivated by environmental assessments. The difference in title between this volume and the workshop re- flects more accurately the contents of the published papers.

Finally available in paperback, including the story from the Netflix documentary ‘My Octopus Teacher’ and many other remarkable creatures from the great African Sea Forest.

Sea Change takes you on an evocative journey into the secret life of an almost unknown ecosystem; the beautiful kelp forest of Southern Africa. Craig and Ross spent eight years exploring this sea forest together, diving almost every day.

This is the story of what they found in the wild, and how it has transformed their lives.