front cover of 5 Easy Pieces
5 Easy Pieces
The Impact of Fisheries on Marine Ecosystems
Daniel Pauly
Island Press, 2010
5 Easy Pieces features five contributions, originally published in Nature and Science, demonstrating the massive impacts of modern industrial fisheries on marine ecosystems. Initially published over an eight-year period, from 1995 to 2003, these articles illustrate a transition in scientific thought—from the initially-contested realization that the crisis of fisheries and their underlying ocean ecosystems was, in fact, global to its broad acceptance by mainstream scientific and public opinion.
 
Daniel Pauly, a well-known fisheries expert who was a co-author of all five articles, presents each original article here and surrounds it with a rich array of contemporary comments, many of which led Pauly and his colleagues to further study. In addition, Pauly documents how popular media reported on the articles and their findings. By doing so, he demonstrates how science evolves. In one chapter, for example, the popular media pick up a contribution and use Pauly’s conclusions to contextualize current political disputes; in another, what might be seen as nitpicking by fellow scientists leads Pauly and his colleagues to strengthen their case that commercial fishing is endangering the global marine ecosystem. This structure also allows readers to see how scientists’ interactions with the popular media can shape the reception of their own, sometimes controversial, scientific studies.
 
In an epilog, Pauly reflects on the ways that scientific consensus emerges from discussions both within and outside the scientific community.
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Abalone
The Remarkable History and Uncertain Future of California's Iconic Shellfish
Ann Vileisis
Oregon State University Press, 2020

From rocky coves at Mendocino and Monterey to San Diego’s reefs, abalone have held a cherished place in California culture for millennia. Prized for iridescent shells and delectable meat, these unique shellfish inspired indigenous artisans, bohemian writers, California cuisine, and the popular sport of skin diving, but also became a highly coveted commercial commodity. Mistakenly regarded as an inexhaustible seafood, abalone ultimately became vulnerable to overfishing and early impacts of climate change.

As the first and only comprehensive history of these once abundant but now tragically imperiled shellfish, Abalone guides the reader through eras of discovery, exploitation, scientific inquiry, fierce disputes between sport and commercial divers, near-extinction, and determined recovery efforts. Combining rich cultural and culinary history with hard-minded marine science, grassroots activism, and gritty politics, Ann Vileisis chronicles the plight of California’s abalone species and the growing biological awareness that has become crucial to conserve these rare animals into the future.

Abalone reveals the challenges of reckoning with past misunderstandings, emerging science, and political intransigence, while underscoring the vulnerability of wild animals to human appetites and environmental change. An important contribution to the emerging field of marine environmental history, this is a must-read for scientists, conservationists, environmental historians, and all who remember abalone fondly.

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The Accidental Reef and Other Ecological Odysseys in the Great Lakes
Lynne Heasley
Michigan State University Press, 2022
2022 NAUTILUS SILVER WINNER FOR LYRIC PROSE—In The Accidental Reef and Other Ecological Odysseys in the Great Lakes, Lynne Heasley illuminates an underwater world that, despite a ferocious industrial history, remains wondrous and worthy of care. From its first scene in a benighted Great Lakes river, where lake sturgeon thrash and spawn, this powerful book takes readers on journeys through the Great Lakes, alongside fish and fishers, scuba divers and scientists, toxic pollutants and threatened communities, oil pipelines and invasive species, Indigenous peoples and federal agencies. With dazzling illustrations from Glenn Wolff, the book helps us know the Great Lakes in new ways and grapple with the legacies and alternative futures that come from their abundance of natural wealth. Suffused with curiosity, empathy, and wit, The Accidental Reef will not fail to astonish and inspire.
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Ahab's Rolling Sea
A Natural History of "Moby-Dick"
Richard J. King
University of Chicago Press, 2019
Although Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is beloved as one of the most profound and enduring works of American fiction, we rarely consider it a work of nature writing—or even a novel of the sea. Yet Pulitzer Prize–winning author Annie Dillard avers Moby-Dick is the “best book ever written about nature,” and nearly the entirety of the story is set on the waves, with scarcely a whiff of land. In fact, Ishmael’s sea yarn is in conversation with the nature writing of Emerson and Thoreau, and Melville himself did much more than live for a year in a cabin beside a pond. He set sail: to the far remote Pacific Ocean, spending more than three years at sea before writing his masterpiece in 1851.

A revelation for Moby-Dick devotees and neophytes alike, Ahab’s Rolling Sea is a chronological journey through the natural history of Melville’s novel. From white whales to whale intelligence, giant squids, barnacles, albatross, and sharks, Richard J. King examines what Melville knew from his own experiences and the sources available to a reader in the mid-1800s, exploring how and why Melville might have twisted what was known to serve his fiction. King then climbs to the crow’s nest, setting Melville in the context of the American perception of the ocean in 1851—at the very start of the Industrial Revolution and just before the publication of On the Origin of Species. King compares Ahab’s and Ishmael’s worldviews to how we see the ocean today: an expanse still immortal and sublime, but also in crisis. And although the concept of stewardship of the sea would have been entirely foreign, if not absurd, to Melville, King argues that Melville’s narrator Ishmael reveals his own tendencies toward what we would now call environmentalism.

Featuring a coffer of illustrations and an array of interviews with contemporary scientists, fishers, and whale watch operators, Ahab’s Rolling Sea offers new insight not only into a cherished masterwork and its author but also into our evolving relationship with the briny deep—from whale hunters to climate refugees.
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The American Horseshoe Crab
Carl N. Shuster Jr.
Harvard University Press, 2003

The American horseshoe crab that comes ashore on the East Coast in vast numbers to mate and nest is much the same creature that haunted the coast before the time of the dinosaurs. It is among the world's most intensely studied marine invertebrates, critical to our understanding of many groups of organisms, both modern and extinct, and crucial to the ecology of large estuaries such as the Delaware Bay. Some stocks of this great survivor, whose ancestors made it through the mass extinction some 286 million years ago, have been severely depleted today because of overfishing and habitat destruction.

Carl N. Shuster, Jr., H. Jane Brockmann, and Robert B. Barlow are at the forefront of research on Limulus polyphemus, and in this book they bring together twenty scientists who have worked on all aspects of horseshoe crab biology to compile the first fully detailed, comprehensive view of the species. An indispensable resource, the volume describes the horseshoe crab's behavior, natural history, and ecology; its anatomy, physiology, distribution, development, and life cycle; the puzzle of its immune system; and its present management and future conservation.

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Among Giants
A Life with Whales
Charles "Flip" Nicklin with K. M. Kostyal
University of Chicago Press, 2011

It all started in 1965 with a guy riding a whale. The guy was Flip Nicklin’s father, Chuck, and the whale was an unlucky Bryde’s Whale that had gotten caught up in some anchor line. Hoping to free the whale, Chuck and some friends took their boat as near as they could, and, just before they cut it loose, Chuck posed astride it for a photo.


That image, carried on wire services nationwide, became a sensation and ultimately changed the life of Chuck’s young son, Flip. In the decades since that day, Flip Nicklin has made himself into the world’s premier cetacean photographer. It’s no exaggeration to say that his photos, published in such venues as National Geographic and distributed worldwide, have virtually defined these graceful, powerful creatures in the mind of the general public—even as they helped open new ground in the field of marine mammalogy.


Among Giants tells the story of Nicklin’s life and career on the high seas, from his first ill-equipped shoots in the mid-1970s through his long association with the National Geographic Society to the present, when he is one of the founders of Whale Trust, a nonprofit conservation and research group. Nicklin is equal parts photographer, adventurer, self-trained scientist, and raconteur, and Among Giants reflects all those sides, matching breathtaking images to firsthand accounts of their making, and highlighting throughout the importance of conservation and new advances in our understanding of whale behavior. With Nicklin as our guide, we see not just whales but also our slowly growing understanding of their hidden lives, as well as the evolution of underwater photography—and the stunning clarity and drama that can be captured when a determined, daring diver is behind the lens.


Humpbacks, narwhals, sperm whales, orcas—these and countless other giants of the ocean parade through these pages, spouting, breaching, singing, and raising their young. Nicklin’s photographs bring us so completely into the underwater world of whales that we can’t help but feel awe, while winning, personal accounts of his adventures remind us of what it’s like to be a lone diver sharing their sea.


For anyone who has marveled at the majesty of whales in the wild, Among Giants is guaranteed to be inspiring, even moving—its unmatched images of these glorious beings an inescapable reminder of our responsibility as stewards of the ocean.

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Biogeography and Adaptation
Patterns of Marine Life
Geerat J. Vermeij
Harvard University Press, 1978
The driving forces of natural selection leave their traces in the shapes of living creatures and their patterns of distribution. In this thoughtful and wide-ranging discussion of evolutionary process and adaptive response, Geerat Vermeij elucidates the general principles that underlie the great diversity of marine forms found in the world's great oceans.
[more]

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Capturing the Commons
Devising Institutions to Manage the Maine Lobster Industry
James M. Acheson
University Press of New England, 2004
One of the most pressing concerns of environmentalists and policy makers is the overexploitation of natural resources. Efforts to regulate such resources are too often undermined by the people whose livelihoods depend on their use. One of the great challenges for wildlife managers in the twenty-first century is learning to create the conditions under which people will erect effective and workable rules to conserve those resources. James M. Acheson, author of the best-selling Lobster Gangs of Maine (the seminal work on the culture and economics of lobster fishing), here turns his attention to the management of the lobster industry. In this illuminating new book, he shows that resource degradation is not inevitable. Indeed, the Maine lobster fishery is one of the most successful fisheries in the world. Catches have been stable since World War II, and record highs have been achieved since the late 1980s. According to Acheson, these high catches are due, in part, to the institutions generated by the lobster-fishing industry to control fishing practices. These rules are effective. Rational choice theory frames Acheson’s down-to-earth study. Rational choice theorists believe that the overexploitation of marine resources stems from their common-pool nature, which results in collective action problems. In fisheries, what is rational for the individual fishermen can lead to disaster for the society. The progressive Maine lobster industry, lobster fishermen, and local groups have solved a series of such problems by creating three different sets of regulations: informal territorial rules; rules to control the number of traps; and formal conservation legislation. In recent years, the industry has successfully influenced new regulations at the federal level and has developed a strong co-management system with the Maine government. The process of developing these rules has been quite acrimonious; factions of fishermen have disagreed over lobster rules designed to give commercial advantage to one group or another. Although fishermen and scientists have come to share a conservation ethic, they often disagree over how to best conserve the lobster and even the quality of science. The importance of Capturing the Commons is twofold: it provides a case study of the management of one highly successful fishery, which can serve as a management model for policy makers, politicians, and local communities; and it adds to the body of theory concerning the conditions under which people will and will not devise institutions to manage natural resources.
[more]

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Coastal Alert
Energy Ecosystems And Offshore Oil Drilling
Dwight Holing; Natural Resources Defense Council
Island Press, 1990

Coastal Alert explains how citizens can protect coastal resources from the damaging effects of offshore oil drilling.

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Crab
Cynthia Chris
Reaktion Books, 2021
What is a crab? What significance do crabs play in the world? In Crab, Cynthia Chris reveals that these charming creatures are social by nature, creative problem-solvers, and invaluable members of the environments in which they live. Their formidable physical forms, their hard-to-harvest and quick-to-spoil flesh, and their sassy demeanor have inspired artists and writers from Vincent van Gogh to Jean-Paul Sartre. Chris sketches vivid portraits of these animals, tracing the history of the crab through its ancient fossil record to its essential role in protecting its own habitats from the threat of climate change.
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Crab Wars
A Tale of Horseshoe Crabs, Bioterrorism, and Human Health
William Sargent
University Press of New England, 2006
Surviving almost unmolested for 300 million years, the horseshoe crab is now the object of an intense legal and ethical struggle involving marine biologists, environmentalists, US government officials, biotechnologists, and international corporations. The source of this friction is the discovery 25 years ago that the blood of these ancient creatures serves as the basis for the most reliable test for the deadly and ubiquitous gram-negative bacteria. These bacteria are responsible for life-threatening diseases like menengitis, typhoid, E. coli, Legionnaire’s Disease and toxic shock syndrome. 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. Since his youthful fascination with these ancient creatures, William Sargent has spent much of his life observing, studying, and collecting horseshoe crabs. As a result, he presents a thoroughly accessible insider’s guide to the discovery of the lysate test, the exploitation of the crabs 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.
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Crab Wars
A Tale of Horseshoe Crabs, Ecology, and Human Health
William Sargent
Brandeis University Press, 2021
A timely look at the exploitation of a species that has helped with the development of countless drugs and is fast becoming endangered.
 
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.
 
[more]

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Crayfishes of Alabama
Guenter A. Schuster, Christopher A. Taylor, and Stuart W. McGregor
University of Alabama Press, 2022
A comprehensive assessment of the 99 known species of crayfishes inhabiting the state of Alabama

Crayfishes are common organisms in many freshwater habitats. They are usually the largest invertebrates and often represent the greatest amount of invertebrate biomass in their environments. Identified as a keystone species in many ecological communities, aquatic biologists are fond of saying “they eat everything, and everything eats them.”
 
Crayfishes—sometimes called crawfishes, crawdads, mudbugs, ditchbugs, yabbies, and flusskrebs—are taxonomically and ecologically a diverse group of aquatic crustaceans. There are more than 600 known species worldwide and North America alone is home to more than 400. As home to 99 documented species, Alabama is a global hotspot for crayfish diversity.
 
Crayfishes of Alabama is the first comprehensive reference work on the subject and provides the most up-to-date information on the vast range of crayfishes known to reside in Alabama. The authors have collected specimens and data from the state’s major and minor waterways and lakes, as well as specialized habitats such as burrows, caves, roadside ditches, marshes, swamps, and temporary autumnal ponds. This volume represents the most in-depth treatment of crayfishes found in the southeastern United States and offers detailed species accounts including descriptions of morphological characters, color, maximum size, comparative species, distribution and habitat, biology, crayfish associates, and conservation status. The species accounts are accentuated with color photographs, photographic morphological plates, and dot maps showing state and national distributions. A photographic key is provided to guide the identification of all 99 species.
 
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The Curious Life of Krill
A Conservation Story from the Bottom of the World
Stephen Nicol
Island Press, 2018
"Makes you feel as if you're part of an engaging dinnertime conversation." —Science News

Krill—it’s a familiar word that conjures oceans, whales, and swimming crustaceans. Scientists say they are one of most abundant animals on the planet. But when pressed, few people can accurately describe krill or explain their ecological importance. Antarctic krill have used their extraordinary adaptive skills to survive and thrive for millions of years in a dark, icy world far from human interference. But with climate change melting ice caps at the top and bottom of the world, and increased human activity and pollution, their evolutionary flexibility to withstand these new pressures may not be enough.

Eminent krill scientist Stephen Nicol wants us to know more about this enigmatic creature of the sea. He argues that it’s critical to understand krill’s complex biology in order to protect them as the krill fishing industry expands. This account of Antarctic krill-one of the largest of eighty-five krill species-takes us to the Southern Ocean to learn firsthand the difficulties and rewards of studying krill in its habitat. Nicol lays to rest the notion that krill are simply microscopic, shrimplike whale food but are in fact midway up the food chain, consumers of phytoplankton and themselves consumed by whales, seals, and penguins. From his early education about the sex lives of krill in the Bay of Fundy to a krill tattoo gone awry, Nicol uses humor and personal stories to bring the biology and beauty of krill alive. In the final chapters, he examines the possibility of an increasingly ice-free Southern Ocean and what that means for the fate of krill-and us.

Ocean enthusiasts will come away with a newfound appreciation for the complex ecology of a species we have much to learn from, and many reasons to protect.
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Deep Thinkers
Inside the Minds of Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises
Edited by Janet Mann
University of Chicago Press, 2017
Humans aside, dolphins, whales, and porpoises are often considered to be the smartest creatures on Earth. Science and nature buffs are drawn to stories of their use of tools, their self-recognition, their beautiful and complex songs, and their intricate societies. But how do we know what we know, and what does it mean? In Deep Thinkers, renowned cetacean biologist Janet Mann gathers a gam of the world’s leading whale and dolphin researchers—including Luke Rendell, Hal Whitehead, and many more—to illuminate these vital questions, exploring the astounding capacities of cetacean brains.

Diving into our current understanding of and dynamic research on dolphin and whale cognition, communication, and culture, Deep Thinkers reveals how incredibly sophisticated these mammals are—and how much we can learn about other animal minds by studying cetacean behavior. Through a combination of fascinating text and more than 150 beautiful and informative illustrations, chapters compare the intelligence markers of cetaceans with those of birds, bats, and primates, asking how we might properly define intelligence in nonhumans. As all-encompassing and profound as the seas in which these deep cetacean cultures have evolved, Deep Thinkers is an awesome and inspiring journey into the fathoms—a reminder of what we gain through their close study, and of what we lose when the great minds of the sea disappear.
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Dolphin
Alan Rauch
Reaktion Books, 2014
From Flipper to SeaWorld, dolphins have long captured our hearts. We love these friendly, intelligent mammals, and they seem to return our feelings—they enjoy interacting with swimmers and have been known to encircle people under attack by sharks. Despite our familiarity with dolphins, though, we remain ill-informed about how they evolved, how they function, and how they have interacted with humans for millennia. Dolphin dives into the dolphin’s zoology, as well as its social and cultural history, to offer a comprehensive view of these delightful creatures.
 
Drawing on his years of experience working with and studying dolphins, Alan Rauch explores their propensity to live in pods and their ability to communicate through a variety of clicks, whistles, and other vocalizations. He examines their long relationship with humans, describing how they became the emblem of safe travel and charity, that the ancient Greeks featured them on coins, and that Hindu mythology associated them with Ganga, a river deity. As the rise in popularity of dolphinaria during the 1960s allowed the public access to dolphins, they became central characters in films like The Day of the Dolphin and Johnny Mnemonic and outsmarted humans in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Packed with images and thoughtful insights, Dolphin is a revealing look at one of our favorite sea creatures.
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Dolphin Confidential
Confessions of a Field Biologist
Maddalena Bearzi
University of Chicago Press, 2012
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.
 
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Economic Losses from Marine Pollution
A Handbook For Assessment
Douglas D. Ofiara and Joseph J. Seneca
Island Press, 2001
Marine pollution causes significant damage to fisheries and other economically productive uses of the ocean. The value of that damage can be quantified by economists, but the meanings of those valuations and how they are derived are often obscure to noneconomists.Economic Losses from Marine Pollution brings a fuller understanding of the variety and extent of marine losses and how they are assessed to scientists, lawyers, and environmentalists by systematically identifying and classifying marine losses and relating them to models and methods of economic valuation. The authors use a step-by-step approach to show how economists have used these methods and how they approach the problem of assessing economic damage.The book begins by describing the importance of economic valuation of marine damages, the history of concern over marine pollution, and the development of economic methodologies to assess damage from it. Following that, the book: considers types of marine pollution and their effects on organisms, ecosystems, and humans, and the corresponding economic effects of those biological impacts introduces the economic principles and methods needed to understand and to assess economic damages expresses losses from water quality impairments in terms of economic value introduces the basic economic techniques that have been developed and used to measure changes in economic value discusses how to apply those economic techniques, and presents a variety of practical examples explores limitations and problems that can arise in such applied work.Economic Losses from Marine Pollution includes all of the relevant economic theory together with specific examples of how that theory has been and can be applied. It offers environmental professionals with little or no background in economics the basic economic tools needed to understand economic valuations of environmental damage, and represents a unique handbook for environmental and marine scientists, lawyers, economists, policy professionals, and anyone interested in issues of marine water quality.
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Ellie's Strand
Exploring the Edge of the Pacific
M. L. Herring
Oregon State University Press, 2018
Sigrud Olson Nature Writing Award, Notable Children’s Book
Green Earth Book Award, Honor Book

There are days in late winter when the Pacific coast enjoys a brief spell of clear, warm weather. Most of the winter storms have passed and the summer fog has not yet settled in. This is when some coastal communities plan their annual beach clean-ups.  
 
In this sequel to Ellie’s Log and Ricky’s Atlas, Ellie and Ricky travel to the Oregon coast from their home in the Cascade Mountains to help with a one-day beach clean-up. Hoping to find a prized Japanese glass float, they instead find more important natural treasures, and evidence of an ocean that needs its own global-scale clean-up.
 
Ellie and Ricky are amazed by their discoveries at the edge of the world’s largest ocean. Together, they realize the power of volunteering and grapple with the challenges of ocean conservation. In her journal Ellie records her observations of their adventures in her own words and pictures.
 
With charming pen-and-ink drawings and a compelling story, Ellie's Strand makes coastal science exciting for upper elementary school students. It will be a treasured companion for young beach explorers everywhere.
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The Empty Ocean
Richard Ellis
Island Press, 2003

In The Empty Ocean, acclaimed author and artist Richard Ellis tells the story of our continued plunder of life in the sea and weighs the chances for its recovery. Through fascinating portraits of a wide array of creatures, he introduces us to the many forms of sea life that humans have fished, hunted, and collected over the centuries, from charismatic whales and dolphins to the lowly menhaden, from sea turtles to cod, tuna, and coral.

Rich in history, anecdote, and surprising fact, Richard Ellis’s descriptions bring to life the natural history of the various species, the threats they face, and the losses they have suffered. Killing has occurred on a truly stunning scale, with extinction all too often the result, leaving a once-teeming ocean greatly depleted. But the author also finds instances of hope and resilience, of species that have begun to make remarkable comebacks when given the opportunity.

Written with passion and grace, and illustrated with Richard Ellis’s own drawings, The Empty Ocean brings to a wide audience a compelling view of the damage we have caused to life in the sea and what we can do about it. "

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Eye of the Whale
Epic Passage From Baja To Siberia
Dick Russell
Island Press, 2001
Named a Best Book of the Year by three major newspapers upon its initial publication, and now available for the first time in paperback, Eye of the Whale offers an exhilarating blend of adventure and natural history as Dick Russell follows the migration of the gray whale from Mexico's Baja peninsula to the Arctic's Bering Strait. Originally named "Devil-fish' by nineteenth-century whalers, the gray whale's friendly overtures toward humans over the past generation helped to spark the growth of today's whale-watching industry. This majestic marine mammal has also become a focus of controversy, as environmentalists fought to protect its breeding area from industrial development, some protested renewed hunting by a Native American tribe, and, more recently, scientific studies have noted a new decline in the whale's population. Russell's narrative interweaves the remarkable story of Charles Melville Scammon, a nineteenth-century whaling captain responsible for bringing gray whales to the brink of extinction, whose change of heart led to his becoming a renowned naturalist. Retracing Scammon's path, the author encounters contemporary marine biologists who have devoted their lives to studying the gray whale, and native peoples for whom subsistence whale hunting means survival in the most remote regions of the North Pacific. Called "an extraordinary book" by The Washington Post, Eye of the Whale is a stirring account of a creature that is changing our consciousness about the relationship between human beings and the animal kingdom.
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Fascinating Shells
An Introduction to 121 of the World’s Most Wonderful Mollusks
Andreia Salvador
University of Chicago Press, 2022
A New Scientist Best Book of the Year

Beautiful photographs of stunning shells from London's Natural History Museum, home to one of the most significant and comprehensive collections in the world.


Collected and treasured for their beauty, used in religious rituals, or even traded as currency, shells have fascinated humans for millennia. Ancient and enchanting, dazzling in form and variety, these beautiful objects come from mollusks, one of the most diverse groups in the animal kingdom, including snails, oysters, cuttlefish, and chitons. Soft-bodied, these creatures rely on shells for protection from enemies and their environments, from snowy mountains to arid deserts, in deep-sea hydrothermal vents and the jungles of the tropics, on rocky shores, and in coral reefs.

In this book, mollusk expert Andreia Salvador profiles some of the world’s most beautiful and quirky shells, each selected from the more than eight million specimens held in the collection at London’s Natural History Museum. We lock eyes with the hundred-eyed cowry, named after "the all-seeing one," the giant Argus Panoptes of Greek mythology. We see how shells' appearances translate into defense strategies, as with the zigzag nerite, which varies its patterning to deceive and confuse predators. And we meet shell inhabitants, such as the amber snail, which eats earthworms by sucking them up like spaghetti. Reproduced in full color and striking detail, these shells have much to reveal about the history of collecting, the science of taxonomy, and the human desire to understand the natural world.
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Floating Gold
A Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris
Christopher Kemp
University of Chicago Press, 2012

A fascinating natural history of an incredibly curious substance.

“Preternaturally hardened whale dung” is not the first image that comes to mind when we think of perfume, otherwise a symbol of glamour and allure. But the key ingredient that makes the sophisticated scent linger on the skin is precisely this bizarre digestive by-product—ambergris. Despite being one of the world’s most expensive substances (its value is nearly that of gold and has at times in history been triple it), ambergris is also one of the world’s least known. But with this unusual and highly alluring book, Christopher Kemp promises to change that by uncovering the unique history of ambergris.

A rare secretion produced only by sperm whales, which have a fondness for squid but an inability to digest their beaks, ambergris is expelled at sea and floats on ocean currents for years, slowly transforming, before it sometimes washes ashore looking like a nondescript waxy pebble. It can appear almost anywhere but is found so rarely, it might as well appear nowhere. Kemp’s journey begins with an encounter on a New Zealand beach with a giant lump of faux ambergris—determined after much excitement to nothing more exotic than lard—that inspires a comprehensive quest to seek out ambergris and its story. He takes us from the wild, rocky New Zealand coastline to Stewart Island, a remote, windswept island in the southern seas, to Boston and Cape Cod, and back again. Along the way, he tracks down the secretive collectors and traders who populate the clandestine modern-day ambergris trade.

Floating Gold is an entertaining and lively history that covers not only these precious gray lumps and those who covet them, but presents a highly informative account of the natural history of whales, squid, ocean ecology, and even a history of the perfume industry. Kemp’s obsessive curiosity is infectious, and eager readers will feel as though they have stumbled upon a precious bounty of this intriguing substance.

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Fossil Invertebrates
Paul D. Taylor and David N. Lewis
Harvard University Press, 2005

Fossil Invertebrates introduces readers to the biosphere as it was hundreds of millions of years ago, when seas teemed with animal forms both familiar and strange: ammonites and corals, mollusks and sponges, crinoids and trilobites. On land, terrestrial forms were beginning to make their mark, leaving behind traces such as burrows and track ways and other fossil evidence of the important transition to life on land. The plates in this book capture the incredibly detailed impressions and casts of ancient life, contrasting them with forms, such as the horseshoe crab and the chambered nautilus, that persist today virtually unchanged.

The shells and hard exoskeletons of invertebrates make them excellent candidates for fossilization, and the amateur fossil collectors are more likely to uncover an invertebrate fossil than any other kind. The fossilized remains of invertebrates dominate university collections and museum holdings worldwide and their study continues to yield important insights into the nature of evolutionary change and the impact of climate change on biodiversity, as great explosions of diversity were succeeded by mass extinctions. Paul D. Taylor and David N. Lewis, both of the Natural History Museum, London, have written a comprehensive and accessible resource, one that provides undergraduates and amateur fossil enthusiasts with a means to understand and interpret this rich fossil record.

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The Freshwater Mussels of Ohio
G. Thomas Watters, Michael A. Hoggarth, and David H. Stansbery
The Ohio State University Press, 2009
Nearly 200 years ago, a naturalist named Rafinesque stood on the banks of the Ohio River and began to describe the freshwater mussels he found there. Since that time these animals have become the most imperiled animals in North America. Dozens of species have become extinct, and it is estimated that two-thirds of the remaining freshwater mussels face a similar fate. Yet, despite their importance, the mussels of Ohio remain a poorly documented and largely mysterious fauna.
 
The Freshwater Mussels of Ohio by G. Thomas Watters, Michael A. Hoggarth, and David H. Stansbery brings together, for the first time, the most up-to-date research on Ohio’s mussels. Designed for the weekend naturalist and scientist alike, it synthesizes recent work on genetics, biology, and systematics into one book. Each species is illustrated to a degree not found in any other work. Full-page color plates depict shell variation, hinge detail, and beak sculpture. Full-page maps show the distribution of each species based upon the collections of numerous museums (with historical distributions dating from the 1800s). In addition to species accounts, the book has a substantive introduction that includes information on basic biology, human use, and conservation issues. Extensive synonymies, a key to all species, and an illustrated glossary are included as well.
 
 
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From Abundance to Scarcity
A History Of U.S. Marine Fisheries Policy
Michael L. Weber
Island Press, 2001

The management of coastal and ocean fisheries is highly contentious. Industry interests focus on maximizing catches while conservationists and marine scientists have become increasingly concerned about dramatic declines in fish stocks and the health of ecosystems. Besides attempting to mediate among these interests, government agencies have pursued their own agendas, which have often lagged behind shifts in scientific understanding and public attitudes about the productivity of the oceans and uses of marine wildlife.

From Abundance to Scarcity examines the historical evolution of U.S. fisheries policy and institutions from the late 19th century to the present day, with an emphasis on changes since World War II. Based on archival research and interviews with dozens of key players in marine policymaking, it traces the thinking, legislation, mandates, and people that have shaped the various agencies governing fisheries in the United States. The book:

  • discusses the development of federal programs in marine biological sciences and the evolution of scientific understanding about marine wildlife populations
  • describes the work of federal fisheries programs in promoting the interests of the fishing industry
  • considers the response of agencies to factors such as dam-building and coastal development that have led to increased pollution and habitat loss
  • examines the shifts in understanding and values that underlie major legislation including the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and the Sustainable Fisheries Act
  • examines the evolving relationship between federal agencies, the fishing industry, communities, and nongovernmental conservation organizations, with an eye toward future management practice
From Abundance to Scarcity sheds light on the sets of interests that have shaped U.S. fisheries policy, lending historical depth to current debates and providing a fuller understanding of current laws and regulations, and administrative structures and mechanisms. It offers an insightful overview for professionals involved with fisheries management or the fishing industry, conservationists working on marine issues, and students and scholars of marine policy and affairs, environmental policy and law, or public policy and administration.
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From the Seashore to the Seafloor
An Illustrated Tour of Sandy Beaches, Kelp Forests, Coral Reefs, and Life in the Ocean's Depths
Janet Voight and Peggy Macnamara
University of Chicago Press, 2022
An octopus expert and celebrated artist offer a deep dive to meet the enchanting inhabitants of the world’s marine ecosystems.
 
Have you ever walked along the beach and wondered what kind of creatures can be found beneath the waves? Have you pictured what it would be like to see the ocean not from the shore but from its depths? These questions drive Janet Voight, an expert on mollusks who has explored the seas in the submersible Alvin that can dive some 14,000 feet below the water’s surface. In this book, she partners with artist Peggy Macnamara to invite readers to share her undersea journeys of discovery.

With accessible scientific descriptions, Voight introduces the animals that inhabit rocky and sandy shores, explains the fragility of coral reefs, and honors the extraordinary creatures that must search for food in the ocean’s depths, where light and heat are rare. These fascinating insights are accompanied by Macnamara’s stunning watercolors, which illuminate these ecosystems and other scenes from Voight’s research. Together, they show connections between life at every depth—and warn of the threats these beguiling places and their eccentric denizens face.
 
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Global Marine Biological Diversity
A Strategy For Building Conservation Into Decision Making
Edited by Elliott A. Norse
Island Press, 1993

Global Marine Biological Diversity presents the most up-to-date information and view on the challenge of conserving the living sea and how that challenge can be met.

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Hagfish Slime and Lobster Rolls
Ellen Prager
University of Chicago Press, 2011
When viewed from a quiet beach, the ocean, with its rolling waves and vast expanse, can seem calm, even serene. But hidden beneath the sea’s waves are a staggering abundance and variety of active creatures, engaged in the never-ending struggles of life—to reproduce, to eat, and to avoid being eaten. With Hagfish Slime and Lobster Rolls, marine scientist Ellen Prager takes us deep into the sea to introduce an astonishing cast of fascinating and bizarre creatures that make the salty depths their home, with the help of stunning color photos. From the lobsters that battle rivals or seduce mates with their urine to hagfish that ties itself into a knot to keep from suffocating in its own slime—there’s far more to Prager’s account than her ever-entertaining anecdotes. Again and again, she illustrates the crucial connections between life in the ocean and humankind, enchanting us as she educates, enthralling us with the wealth of life in the sea, and reminding us of our need to protect it.

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Is Anyone Listening?
What Animals Are Saying to Each Other and to Us
Denise L. Herzing
University of Chicago Press, 2024
From a leading researcher on dolphin communication, a deep dive into the many ways animal species communicate with their kin, their neighboring species, and us. 
 
If you could pose one question to a dolphin, what would it be? And what might a dolphin ask you? For forty years, researcher and author Denise L. Herzing has investigated these and related questions of marine mammal communication. With the assistance of a friendly community of Atlantic spotted dolphins in the Bahamas, Herzing studies two-way communication between different dolphin species and between humans and dolphins using a variety of cutting-edge experiments. But the dolphins are not the only ones talking, and in this wide-ranging and accessible book, Herzing explores the astonishing realities of interspecies communication, a skill that humans currently lack.
 
Is Anyone Listening? connects research on dolphin communication to findings from Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Dian Fossey on mountain gorillas, Cynthia Moss on African elephants, and others driving today’s exploration of possible animal languages. Although humans have long attempted to crack animal communication codes, only now do we have the advanced machine-learning tools to help. As Herzing reveals, researchers are finding fascinating hints of language in nonhuman species, including linguistic structures, vowel equivalents, and complex repeated sequences. By looking at the many ways animals use and manipulate signals, we see that we’ve only just begun to appreciate the diversity of animal intelligence and the complicated and subtle aspects of animal communication.
 
Considering dolphins and other nonhuman animals as colleagues instead of research subjects, Herzing asks us to meet animals as both speakers and listeners, as mutually curious beings, and to listen to what they are saying.
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Jellyfish
Peter Williams
Reaktion Books, 2020
Jellyfish are, like the mythical Medusa, both beautiful and potentially dangerous. Found from pole to tropic, these mesmeric creatures form an important part of the sea’s plankton and vary in size from the gigantic to the minute. Perceived as almost alien creatures and seen as best avoided, jellyfish nevertheless have the power to fascinate: with the sheer beauty of their translucent bells and long, trailing tentacles, with a mouth that doubles as an anus, and without a head or brain. Drawing upon myth and historical sources as well as modern scientific advances, this book examines our ambiguous relationship with these ancient and yet ill-understood animals, describing their surprisingly complex anatomy, weaponry, and habits, and their vital contributions to the ocean’s ecosystems.
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Jellyfish
A Natural History
Lisa-ann Gershwin
University of Chicago Press, 2016
Jellyfish, with their undulating umbrella-shaped bells and sprawling tentacles, are as fascinating and beautiful as they are frightening and dangerous. They are found in every ocean at every depth, and they are the oldest multi-organed life form on the planet, having inhabited the ocean for more than five hundred million years. In many places they are also vastly increasing in number, and these population blooms may be an ominous indicator of the rising temperatures and toxicity of the world’s oceans.

Jellyfish presents these aquarium favorites in all their extraordinary and captivating beauty. Fifty unique species, from stalked jellyfish to black sea nettles, are presented in stunning color photographs along with the most current scientific information on their anatomy, history, distribution, position in the water, and environmental status. Foremost jellyfish expert Lisa-ann Gershwin provides an insightful look at the natural history and biology of each of these spellbinding creatures, while offering a timely take on their place in the rapidly changing and deteriorating condition of the oceans. Readers will learn about immortal jellyfish who live and die and live again as well as those who camouflage themselves amid sea grasses and shells, hiding in plain sight.
 
Approachably written and based in the latest science and ecology, this colorful book provides an authoritative guide to these ethereal marine wonders.
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Life in a Shell
A Physiologist’s View of a Turtle
Donald C. Jackson
Harvard University Press, 2013

Trundling along in essentially the same form for some 220 million years, turtles have seen dinosaurs come and go, mammals emerge, and humankind expand its dominion. Is it any wonder the persistent reptile bested the hare? In this engaging book physiologist Donald Jackson shares a lifetime of observation of this curious creature, allowing us a look under the shell of an animal at once so familiar and so strange.

Here we discover how the turtle’s proverbial slowness helps it survive a long, cold winter under ice. How the shell not only serves as a protective home but also influences such essential functions as buoyancy control, breathing, and surviving remarkably long periods without oxygen, and how many other physiological features help define this unique animal. Jackson offers insight into what exactly it’s like to live inside a shell—to carry the heavy carapace on land and in water, to breathe without an expandable ribcage, to have sex with all that body armor intervening.

Along the way we also learn something about the process of scientific discovery—how the answer to one question leads to new questions, how a chance observation can change the direction of study, and above all how new research always builds on the previous work of others. A clear and informative exposition of physiological concepts using the turtle as a model organism, the book is as interesting for what it tells us about scientific investigation as it is for its deep and detailed understanding of how the enduring turtle “works.”

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The Living Ocean
Understanding and Protecting Marine Biodiversity
Boyce Thorne-Miller; Foreword by Sylvia Earle
Island Press, 1999
The first edition of The Living Ocean, published in 1991 by Island Press in association with Friends of the Earth, was widely praised by scientists, policymakers, instructors, and general readers as a useful and accessible introduction to the science and policy of biological diversity in marine environments. Since that time, much new research has been conducted and numerous national and international policy initiatives have been undertaken.With 1998 designated by the United Nations as the International Year of the Ocean, this new, revised and expanded, edition is a welcome and much-needed addition to the literature.This edition brings the volume up-to-date, and re-establishes it as an essential primer for anyone wishing to gain an understanding of marine biodiversity and how it can be protected. It provides an overview of basic concepts and principles and a review of relevant policy issues and existing instruments. The author:defines biological diversity and discusses the importance of threats to marine biodiversity reviews the current status of scientific knowledge describes the major coastal and oceanic ecosystem types and addresses the major threats in each presents a general discussion of the ways in which government and the public can protect marine biological diversity provides specific examples of national and international policies, legal instruments, programs, and institutions addresses how social, economic, political, and ethical considerations affect decisions to conserve marine biological diversity considers the involvement of citizens in developing ocean policy The book also includes a useful glossary that provides information about basic biological concepts, and a comprehensive bibliography. Throughout, the author emphasizes the relationship of human societies and governments to the living ocean, and the need to implement programs that will protect ecosystems and species.
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Lobster
Richard J. King
Reaktion Books, 2011

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, Dalí, 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.

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The Most Important Fish in the Sea
Menhaden and America
H. Bruce Franklin
Island Press, 2008
In this brilliant portrait of the oceans’ unlikely hero, H. Bruce Franklin shows how menhaden have shaped America’s national—and natural—history, and why reckless overfishing now threatens their place in both. Since Native Americans began using menhaden as fertilizer, this amazing fish has greased the wheels of U.S. agriculture and industry. By the mid-1870s, menhaden had replaced whales as a principal source of industrial lubricant, with hundreds of ships and dozens of factories along the eastern seaboard working feverishly to produce fish oil. Since the Civil War, menhaden have provided the largest catch of any American fishery. Today, one company—Omega Protein—has a monopoly on the menhaden “reduction industry.” Every year it sweeps billions of fish from the sea, grinds them up, and turns them into animal feed, fertilizer, and oil used in everything from linoleum to health-food supplements.
 
The massive harvest wouldn’t be such a problem if menhaden were only good for making lipstick and soap. But they are crucial to the diet of bigger fish and they filter the waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, playing an essential dual role in marine ecology perhaps unmatched anywhere on the planet. As their numbers have plummeted, fish and birds dependent on them have been decimatedand toxic algae have begun to choke our bays and seas. In Franklin’s vibrant prose, the decline of a once ubiquitous fish becomes an adventure story, an exploration of the U.S. political economy, a groundbreaking history of America’s emerging ecological consciousness, and an inspiring vision of a growing alliance between environmentalists and recreational anglers.
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The Most Important Fish in the Sea
Menhaden and America
H. Bruce Franklin
Island Press, 2008
In this brilliant portrait of the oceans’ unlikely hero, H. Bruce Franklin shows how menhaden have shaped America’s national—and natural—history, and why reckless overfishing now threatens their place in both. Since Native Americans began using menhaden as fertilizer, this amazing fish has greased the wheels of U.S. agriculture and industry. By the mid-1870s, menhaden had replaced whales as a principal source of industrial lubricant, with hundreds of ships and dozens of factories along the eastern seaboard working feverishly to produce fish oil. Since the Civil War, menhaden have provided the largest catch of any American fishery. Today, one company—Omega Protein—has a monopoly on the menhaden “reduction industry.” Every year it sweeps billions of fish from the sea, grinds them up, and turns them into animal feed, fertilizer, and oil used in everything from linoleum to health-food supplements.
 
The massive harvest wouldn’t be such a problem if menhaden were only good for making lipstick and soap. But they are crucial to the diet of bigger fish and they filter the waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, playing an essential dual role in marine ecology perhaps unmatched anywhere on the planet. As their numbers have plummeted, fish and birds dependent on them have been decimatedand toxic algae have begun to choke our bays and seas. In Franklin’s vibrant prose, the decline of a once ubiquitous fish becomes an adventure story, an exploration of the U.S. political economy, a groundbreaking history of America’s emerging ecological consciousness, and an inspiring vision of a growing alliance between environmentalists and recreational anglers.
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Natchiq Grows Up
The Story of an Alaska Ringed Seal Pup and Her Changing Home
Donna D.W. Hauser
University of Alaska Press, 2023
This is the story of Natchiq, the ringed seal pup, growing up in her snow cave on the sea ice in northern Alaska with her mom Siku. Interwoven with Indigenous Knowledge from Qikiktagruk Elders from northwest Alaska, Iñupiaq terms, and scientific findings, readers follow Natchiq’s daring escapes from predators and seal dogs specially trained to help biologists find ringed seals.
 
Beginning in the 1980s, scientists started traveling to northwest Alaska to research the lives of ringed seals, bringing Labrador retrievers who could sniff out seals and their snow cave homes (called lairs) on the sea ice. Decades later, scientists partnered with the Iñupiaq people of
Qikiktaġruk (Kotzebue) to learn more about ringed seals. They relied on a combination of Indigenous Knowledge and scientific techniques to capture and apply tags to understand the movements and behavior of ringed seals.
 
But the Arctic homes of ringed seals are changing, and the long history of ringed seal science in the Kotzebue Sound proved to be just the beginning of long and cooperative relationships melding science and Indigenous knowledge. During 2018 and 2019, with unprecedented sea ice conditions, Qikiktagrumiut Elders and scientists returned to the ice to measure changes in the habitat available for ringed seal pups in the region.
 
 
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Ocean Bestiary
Meeting Marine Life from Abalone to Orca to Zooplankton
Written and illustrated by Richard J. King
University of Chicago Press, 2023
A delightful A-to-Z menagerie of the sea—whimsically illustrated, authoritative, and thought-provoking.
 
For millennia, we have taken to the waves. And yet, for humans, the ocean remains our planet’s most inaccessible region, the place about which we know the least. From A to Z, abalone to zooplankton, and through both text and original illustrations, Ocean Bestiary is a celebration of our ongoing quest to know the sea and its creatures.
 
Focusing on individual species or groups of animals, Richard J. King embarks upon a global tour of ocean wildlife, including beluga whales, flying fish, green turtles, mako sharks, noddies, right whales, sea cows (as well as sea lions, sea otters, and sea pickles), skipjack tuna, swordfish, tropicbirds, walrus, and yellow-bellied sea snakes. But more than this, King connects the natural history of ocean animals to the experiences of people out at sea and along the world’s coastlines. From firsthand accounts passed down by the earliest Polynesian navigators to observations from Wampanoag clamshell artists, African-American whalemen, Korean female divers (or haenyeo), and today’s pilots of deep-sea submersibles—and even to imaginary sea expeditions launched through poems, novels, and paintings—Ocean Bestiary weaves together a diverse array of human voices underrepresented in environmental history to tell the larger story of our relationship with the sea. Sometimes funny, sometimes alarming, but always compelling, King’s vignettes reveal both how our perceptions of the sea have changed for the better and how far we still have to go on our voyage.
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Oceans under Glass
Tank Craft and the Sciences of the Sea
Samantha Muka
University of Chicago Press, 2023
A welcome dive into the world of aquarium craft that offers much-needed knowledge about undersea environments.

Atlantic coral is rapidly disappearing in the wild. To save the species, they will have to be reproduced quickly in captivity, and so for the last decade conservationists have been at work trying to preserve their lingering numbers and figure out how to rebuild once-thriving coral reefs from a few survivors. Captive environments, built in dedicated aquariums, offer some hope for these corals. This book examines these specialized tanks, charting the development of tank craft throughout the twentieth century to better understand how aquarium modeling has enhanced our knowledge of the marine environment.

Aquariums are essential to the way we understand the ocean. Used to investigate an array of scientific questions, from animal behavior to cancer research and climate change, they are a crucial factor in the fight to mitigate the climate disaster already threatening our seas. To understand the historical development of this scientific tool and the groups that have contributed to our knowledge about the ocean, Samantha Muka takes up specialty systems—including photographic aquariums, kriesel tanks (for jellyfish), and hatching systems—to examine the creation of ocean simulations and their effect on our interactions with underwater life. Lively and engaging, Oceans under Glass offers a fresh history about how the aquarium has been used in modern marine biology and how integral it is to knowing the marine world.
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Octopus, Squid, and Cuttlefish
A Visual, Scientific Guide to the Oceans’ Most Advanced Invertebrates
Roger Hanlon, Mike Vecchione, and Louise Allcock
University of Chicago Press, 2018
"Cephalopods are often misunderstood creatures. Three biologists set the record straight."—Science News

Largely shell-less relatives of clams and snails, the marine mollusks in the class Cephalopoda—Greek for “head-foot”—are colorful creatures of many-armed dexterity, often inky self-defense, and highly evolved cognition. They are capable of learning, of retaining information—and of rapid decision-making to avoid predators and find prey. They have eyes and senses rivaling those of vertebrates like birds and fishes, they morph texture and body shape, and they change color faster than a chameleon. In short, they captivate us.

From the long-armed mimic octopus—able to imitate the appearance of swimming flounders and soles—to the aptly named flamboyant cuttlefish, whose undulating waves of color rival the graphic displays of any LCD screen, there are more than seven hundred species of cephalopod. Featuring a selection of species profiles, Octopus, Squid, and Cuttlefish reveals the evolution, anatomy, life history, behaviors, and relationships of these spellbinding animals. Their existence proves that intelligence can develop in very different ways: not only are cephalopods unusually large-brained invertebrates, they also carry two-thirds of their neurons in their arms. 

A treasure trove of scientific fact and visual explanation, this worldwide illustrated guide to cephalopods offers a comprehensive review of these fascinating and mysterious underwater invertebrates—from the lone hunting of the octopus, to the social squid, and the prismatic skin signaling of the cuttlefish.
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Oyster
Rebecca Stott
Reaktion Books, 2004
As everybody knows, oysters are the ultimate aphrodisiac. Casanova is said to have eaten 50 raw oysters every morning with his mistress of the moment, in a bathtub designed for two. Whether oysters truly have exciting properties is open to debate, but like all seafoods, they contain high amounts of phosphorus and iodine, which are believed to be conducive to stamina. Author and food expert M.F.K. Fisher wrote: "There are many reasons why an oyster is supposed to have this desirable quality . . . Most of them are physiological, and have to do with an oyster’s odour, its consistency, and probably its strangeness."

As well as an aphrodisiac, the oyster has since the earliest times been an inspiration to philosophers, artists, poets, chefs, gourmets, epicures and jewellers. It has been pursued by poachers and thieves, and defended by oyster-police and parliaments.

In Oyster, literary historian and radio broadcaster Rebecca Stott tells the extraordinary story of the oyster and its pearl, revealing how this curious creature has been used and depicted in human culture and what it has variously meant to those who have either loved or loathed it: the Romans carried much-sought-after British oysters across the Alps on the backs of donkeys to be eaten as delicacies at banquets in Rome, whilst by contrast Woody Allen once famously said "I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead – not sick, not wounded – dead."

Using many unusual images and anecdotes, Oyster will appeal to oyster lovers and haters everywhere, and for those too who have an interest in the way animals such as the oyster have woven themselves into the fabric of our culture.
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Plankton
Wonders of the Drifting World
Christian Sardet
University of Chicago Press, 2015
Ask anyone to picture a bird or a fish and a series of clear images will immediately come to mind. Ask the same person to picture plankton and most would have a hard time conjuring anything beyond a vague squiggle or a greyish fleck. This book will change that forever.

Viewing these creatures up close for the first time can be a thrilling experience—an elaborate but hidden world truly opens up before your eyes. Through hundreds of close-up photographs, Plankton transports readers into the currents, where jeweled chains hang next to phosphorescent chandeliers, spidery claws jut out from sinuous bodies, and gelatinous barrels protect microscopic hearts. The creatures’ vibrant colors pop against the black pages, allowing readers to examine every eye and follow every tentacle. Jellyfish, tadpoles, and bacteria all find a place in the book, representing the broad scope of organisms dependent on drifting currents.

Christian Sardet’s enlightening text explains the biological underpinnings of each species while connecting them to the larger living world. He begins with plankton’s origins and history, then dives into each group, covering ctenophores and cnidarians, crustaceans and mollusks, and worms and tadpoles. He also demonstrates the indisputable impact of plankton in our lives. Plankton drift through our world mostly unseen, yet they are diverse organisms that form ninety-five percent of ocean life. Biologically, they are the foundation of the aquatic food web and consume as much carbon dioxide as land-based plants. Culturally, they have driven new industries and captured artists’ imaginations.

While scientists and entrepreneurs are just starting to tap the potential of this undersea forest, for most people these pages will represent uncharted waters. Plankton is a spectacular journey that will leave readers seeing the ocean in ways they never imagined.
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Red Leviathan
The Secret History of Soviet Whaling
Ryan Tucker Jones
University of Chicago Press, 2022
A revealing and authoritative history that shows how Soviet whalers secretly helped nearly destroy endangered whale populations, while also contributing to the scientific understanding necessary for these creatures’ salvation.
 
The Soviet Union killed over six hundred thousand whales in the twentieth century, many of them illegally and secretly. That catch helped bring many whale species to near extinction by the 1970s, and the impacts of this loss of life still ripple through today’s oceans. In this new account, based on formerly secret Soviet archives and interviews with ex-whalers, environmental historian Ryan Tucker Jones offers a complete history of the role the Soviet Union played in the whales’ destruction. As other countries—especially the United States, Great Britain, Japan, and Norway—expanded their pursuit of whales to all corners of the globe, Stalin determined that the Soviet Union needed to join the hunt. What followed was a spectacularly prodigious, and often wasteful, destruction of humpback, fin, sei, right, and sperm whales in the Antarctic and the North Pacific, done in knowing violation of the International Whaling Commission’s rules. Cold War intrigue encouraged this destruction, but, as Jones shows, there is a more complex history behind this tragic Soviet experiment. Jones compellingly describes the ultimate scientific irony: today’s cetacean studies benefited from Soviet whaling, as Russian scientists on whaling vessels made key breakthroughs in understanding whale natural history and behavior. And in a final twist, Red Leviathan reveals how the Soviet public began turning against their own country’s whaling industry, working in parallel with Western environmental organizations like Greenpeace to help end industrial whaling—not long before the world’s whales might have disappeared altogether.
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A Reef in Time
The Great Barrier Reef from Beginning to End
J.E.N. Veron
Harvard University Press, 2008

Like many coral specialists fifteen years ago, J. E. N. Veron thought Australia's Great Barrier Reef was impervious to climate change. "Owned by a prosperous country and accorded the protection it deserves, it would surely not go the way of the Amazon rain forest or the parklands of Africa, but would endure forever. That is what I thought once, but I think it no longer." This book is Veron's Silent Spring for the world's coral reefs.

Veron presents the geological history of the reef, the biology of coral reef ecosystems, and a primer on what we know about climate change. He concludes that the Great Barrier Reef and, indeed, most coral reefs will be dead from mass bleaching and irreversible acidification within the coming century unless greenhouse gas emissions are curbed. If we don't have the political will to confront the plight of the world's reefs, he argues, current processes already in motion will become unstoppable, bringing on a mass extinction the world has not seen for 65 million years.

Our species has cracked its own genetic code and sent representatives of its kind to the moon--we can certainly save the world's reefs if we want to. But to achieve this goal, we must devote scientific expertise and political muscle to the development of green technologies that will dramatically reduce greenhouse emissions and reverse acidification of the oceans.

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Seahorses
A Life-Size Guide to Every Species
Sara A. Lourie
University of Chicago Press, 2016
Absolutely captivating creatures, seahorses seem like a product of myth and imagination rather than of nature. They are small, elusive, and are named for their heads, which are shaped like miniature ponies with tiny snouts. They swim slowly upright by rapidly fanning their delicate dorsal fin, coil their tails to anchor themselves in a drift, and spend days in a dancing courtship. Afterward, it is the male who carries the female’s eggs in his pouch and hatches the young. Seahorses are found worldwide, and they are highly sensitive to environmental destruction and disturbance, making them the flagship species for shallow-water habitat conservation. They are as ecologically important as they are beautiful.

Seahorses celebrates the remarkable variety of seahorse species as well as their exquisiteness. 57 species, including seadragons and pipefish, are presented in lush, life-size photographs alongside descriptive drawings, and each entry includes detailed and up-to-date information on natural history and conservation. Sara Lourie, a foremost expert on seahorse taxonomy, presents captivating stories of species that range from less than an inch to over a foot in height, while highlighting recent discoveries and ecological concerns. Accessibly written, but comprehensive in scope, this book will be a stunning and invaluable reference on seahorse evolution, biology, habitat, and behavior.

Masters of camouflage and rarely seen, seahorses continue to be a fascinating subject of active research. This visually rich and informative book is certain to become the authoritative guide to these charming and unusual wonders of the sea, beloved at aquariums the world over.
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Seal
Victoria Dickenson
Reaktion Books, 2016
Playful and inquisitive, seals have long been interested in humans—and humans have reciprocated that interest, falling for their beauty, grace, and charm as they frolic alongside our boats or loll on sandy shores. In this newest entry in the Animal series, Victoria Dickenson traces the history of our interaction with these beautiful, fascinating swimmers, from the centuries of hunting—in which people killed countless seals for their skin, oil, and meat—to the present, when the white-furred baby seal has become one of the most potent symbols of the need for ecological conservation. Along the way, she offers an approachable account of seal biology and behavior, and she delineates the threats they face from habitat destruction and climate change. Beautifully illustrated and packed with stories from folklore, myth, and history, Seal offers a richly immersive view of a much-loved, storied creature.
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A Seal Named Patches
Roxanne Beltran and Patrick Robinson
University of Alaska Press, 2017
Two polar explorers are out to solve a mystery: Where is their special seal, Patches?

Scientists Roxanne Beltran and Patrick Robinson set off on a polar adventure, traveling to Antarctica to study the lives of Weddell seals. By finding Patches, a wily seal they’ve been tracking since its birth, they’ll be able to learn a lot about how much the seals get to eat and how many pups they raise. A Seal Named Patches takes young readers into the world at the very bottom of the globe, where they meet the extraordinary animals that live in cold, icy conditions. Through breathtaking photos and real-life stories, young readers will learn about how scientists do fieldwork, the challenges of researching animals in harsh climates, and even what it’s like to fly a helicopter over Antarctica. This engaging story will especially entertain and educate children in grades K-2 (ages 5–8.)
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Shark
Dean Crawford
Reaktion Books, 2008

A sleek hunter of the seas, the shark has struck fear into the hearts of men since the days of the first fishermen. Dean Crawford now explores here the long relationship between shark and man, revealing that behind the fearsome caricature is a complex animal that deserves a thoughtful reconsideration.

With a lineage stretching back over 100 million years, the shark has evolved into 350 different species, from the great white to the pike-bearing goblin to the tiny cookie-cutter. Crawford compiles here a fascinating narrative that analyzes how and why the animal looms large in our cultural psyche. While sharks have played a prominent part in religion and mythology, they are more commonly perceived as deadly predators—in such films as Jaws and Dr. No—or as symbols of natural violence, as in Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream. Shark ultimately argues, however, that our ill-informed emotional responses, spurred by such representations, have encouraged the wholesale slaughter of sharks—and our ignorance endangers the very existence of the shark today.

Both a celebration of their lethal beauty and plea for their conservation, Shark urges us to shed our fears and appreciate the magnificence of this majestic animal.

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Sharks and People
Exploring Our Relationship with the Most Feared Fish in the Sea
Thomas P. Peschak
University of Chicago Press, 2008
At once feared and revered, sharks have captivated people since our earliest human encounters. Children and adults alike stand awed before aquarium shark tanks, fascinated by the giant teeth and unnerving eyes. And no swim in the ocean is undertaken without a slight shiver of anxiety about the very real—and very cinematic—dangers of shark bites. But our interactions with sharks are not entirely one-sided: the threats we pose to sharks through fisheries, organized hunts, and gill nets on coastlines are more deadly and far-reaching than any bite. In Sharks and People acclaimed wildlife photographer Thomas Peschak presents stunning photographs that capture the relationship between people and sharks around the globe.

A contributing photographer to National Geographic, Peschak is best known for his unusual photographs of sharks—his iconic image of a great white shark following a researcher in a small yellow kayak is one of the most recognizable shark photographs in the world. The other images gathered here are no less riveting, bringing us as close as possible to sharks in the wild. Alongside the photographs, Sharks and People tells the compelling story of the natural history of sharks. Sharks have roamed the oceans for more than four hundred million years, and in this time they have never stopped adapting to the ever-changing world—their unique cartilage skeletons and array of super-senses mark them as one of the most evolved groups of animals. Scientists have recently discovered that sharks play an important role in balancing the ocean, including maintaining the health of coral reefs. Yet, tens of millions of sharks are killed every year just to fill the demand for shark fin soup alone. Today more than sixty species of sharks, including hammerhead, mako, and oceanic white-tip sharks, are listed as vulnerable or in danger of extinction.

The need to understand the significant part sharks play in the oceanic ecosystem has never been so urgent, and Peschak’s photographs bear witness to the thrilling strength and unique attraction of sharks. They are certain to enthrall and inspire.
 

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Sharks and Rays of Australia
Second Edition
Peter R. Last and John D. Stevens
Harvard University Press, 2009

The waters around Australia, the world’s smallest continent, are home to the greatest diversity of sharks and rays on Earth. Fully 100 of these sea creatures (along with their little-known relatives, the chimaerids) have been named or described since the first edition of this book—the biggest revision of the Class Chondrichthyes since the time of Linneaus. This second edition of Sharks and Rays of Australia brings more than 300 of these species to life in newly commissioned, full-color illustrations.

Here, in precisely painted detail, are the weird silvery ghost shark and the remarkably camouflaged ornate wobbegong; spurdogs and swell sharks; the primitive frilled shark and the blacktip, a fast swimmer capable of leaping out of the water like a dolphin. Peter Last and John Stevens review the major shake-ups in the elasmobranch family tree—sorting out, for instance, dogfishes and skates—and include updated family keys, the latest information about species ranges, and new distribution maps. Extensively revised species descriptions reflect additional fisheries and newly gleaned life history and biological information—all essential to conservation efforts as sharks die in commercial bycatches and end up on restaurant menus. An essential tool for conservation biologists trying to save threatened sharks, now under siege worldwide, this marvelous volume will also appeal to fish biologists, divers, naturalists, commercial and recreational fishermen, and anyone with an appreciation for these ancient evolutionary survivors.

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Shells
A Natural and Cultural History
Fabio Moretzsohn
Reaktion Books, 2023
Echoing with the sounds of the sea, an exquisite survey of the science and customs of conchs, clams, coquinas, cowries, and much more.
 
Shells have captivated humans from the dawn of time: the earliest known artwork was made on a shell. As well as containers for food, shells have been used as tools, jewelry, decorations for dwellings, and to bring good luck or to ward off spirits. Many Indigenous peoples have used shells as currency, and in a few places, they still do. This beautifully illustrated book investigates the fascinating scientific and cultural history of shells. It examines everything from pearls—the only gems of animal origin—to how shells’ diverse colors and shapes are formed. And it reveals how shells have inspired artists throughout history, how shells have been used in architecture, and even how shells can be indicators of changing environmental conditions. Also including two essays by shell expert M. G. Harasewych, emeritus curator of gastropods in the Smithsonian’s Department of Invertebrate Zoology, Shells is an authoritative exploration of the deep human connection to these molluscan exoskeletons of sea, lake, land, and stream.
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The Sounding of the Whale
Science and Cetaceans in the Twentieth Century
D. Graham Burnett
University of Chicago Press, 2011

From the Bible’s “Canst thou raise leviathan with a hook?” to Captain Ahab’s “From Hell’s heart I stab at thee!,” from the trials of Job to the legends of Sinbad, whales have breached in the human imagination as looming figures of terror, power, confusion, and mystery.

In the twentieth century, however, our understanding of and relationship to these superlatives of creation underwent some astonishing changes, and with The Sounding of the Whale, D. Graham Burnett tells the fascinating story of the transformation of cetaceans from grotesque monsters, useful only as wallowing kegs of fat and fertilizer, to playful friends of humanity, bellwethers of environmental devastation, and, finally, totems of the counterculture in the Age of Aquarius. When Burnett opens his story, ignorance reigns: even Nature was misclassifying whales at the turn of the century, and the only biological study of the species was happening in gruesome Arctic slaughterhouses. But in the aftermath of World War I, an international effort to bring rational regulations to the whaling industry led to an explosion of global research—and regulations that, while well-meaning, were quashed, or widely flouted, by whaling nations, the first shot in a battle that continues to this day. The book closes with a look at the remarkable shift in public attitudes toward whales that began in the 1960s, as environmental concerns and new discoveries about whale behavior combined to make whales an object of sentimental concern and public adulation.

A sweeping history, grounded in nearly a decade of research, The Sounding of the Whale tells a remarkable story of how science, politics, and simple human wonder intertwined to transform the way we see these behemoths from below.

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Squid Empire
The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods
Danna Staaf
University Press of New England, 2017
Before there were mammals on land, there were dinosaurs. And before there were fish in the sea, there were cephalopods—the ancestors of modern squid and Earth’s first truly substantial animals. Cephalopods became the first creatures to rise from the seafloor, essentially inventing the act of swimming. With dozens of tentacles and formidable shells, they presided over an undersea empire for millions of years. But when fish evolved jaws, the ocean’s former top predator became its most delicious snack. Cephalopods had to step up their game. Many species streamlined their shells and added defensive spines, but these enhancements only provided a brief advantage. Some cephalopods then abandoned the shell entirely, which opened the gates to a flood of evolutionary innovations: masterful camouflage, fin-supplemented jet propulsion, perhaps even dolphin-like intelligence. Squid Empire is an epic adventure spanning hundreds of millions of years, from the marine life of the primordial ocean to the calamari on tonight’s menu. Anyone who enjoys the undersea world—along with all those obsessed with things prehistoric—will be interested in the sometimes enormous, often bizarre creatures that ruled the seas long before the first dinosaurs.
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Thicker Than Water
The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis
Erica Cirino
Island Press, 2021

Much of what you’ve heard about plastic pollution may be wrong. Instead of a great island of trash, the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch is made up of manmade debris spread over hundreds of miles of sea—more like a soup than a floating garbage dump. Recycling is more complicated than we were taught: less than nine percent of the plastic we create is reused, and the majority ends up in the ocean. And plastic pollution isn’t confined to the open ocean: it’s in much of the air we breathe and the food we eat.  
In Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis, journalist Erica Cirino brings readers on a globe-hopping journey to meet the scientists and activists telling the real story of the plastic crisis. From the deck of a plastic-hunting sailboat with a disabled engine, to the labs doing cutting-edge research on microplastics and the chemicals we ingest, Cirino paints a full picture of how plastic pollution is threatening wildlife and human health. Thicker Than Water reveals that the plastic crisis is also a tale of environmental injustice, as poorer nations take in a larger share of the world’s trash, and manufacturing chemicals threaten predominantly Black and low-income communities.  
There is some hope on the horizon, with new laws banning single-use items and technological innovations to replace plastic in our lives. But Cirino shows that we can only fix the problem if we face its full scope and begin to repair our throwaway culture. Thicker Than Water is an eloquent call to reexamine the systems churning out waves of plastic waste. 

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Touching This Leviathan
Peter Wayne Moe
Oregon State University Press, 2021

Touching This Leviathan asks how we might come to know the unknowable—in this case, whales, animals so large yet so elusive, revealing just a sliver of back, a glimpse of a fluke, or a split-second breach before diving away.

Whale books often sit within disciplinary silos. Touching This Leviathan starts a conversation among them. Drawing on biology, theology, natural history, literature, and writing studies, Peter Wayne Moe offers a deep dive into the alluring and impalpable mysteries of Earth’s largest mammal.

Entertaining, thought-provoking, and swimming with intelligence and wit, Touching is Leviathan is creative nonfiction that gestures toward science and literary criticism as it invites readers into the belly of the whale.

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Turning the Tide
Saving the Chesapeake Bay
Tom Horton; Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Island Press, 2003
In 1991, Island Press published Turning the Tide, a unique and accessible examination of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. The book took an indepth look at the Bay’s vital signs to gauge the overall health of its entire ecosystem and to assess what had been done and what remained to be done to clean up the Bay.
 
This new edition of Turning the Tide addresses new developments of the past decade and examines the factors that will have the most significant effects on the health of the Bay in the coming years.With new case studies and updated maps, charts, and graphs, the book builds on the analytical power of ten years of experience to offer a new perspective, along with clear, science-based recommendations for the future.
 
For all those who want to know not only how much must be done to save the Bay but what they can do and how they can make a difference, Turning the Tide is an essential source of information.
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The Unnatural History of the Sea
Callum Roberts
Island Press, 2007
Humanity can make short work of the oceans’ creatures. In 1741, hungry explorers discovered herds of Steller’s sea cow in the Bering Strait, and in less than thirty years, the amiable beast had been harpooned into extinction. It’s a classic story, but a key fact is often omitted. Bering Island was the last redoubt of a species that had been decimated by hunting and habitat loss years before the explorers set sail.

As Callum M. Roberts reveals in The Unnatural History of the Sea, the oceans’ bounty didn’t disappear overnight. While today’s fishing industry is ruthlessly efficient, intense exploitation began not in the modern era, or even with the dawn of industrialization, but in the eleventh century in medieval Europe. Roberts explores this long and colorful history of commercial fishing, taking readers around the world and through the centuries to witness the transformation of the seas.

Drawing on firsthand accounts of early explorers, pirates, merchants, fishers, and travelers, the book recreates the oceans of the past: waters teeming with whales, sea lions, sea otters, turtles, and giant fish. The abundance of marine life described by fifteenth century seafarers is almost unimaginable today, but Roberts both brings it alive and artfully traces its depletion. Collapsing fisheries, he shows, are simply the latest chapter in a long history of unfettered commercialization of the seas.

The story does not end with an empty ocean. Instead, Roberts describes how we might restore the splendor and prosperity of the seas through smarter management of our resources and some simple restraint. From the coasts of Florida to New Zealand, marine reserves have fostered spectacular recovery of plants and animals to levels not seen in a century. They prove that history need not repeat itself: we can leave the oceans richer than we found them.
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The Urban Whale
North Atlantic Right Whales at the Crossroads
Scott D. Kraus
Harvard University Press, 2010

In 1980 a group of scientists censusing marine mammals in the Bay of Fundy was astonished at the sight of 25 right whales. It was, one scientist later recalled, “like finding a brontosaurus in the backyard.” Until that time, scientists believed the North Atlantic right whale was extinct or nearly so. The sightings electrified the research community, spurring a quarter century of exploration, which is documented here.

The authors present our current knowledge about the biology and plight of right whales, including their reproduction, feeding, genetics, and endocrinology, as well as fatal run-ins with ships and fishing gear. Employing individual identifications, acoustics, and population models, Scott Kraus, Rosalind Rolland, and their colleagues present a vivid history of this animal, from a once commercially hunted commodity to today’s life-threatening challenges of urban waters.

Hunted for nearly a millennium, right whales are now being killed by the ocean commerce that supports our modern way of life. This book offers hope for the eventual salvation of this great whale.

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Vaquita
Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez
Brooke Bessesen
Island Press, 2018
"Intrepid conservation detective story." —Nature

"A lucid, informed, and gripping account...a must-read." —Science

"Passionate...a heartfelt and alarming tale." —Publishers Weekly


"Gripping...a well-told and moving tale of environmentalism and conservation." —Kirkus

"Compelling." —Library Journal 

In 2006, vaquita, a diminutive porpoise making its home in the Upper Gulf of California, inherited the dubious title of world’s most endangered marine mammal. Nicknamed “panda of the sea” for their small size and beguiling facial markings, vaquitas have been in decline for decades, dying by the hundreds in gillnets intended for commercially valuable fish, as well as for an endangered fish called totoaba. When international crime cartels discovered a lucrative trade in the swim bladders of totoaba, illegal gillnetting went rampant, and now the lives of the few remaining vaquitas hang in the balance.

Author Brooke Bessesen takes us on a journey to Mexico’s Upper Gulf region to uncover the story. She interviewed townspeople, fishermen, scientists, and activists, teasing apart a complex story filled with villains and heroes, a story whose outcome is unclear. When diplomatic and political efforts to save the little porpoise failed, Bessesen followed a team of veterinary experts in a binational effort to capture the last remaining vaquitas and breed them in captivity—the best hope for their survival. In this fast-paced, soul-searing tale, she learned that there are no easy answers when extinction is profitable.

Whether the rescue attempt succeeds or fails, the world must ask itself hard questions. When vaquita and the totoaba are gone, the black market will turn to the next vulnerable species. What will we do then?
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We Are All Whalers
The Plight of Whales and Our Responsibility
Michael J. Moore
University of Chicago Press, 2021

Relating his experiences caring for endangered whales, a veterinarian and marine scientist shows we can all share in the salvation of these imperiled animals.

The image most of us have of whalers includes harpoons and intentional trauma. Yet eating commercially caught seafood leads to whales’ entanglement and slow death in rope and nets, and the global shipping routes that bring us readily available goods often lead to death by collision. We—all of us—are whalers, marine scientist and veterinarian Michael J. Moore contends. But we do not have to be.

Drawing on over forty years of fieldwork with humpback, pilot, fin, and, in particular, North Atlantic right whales—a species whose population has declined more than 20 percent since 2017—Moore takes us with him as he performs whale necropsies on animals stranded on beaches, in his independent research alongside whalers using explosive harpoons, and as he tracks injured whales to deliver sedatives. The whales’ plight is a complex, confounding, and disturbing one. We learn of existing but poorly enforced conservation laws and of perennial (and often failed) efforts to balance the push for fisheries profit versus the protection of endangered species caught by accident.

But despite these challenges, Moore’s tale is an optimistic one. He shows us how technologies for ropeless fishing and the acoustic tracking of whale migrations make a dramatic difference. And he looks ahead with hope as our growing understanding of these extraordinary creatures fuels an ever-stronger drive for change.

For more information on Moore’s book and research, please visit his webpage at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

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The Whale and His Captors; or, The Whaleman's Adventures
Henry T. Cheever
University Press of New England, 2018
The Whale and His Captors is an important firsthand account of the golden age of American whaling, chronicling both its lore and science as practiced from the inception of the fishery to the mid-1800s. Late in the composition of Moby-Dick, Herman Melville found inspiration in Cheever and his writings that would provide the final flourishes for one of America’s classic novels. After exhausting other whaling sources—Beale, Scoresby, Bennett, and Browne—Melville turned to Cheever for chapter titles and organization as well as passages that helped shape, define, and elucidate his great work. This is the first scholarly edition of The Whale and His Captors, accompanied by an introduction and apparatus that clearly elucidates Cheever’s treatise on whaling and demonstrates how his writings contributed both to the course of American literature and to our burgeoning understanding of literature’s engagement with the natural world.
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Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises
A Natural History and Species Guide
Edited by Annalisa Berta
University of Chicago Press, 2015
The eighty-nine cetacean species that swim our seas and rivers are as diverse as they are intelligent and elusive, from the hundred-foot-long, two-hundred-ton blue whale to the lesser-known tucuxi, ginkgo-toothed beaked whale, and diminutive, critically endangered vaquita. The huge distances these highly migratory creatures cover and the depths they dive mean we catch only the merest glimpses of their lives as they break the surface of the water. But thanks to the marriage of science and technology, we are now beginning to understand their anatomy, complex social structures, extraordinary communication abilities, and behavioral patterns. In this beautifully illustrated guide, renowned marine mammalogist Annalisa Berta draws on the contributions of a pod of fellow whale biologists to present the most comprehensive, authoritative overview ever published of these remarkable aquatic mammals.

Opening with an accessible rundown of cetacean biology—including the most recent science on feeding, mating, and communication—Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises then presents species-specific natural history on a range of topics, from anatomy and diet to distribution and conservation status. Each entry also includes original drawings of the species and its key identifiers, such as fin shape and color, tooth shape, and characteristic markings as they would appear both above and below water—a feature unique to this book.

Figures of myth and—as the debate over hunting rages on—figures of conflict since long before the days of Moby-Dick, whales, dolphins, and porpoises are also ecologically important and, in many cases, threatened. Written for general enthusiasts, emergent cetacean fans, and biologists alike, this stunning, urgently needed book will serve as the definitive guide for years to come.
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The Whaling Season
An Inside Account Of The Struggle To Stop Commercial Whaling
Kieran Mulvaney
Island Press, 2003

Despite a decades-long international moratorium on commercial whaling, one fleet has continued to hunt and kill whales in the waters surrounding Antarctica. Refusing to let this defiance go unchallenged, the environmental organization Greenpeace began dispatching expeditions to the region in an effort to intercept the whalers and use nonviolent means to stop their lethal practice.

Over the past decade, Kieran Mulvaney led four such expeditions as a campaigner and coordinator. In The Whaling Season, he recounts those voyages in all their drama, disappointments, strain, and elation, giving readers a behind-the-scenes look at the hazards and triumphs of life as an environmental activist on the high seas. The author also explores the larger struggles underlying the expeditions, drawing on the history of commercial whaling and Antarctic exploration, the development of Greenpeace, and broader scientific and political efforts to conserve marine life. He presents a rich portrait of the current struggles and makes an impassioned plea for protection of some of the world’s most spectacular creatures.

For armchair adventurers, polar enthusiasts, and anyone concerned about marine conservation and continued hunting of the world’s whales, The Whaling Season is an engrossing and informative tale of adventure set in one of the Earth’s last great wilderness areas.


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