Deciphering whalespeak
Alexandra Morton joins the pantheon of passionate female field biologists who have helped us understand the worlds of intelligent social mammals.
Her account of 25 years of researching wild and captive orcas -- killer whales of the North Pacific -- assures these leviathans a place in natural history alongside Jane Goodall’s warring chimps, Dian Fossey’s gorillas and Cynthia Moss’ East African elephants.
From the moment in the late 1970s when she dropped a hydrophone into a tank at Marineland to record the sounds of two captive orcas, Morton was hooked on whales.
She moved to remote British Columbia to try to decipher the complex echolocation system of how wild whales communicate.
Her tales are spellbinding; meticulous science interwoven with eloquent personal reflections.
Themes of birth, death, discovery and danger culminate in Morton’s fierce face-off with the encroachments of corporate salmon farming.
An inspiring, cautionary spy hole into a magical, underwater world.
-- Susan Dworski
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