EBOOK
About
The blue whale holds the title of largest creature that has ever lived, and it may also be the most mysterious. The biggest blue whales can outweigh every player in Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League combined. Their mouths can gulp more than thirteen thousand gallons of seawater. A newborn can be over twenty feet long and gain nearly twenty tons in seven months-about eight pounds per hour. Blue whales emit more powerful sounds than any other animal on earth, though many of their vocalizations are beyond the range of human hearing.
Yet nearly everything that we have learned about blue whales has come after humans almost wiped them out from the oceans. A century ago, some three hundred thousand roamed the seas. But in the first decades of the twentieth century, humans hunted and killed 99.9% of them. Their numbers decimated, the species seemed destined for extinction. Only in recent years has the number slowly begun to increase, along with hope for the blue whale's future.
Equal parts history and science, Wild Blue is the first comprehensive portrait of the blue whale. It draws upon new findings from scientists who have begun to identify individual blue whales and understand how they dive, how they feed, where they migrate, and why they emit their haunting, low-frequency calls. With deft, poignant writing, Dan Bortolotti gives us the most vibrant, breathtaking view to date of these magnificent creatures.
Yet nearly everything that we have learned about blue whales has come after humans almost wiped them out from the oceans. A century ago, some three hundred thousand roamed the seas. But in the first decades of the twentieth century, humans hunted and killed 99.9% of them. Their numbers decimated, the species seemed destined for extinction. Only in recent years has the number slowly begun to increase, along with hope for the blue whale's future.
Equal parts history and science, Wild Blue is the first comprehensive portrait of the blue whale. It draws upon new findings from scientists who have begun to identify individual blue whales and understand how they dive, how they feed, where they migrate, and why they emit their haunting, low-frequency calls. With deft, poignant writing, Dan Bortolotti gives us the most vibrant, breathtaking view to date of these magnificent creatures.
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Reviews
"A fascinating account of the history as well as the enduring mysteries of one of the world's most amazing creatures."
Eric Jay Dolin
"Most whale books turn into sagas. It's the nature of the beast. One could hardly expect anything less from a book on the great blue whale. Dan Bortolotti turns his considerable journalistic skills to chronicling the blue whale saga. Spellbinding superlatives abound. Written with authority, insight, and compassion, Wild Blue reveals for the first time the big picture on the blue whale story."
Erich Hoyt, author of Creatures of the Deep
"I have always been a stickler for accuracy, and I am delighted to report that Dan Bortolotti got everything right; from the inner workings of the largest of all cetaceans to the history of international whaling, where one of the goals appeared to be the elimination of the blue whale from the world's oceans. Wild Blue is not only about the awesome capabilities of this magnificent creature, it is also an important history of animal killing for profit and a reflection on the future of wild animals in a world dominated by man."
Richard Ellis, author of The Book of Whales and Men and Whales