Listening to Whales: What the Orcas Have Taught Us FROM THE PUBLISHER
"For the past twenty-five years, Alexandra Morton has been at the forefront of whale and dolphin research, dedicating her life to the study of orcas (also known as killer whales). Now in Listening to Whales, Morton shares the story of her career, her adventures in the wilderness, the heartbreak she has endured, and the rewards of living her life on her own terms." "Born into an artistic family in Connecticut, Morton experienced a seismic jolt when at age twelve she first read the work of primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall and knew she wanted to study wild animals. Soon afterward, listening for the first time to orcas communicating with each other, she knew she had found her lifework. In the late 1970s, while working at California's Marineland, Alexandra pioneered the recording of whale sounds by dropping a hydrophone into the tank of two killer whales. She recorded the varied language of mating, childbirth, and even grief after the birth of a stillborn calf. At the same time she made the startling observation that the whales were inventing and perfecting wonderful synchronized movements, a behavior that was soon recognized as a defining characteristic of orca society." At once an inspiring story of a woman's determination to live her life on her own terms and a fascinating study of the profound communion between humans and whales, this book will open your eyes anew to the wonders of the natural world.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Orca researcher Morton describes her more than 20 years studying the movements and sounds of orcas, the mammals, actually dolphins, commonly known as killer whales, or, regionally, blackfish. After getting her ears wet cataloguing the recordings John Lilly (the author of Man and Dolphin) made of his controversial language experiments with dolphins, Morton turned her own hydrophone on the captive orca pair Orky and Corky, at the now closed Marineland of the Pacific in Palos Verde, Calif. Inspired by Jane Goodall as an important but rare model, she soon decided to find wild orcas to record launching her lifelong study of the animals in the coastal waters of British Columbia. She has faced down the inherent difficulty of finding the elusive creatures she studies, the periodic economic uncertainty of life in a remote place and the death of her husband in a diving accident. Throughout her warm, energetic memoir, she relates her work to the strides made by other marine biologists, consistently balancing her open curiosity about the vagaries of mother nature with solid scientific inquiry. In later chapters, her focus turns to the impact of salmon farms on the coastal ecosystem. Morton's rich descriptions of individual orca movements, and how each relates to the species as a whole, course alongside her passionate defense of the ecological balance of the region; she infuses both with just the right amount of personal reflection to make this an engaging tale of a woman's commitment to science and a life well lived. (May) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
KLIATT - Katherine Gillen
When Alexandra Morton was a young girl growing up in Connecticut she became fascinated with snakes and life at a frog pond and preferred watching the flight of a monarch butterfly instead of the actions of a ball game. She was hooked early on observing and trying to understand the natural world. This desire for knowledge led her first to work with the seminal dolphin researcher John Lilly, then to an early Marineland and finally to British Columbia, where Morton encountered the whale pod relatives of one of the orcas held captive back in California. Like other memoirs that deal with working with whales, Listening to Whales has moments both amazing and poignant when we have to wonder just how intelligent whales and dolphins are. "Paul...began piping down a sweet melody from Johann Sebastian Bach. Top Notch stopped dead in the water...[and] the whale gently sculled closer to the boat. He floated peacefully as Paul played. I held my breath...It was a rare moment of contact, a peaceful act shared by whale and human alike. When the song was over, Top Notch let loose a long sweeping call, exhaled and vanished without a trace." (p. 94) Morton's story, however, is more personal and readable than many other titles. Her focus is totally on the moment and on the whales. Her listening and recording gear is quickly pulled out in any instance, reaching desperately to communicate with another species. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2002, Random House, Ballantine, 309p. illus., Ages 15 to adult.
Library Journal
Morton has spent nearly 20 years studying the language and behavior of the orcas, or killer whales, that roam the waters of British Columbia. The author of two children's books on whales, she is a field scientist in the tradition of Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey. Although she does not possess an academic degree in science, she writes eloquently of the orcas' social groupings, strong mother-child bonds, migration patterns, and interactions with humans. Morton also graphically describes the effects of fish farming, logging, development, and whale-watching expeditions on the environment. Her book is primarily of value as an autobiographical document of a determined and highly self-motivated woman rather than a work of scientific popularization like Serge Dedina's Saving the Gray Whale or Dick Russell's Eye of the Whale. Readers will be impressed by the physical hardships of field work, the moving account of the death of her marine photographer husband in a diving mishap, and her stories of rearing her children on shipboard and in an isolated coastal community. Suitable for all public libraries. Judith B. Barnett, Pell Marine Science Lib., Univ. of Rhode Island, Kingston Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Marine mammal researcher Morton, who's been on the hydrophone listening closely to dolphins and killer whales for 25 years, reports on her work and life among the orcas thus far. Morton's association with marine mammals began under the guidance of John Lilly, perhaps best known for his dabbling with LSD, though he was also a pioneering, unconventional scientist working with dolphins. Those days not only fired within her a desire to pursue marine mammal vocalization studies, but it also opened doors to the insular world of cetacean research, a field in which Morton has no advanced degree and as such is often branded an untouchable. She worked in California with captive creatures, concentrating on the correlation between sounds and behavior, before realizing that her interests lay in work with wild animals: it was more vigorous, certainly; it also soothed her conscience, for she had begun to appreciate captivity to be a dreadful state for an orca. In plainspoken prose, Morton relates her work afield, eventually moving to Canada and concentrating on differentiation between transient and resident populations of orcas. She writes of her personal life with unembroidered ease as well, which is extremely powerful when telling the story of the death of her husband and co-worker Robin, who drowned. The tone is equally effective when spinning out less traumatic anecdotes, as when she and her husband-running through bad weather in their skiff, their cameras being kept dry in big green garbage bags-are targeted by the Mounties as drug-runners. Her concern for the orcas' welfare leads her to investigate pollution of their habitat and in particular the degradation of their food source, part of which isidentified as the damage done to wild stocks of salmon by the penned salmon of aquaculturists, the old bugbear of wild vs. captive rearing its head once more. A work in progress, but remarkably diverting if even so short a distance down Morton's road. Author tour
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