On August 8, 1970, the Southern Resident orcas of Puget Sound were herded into Penn Cove on Whidbey Island by explosives, spotter planes and speedboats in a coordinated effort to capture seven young whales. Between 1964 and 1976, dozens of these now-endangered orcas were torn from their home and sent to marine parks around the globe. Just over a decade later, all but one had died. This lone survivor is Tokitae, also known as Lolita, and she's spent most of her life performing at the Miami ...

A look at the history of the commercial capturing of orcas in Washington's Puget Sound, the whales taken, and the efforts to save them.In November, 2005, Washington's iconic killer whales, known as Southern Resident orcas, were placed on the endangered species list. It was a victory long overdue for a fragile population of fewer than one hundred whales. Author and certified marine naturalist Sandra Pollard traces the story and destinies of the many Southern Resident...

"Hoyt's passionate sense of kinship with orca makes his account effective as both a science and literature. He has chronicled his adventures and discoveries ...with grace, insight, wit--and a comprehensiveness that might satisfy even Herman Melville."(Discover Magazine)Star performers in aquariums and marine parks, killer whales were once considered to be too dangerous to approach in the wild. Erich Hoyt and his colleagues spent seven summ...

*Now a New York Times Best Seller*Over the course of two decades, John Hargrove worked with 20 different whales on two continents and at two of SeaWorld's U.S. facilities. For Hargrove, becoming an orca trainer fulfilled a childhood dream. However, as his experience with the whales deepened, Hargrove came to doubt that their needs could ever be met in captivity. When two fellow trainers were killed by orcas in marine parks, Hargrove decided that SeaWorld's...

Learn all about dolphins with this beautifully illustrated book! Professional photos will delight your child as he or she finds out about dolphins and dolphin babies, including:* What dolphins eat* How dolphins play and trick their trainers* How dolphins talk* What puts dolphins in danger* How dolphins and humans help each otherThis book is designed to take about 15 minutes for a child to read, and is engaging for both child and parent alike.

****“Science Friday” Summer Reading Pick****Discover magazine Top 5 Summer Reads****People magazine Best Summer Reads**“A lovely, big-hearted book…brimming with compassion and the tales of the many, many humans who devote their days to making animals well” (The New York Times).**Have you ever wondered if your dog might be a bit depressed? How about heartbroken or homesick? Animal Madness takes these questions seriously, expl...

I pull on my balaclava and step onto the bridge wing. It’s loud outside: I can hear the rumbles of nine vessels’ engines and the hiss of ten water cannons … Suddenly the bridge is full of refugees from the upper deck. They are blocking my view out the back windows, but their faces – afraid, excited, awestruck – illustrate the looming presence of the Nisshin. I bend my knees and grip the bench, ready for the crunch.In Blood and Guts, Sam Vincent plunges into the wh...

Sharks are intriguing and beautiful creatures - but they can also be deadly. As we humans have explored the world's oceans and exploited them for tourism and recreation, we have found ourselves coming into contact with more and more sharks. And the outcome can be fatal. From the Seychelles to South Africa, and Australia to North America, tourists, divers and surfers have seemingly found themselves under increased threat from unprovoked shark attacks. Fatal attacks have occurred in location...

Children of all ages love picture books. With bright colors and appealing pictures children are usually drawn to them and they're often the first type of book they can relate to before reading words. Seeing pictures of animals are fun for children as they are some of the first things they learn to recognize. Children learn to relate an animal with the sounds they make. A big book of animal pictures engages children with familiar images and helps them begin to recognize the concept of readi...

An "exciting" true account of battling the elephant poachers of Zambia by the author of Where the Crawdads Sing and her fellow biologist ( The Boston Globe).Intelligent, majestic, and loyal, with lifespans matching our own, elephants are among the greatest of the wonders gracing the African wilds. Yet, in the 1970s and 1980s, about a thousand of these captivating creatures were slaughtered in Zambia each year, killed for their va...

The "powerful and haunting" biography of a star circus elephant who rebelled against her handlers and finally found freedom (Jane Goodall).Against the backdrop of a glittering but brutal circus world, Last Chain on Billie charts the history of elephants in America, the inspiring story of Tennessee's Elephant Sanctuary, and the spellbinding tale of a resilient elephant who survived a decade of captivity.Left in the wild, Billie the elephant would have...

The fascinating and heartbreaking account of the first publicly exhibited captive killer whale - a story that forever changed the way we see orcas and sparked the movement to save them.Killer whales had always been seen as bloodthirsty sea monsters. That all changed when a young killer whale was captured off the west coast of North America and displayed to the public in 1964. Moby Doll - as the whale became known - was an instant celebrity, drawing 20,000 visitors ...