The Urban Whale
eBook - PDF

The Urban Whale

North Atlantic Right Whales at the Crossroads

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Urban Whale

North Atlantic Right Whales at the Crossroads

About this book

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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Yes, you can access The Urban Whale by Scott D. Kraus, Rosalind M. Rolland, Scott D. Kraus,Rosalind M. Rolland in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Biological Sciences & Marine Biology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Preface
  7. List of Marine Species
  8. Abbreviations
  9. 1. Right Whales in the Urban Ocean
  10. 2. Near-Annihilation of a Species: Right Whaling in the North Atlantic
  11. 3. Right Whales Tell Their Own Stories: The Photo-Identification Catalog
  12. 4. Surveying for Discovery, Science, and Management
  13. 5. Enormous Carnivores, Microscopic Food, and a Restaurant That’s Hard to Find
  14. 6. High Investment, Low Return: The Strange Case of Reproduction in Eubalaena glacialis
  15. 7. Right Whales Past and Present as Revealed by Their Genes
  16. 8. The Inner Whale: Hormones, Biotoxins, and Parasites
  17. 9. External Perspectives on Right Whale Health
  18. 10. Acoustic Communication: Social Sounds and the Potential Impacts of Noise
  19. 11. Listening to Their World: Acoustics for Monitoring and Protecting Right Whales in an Urbanized Ocean
  20. 12. Right Whale Mortality: A Message from the Dead to the Living
  21. 13. The Entangled Lives of Right Whales and Fishermen: Can They Coexist?
  22. 14. Running the Gauntlet: Right Whales and Vessel Strikes
  23. 15. Right Whales and Climate Change: Facing the Prospect of a Greenhouse Future
  24. 16. The Big Picture: Modeling Right Whales in Space and Time
  25. 17. The Urban Whale Syndrome
  26. Appendix A: Permit Information
  27. Appendix B: Opportunistic Contributors to the Right Whale Catalog
  28. Appendix C: Other Resources
  29. Acknowledgments
  30. Contributors
  31. Index