Listening to Whales: What the Orcas Have Taught Us

Alexandra Morton writes with both her head and her heart. I read about her in a magazine and checked her book out from the library. I have purchased 5 copies to give at Christmas, knowing without a doubt that each recipient will love her story and appreciate what they will have learned. Well written with scientific knowledge embedded in a wonderful life story.

I am very moved by the love, the courage and the discipline of Alexandra Morton. She is a paragon of free spirits, living out the dream many of us only fantasize but dare not pursue--living on a boat to follow the whales on waves. Not only she portrays the fascinating orcas with delightful insights, she also writes about her later romance and boat-life with her documentary husband Robin and their baby on the boat. It's beautiful and loving account, which makes his later accident even more sorrowful and tragic, not just for her but for all of us and whales too. From this book you will be absorbed by the orcas' ways of communication and intelligence, as well as the life on the Vancouver waters and islands. After you read this book, you will look at those captured dolphines and whales and Seaworld or zoos very differently. Alexandra writes with clarity and love.

Alexandra Morton learns from listening to whales. It is surprising to think that only a few decades ago, no one had studied, much less made commercial recordings of, the voices of whales. Some, like the eccentric researcher John C. Lilly, had made much of the vocalizations of dolphins, but we knew a lot more about the animals who sang in the air where we could hear them. Morton has written about her scientific career in _Listening to Whales: What the Orcas Have Taught Us_ (Ballantine Books). There is a good deal of scientific information in it, often understated and certainly not with the sort of detail Morton must use in her papers. She can specify that orcas do not use a single sound to match a single behavior, for instance; it is the frequency of the sound that makes a difference, signaling tranquility or the need for a pod to change direction. Resident orcas, near the shore, could be vocal and splashy, because the fish on which they feed have not learned to listen for them. Transient orcas, traveling the seas and living on alert mammals that pay attention to sounds of danger, have evolved to be quieter and more stealthy.There's plenty of general science in the book, about how orcas fish, mate, socialize, and raise families. But Morton's volume is one in a series of an appealing subgenre of memoir, that of the woman scientist. She was a high school dropout because she wanted to do research on mice more than doing regular studies. She chanced upon a job with maverick dolphin investigator, John C. Lilly, and then went on to do sound studies on orcas in tanks at Marineland. In 1979, she began to listen to orcas in the wild, using hydrophones originally developed to track submarines. At that time, orcas were a mystery; how they socialized, where they wintered, even what they ate could only be guessed at. Morton helped provide her share of answers, especially those bearing on their language. She married a man who photographed orcas underwater; he was eyes and she was ears. They had a son, and some of Morton's most endearing words have to do with how, in an extreme environment and with research duties looming, she handled little Jarret. She had to deal with widowhood, and primitive conditions in a wild area, but she loved the work. Sadly, her whales were driven away from her home waters because of salmon farming, which Morton covers in the last part of a the book. Not only the whales have suffered.Morton is not a pessimist. Her book shines with hope for her whales and her planet, but she makes it clear that we are going to make mistakes in predicting how we can "control" nature. She has become an ecological advocate for her home territory, learning such useful techniques as bypassing local government and talking (via Internet) to an expert she can partner with to do research on the respective individual effects of salmon farming on her world. Her findings are getting easily published this way without delay or grant-seeking. Sh

After reading Alexandra Morton's new book, "Listening to Whales", I find myself more acutely aware of the wonder of the orca whale world and the fragility of the world's ecosystems. I feel absolute awe and admiration for the way she lives her life. This passionate telling of her life story is filled with poetic descriptions of our natural environment which make for a captivating and delightful read. This book renews one's appreciation of the beauty of this world we live in. Perhaps more inportantly, it is an illuminating and thought provoking reminder of the affects we humans have on the delicate balance of nature.

This is the autobiography (so far) of whale researcher Alexandra Morton who came to the remote Broughton Archipelago in 1984 to study orcas and was herself woven by nature into the warp and woof of that amazing place. While telling a fascinating story the book imparts a great deal of knowledge in so painless a manner that we hardly notice. We learn, for example, that there are three kinds of orcas: "residents," who eat mostly fish; "transients" who eat mostly seals and sea lions; and "offshores" who--nobody knows for sure--may well eat mostly sharks. Though whales, both captive and free, are the stars of this story, the real star is the Broughton itself with its myriad islands and channels, its sunny summer breezes and howling winter storms. With so few people living in the Broughton, the BC government pillages its islands with clearcuts, and both levels of government cooperate to pollute its waters with open netcage salmon farms. Courageous residents fight a running battle to protect the wild coast and wild fish they love from the blindness of bureaucrats and the greed of multinational corporations. This wonderful story, which is all true, will make you cry for the ocean, and at the same time renew your hope in the power of courageous people to change the world. If you have a kayak, go and paddle through the Broughton that Alexandra and her friends are fighting to save for us. You might even be able to help.