The Urban Whale: North Atlantic Right Whales at the Crossroads

by Kraus, Scott D.

• ISBN13: 9780674023277
• ISBN10: 0674023277
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-02-15
• Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

Right whales in the urban ocean	p. 1
Near-annihilation of a species : right whaling in the North Atlantic	p. 39
Right whales tell their own stories : the photo-identification catalog	p. 75
Surveying for discovery, science, and management	p. 105
Enormous carnivores, microscopic food, and a restaurant that's hard to find	p. 138
High investment, low return : the strange case of reproduction in Eubalaena glacialis	p. 172
Right whales past and present as revealed by their genes	p. 200
The inner whale : hormones, biotoxins, and parasites	p. 232
External perspectives on right whale health	p. 273
Acoustic communication : social sounds and the potential impacts of noise	p. 310
Listening to their world : acoustics for monitoring and protecting right whales in an urbanized ocean	p. 333
Right whale mortality : a message from the dead to the living	p. 358
The entangled lives of right whales and fishermen : can they coexist?	p. 380
Running the gauntlet : right whales and vessel strikes	p. 409
Right whales and climate change : facing the prospect of a greenhouse future	p. 436
The big picture : modeling right whales in space and time	p. 460
The urban whale syndrome	p. 488
Permit Information	p. 514
Opportunistic Contributors to the right whale catalog	p. 516
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.