Spying on Whales: The Past, Present and Future of the World’s Largest Animals. Nick Pyenson
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William Collins
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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2018
Copyright © 2018 by Smithsonian Institution
Illustrations © 2017 Alex Boersma
Cover illustrations by Alex Boersma
First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC in 2018 as Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth’s Most Awesome Creatures
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9780008244460
Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9780008244484
Version: 2018-06-04
Every author writes with a very specific reader in mind.
I wrote this book for you.
And for my family.
What have we been doing all these centuries but trying to call God back to the mountain, or, failing that, raise a peep out of anything that isn’t us? What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are not they both saying: Hello? We spy on whales and on interstellar radio objects; we starve ourselves and pray till we’re blue.
—Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk
For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
—Henry Beston, The Outermost House
Contents
Dedication
4. Time Travel on the Fossil Whale Highway
7. Cracking the Case of Cerro Ballena
10. A Discovery at Hvalfjörður
11. Physics and Flensing Knives
12. The Limits of Living Things
15. All the Ways to Go Extinct