Voices in the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins

by Susan Casey

Overview

A New York Times Bestseller

Inspired by a profound experience swimming with wild dolphins off the coast of Maui, Susan Casey set out on a quest to learn everything she could about these creatures. Her journey takes her from a community in Hawaii known as “Dolphinville,” where the animals are seen as the key to spiritual enlightenment, to the dark side of the human-cetacean relationship at marine parks and dolphin-hunting grounds in Japan and the Solomon Islands, to the island of Crete, where the Minoan civilization lived in harmony with dolphins, providing a millennia-old example of a more enlightened coexistence with the natural world.
 
Along the way, Casey recounts the history of dolphin research and introduces us to the leading marine scientists and activists who have made it their life’s work to increase humans’ understanding and appreciation of the wonder of dolphins—the other intelligent life on the planet.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780345804846
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/28/2016
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	317,578
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Susan Casey, author of New York Times bestsellers The Wave and The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks, is the former editor in chief of O, The Oprah Magazine. She is a National Magazine Award-winning journalist whose work has been featured in the Best American Science and Nature Writing, Best American Sports Writing, and Best American Magazine Writing anthologies; and has appeared in Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Outside, and National Geographic. Casey lives in Maui.

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Prologue
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Excerpted from "Voices in the Ocean"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Susan Casey.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

A Note on Dolphin Species xiii

Prologue: Honolua 1

Chapter 1 The Meaning of Water 17

Chapter 2 Babies in the Universe 40

Chapter 3 Clappy, Clappy! 66

Chapter 4 The Friendlies 92

Chapter 5 Welcome to Taiji 116

Chapter 6 A Sense of Self 154

Chapter 7 High Frequency 176

Chapter 8 The World's End 207

Chapter 9 Greetings from Hawaii: We're Having a Blast! 250

Chapter 10 Change of Heart 282

Chapter 11 Thera 308

Acknowledgments 335

Notes 339

Selected Bibliography 361

Photography Credits 367

Editorial Reviews

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Part science, part memoir, part impassioned plea for change, [Voices in the Ocean] fascinates.” ―People 

“Painstakingly researched and gorgeously written. . . . Casey transports us through the many truths and myths about dolphins.” —USA Today
 
“Casey skillfully weaves global adventure travelogues, first-person reportage and deep archival research. She exhibits a flair for peppering her tales with complex scientific concepts but keeps them accessible for consumption by a broader audience without losing the narrative arc or momentum.” —The Miami Herald

“A meticulously reported global odyssey. . . . [Casey] has an inexhaustible curiosity and a knack for fully embracing her subject.” —Outside Magazine

“A reminder of the unique and complicated bond humans feel with these animals. . . . Casey's moving writing left me with some hope for a better future for dolphins and humans.”
     —Mary Bates, Slate

“What starts out as a feel-good, new-agey account darkens like the sunlight diminishing in the deep, subtly turning into a devastating chronicle of one of the most egregious mismatches in natural-human history. The result is a brilliantly written and passionate book. . . . timely and urgent.”
     —The Guardian (London)

“A passionate and richly readable account of dolphins—their world, their behaviors, and the humans whose lives revolve around studying them. . . . Fascinating and cautiously joyous . . . a book any lover of nature should read.”
     —Open Letters Monthly

“[A] blend of mystic wonder with scientific awe and downright dangerous environmental confrontations.”
     —InStyle

“[Casey] embarks an investigation into the world of dolphins, impressing the reader with her curiosity and thrilling sense of discovery as she travels the world to learn about these unique creatures.”
     —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

07/13/2015
After a chance encounter with a pod of wild spinner dolphins while swimming in Honolua Bay, Casey (The Wave) finds herself unable to shake dolphins from her mind. She embarks an investigation into the world of dolphins, impressing the reader with her curiosity and thrilling sense of discovery as she travels the world to learn about these unique creatures. She describes early research into the brain science of dolphins, a highly intelligent species, beginning with Dr. John Lilly in the early 1950s, and traces the origins of dolphin captivity and showcasing, which date back to the circus showman P.T. Barnum in 1861. She also explores the cultural significance of dolphins in different cultures, such as the members of the Chumash nation, California’s earliest inhabitants, who considered dolphins to be their direct relatives. But the most compelling aspect of the book is Casey’s investigation of the current plight of dolphins—faced with captivity; the now infamous dolphin hunt in Taiji, Japan; and the seriously ruined state of the world’s oceans, for example—and the people working to effect change to protect and save them. Casey’s book comes as a welcome addition on a topic also explored in the recent documentaries The Cove and Blackfish. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

08/01/2015
Journalist and author Casey, who has written previous books on marine topics (Devil's Teeth), explores evidence of a unique bond between humans and dolphins throughout history. The art and legends of ancient civilizations, such as the Minoans and Greeks as well as native American peoples, depict dolphins helping humans. Prior to the 2004 Indonesian tsunami a pod of dolphins prevented a group of sightseeing boats from heading to shore and ushered them back to safety. Swimmers and surfers in Hawaii and California have reported that dolphins saved them from shark attacks. Casey admires the animals' x-ray vision, echolocation skills, high-frequency communication, sociability, and swimming speed and laments that they have been harmed by marine pollution and overfishing, which reduces their food supply. The author made contact with marine mammal conservation groups and traveled to parks in Hawaii, the Dominican Republic, Japan, and Canada in which dolphins are kept in captivity under harmful conditions. A list of scientific and environmental groups and their websites are included. Photos not seen. VERDICT This book does not provide scientific background as does Justin Gregg's Are Dolphins Really that Smart? but will interest general and YA readers, as well as nature lovers, who will lose their eagerness to visit dolphin shows and may be motivated toward further reading on the subject.—Judith B. Barnett, Univ. of Rhode Island Lib., Kingston

Library Journal

2015-07-08
Former O, the Oprah Magazine editor-in-chief Casey (The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean, 2010, etc.) takes the measure of the human-dolphin dance. For hundreds of years, dolphins have been bestowed mythological and cultural significance, been the object of both good and bad scientific study, and been written about countless times. Why? The author gives the reason up front: they are playful, social, and intelligent. They are like us—some of us, anyway, and as Casey learns, only some dolphins as well. The author spins her wheels trying to drive home that unique interface, and some readers may roll their eyes when she waxes poetic on the animal's profundity or how "they enfolded me into their gathering." She nails it, however, when she discusses the shattering loss of her father, the subsequent depression, and the liberating exultation in "how ridiculously fun it was to just cruise along with them." From there, the author runs through her experiences on her dolphin quest, from the classic scientific studies of Roger Payne to their totemic importance to the Pacific Northwest to their wild ride on TV: "After the Flipper movie grossed $8 million in 1963, the dolphin, a kind of aquatic house pet on steroids, was given his own TV show….The show's plots were cartoonish and fantastical but they struck a booming chord." Casey also delves into the miseries of dolphin factory farming and how other scientists have come close to realizing John Lilly's conviction "that the dolphin in the tank is not a what but a who." The most moving section of the book follows the author's visit to Crete, where she viewed the ancient frescoes and mosaics (some underwater) of dolphins, demonstrating their significance across ages. "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine," said astrophysicist Arthur Eddington. "It is stranger than we can imagine." That sublime wildness is exactly what Casey, ever the adventurer, reveals in this flawed but still entertaining book.

Kirkus Reviews