New Publications

Delfinarios is finally in print, and CSI has one of the first copies! This landmark book is a devastating review of Mexico's dolphin display industry, detailing the captures, suffering, and death of hundreds of dolphins, the ugly realities of almost all of Mexico's display facilities, the truth behind Dolphin Assisted Therapy and Swim-With programs, and the decades of battles to make and enforce meaningful laws. This book shows what the government couldn't find out, or lacked the will to fix. Dr. Alaniz is more than the coauthor; she is responsible for many of Mexico's new environmental laws, for example prohibiting cetacean captures, exports and imports. A medical doctor and authority on ethics, her extremely impressive resume doesn't do justice to her influence and significance. As a typical and ongoing example of her tireless work, six illegally captured dolphins were released in June, the first such release in Mexico's history. About the same time she was speaking to the UN Plenary on ocean noise and the Law of the Sea!

Delfinarios is unmatched by any other book on dolphin captivity. It will provoke similar exposés in other countries, and form the basis of a revitalized effort to alert tourists and tour companies to the true price of buying a ticket to see the show. But this book, or at least portions, needs to be translated into English. If you know anyone willing to help CSI and COMARINO with this task please contact CSI. Alaniz, Yolanda and Rojas, Laura, Delfinarios 2007, AGT Editor, COMARINO. Mexico.D.F. (Spanish, no price available).

Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America reads differently to a whale lover, and that's its value. As a fresh chronicle of the historical perspective about killing whales, it drives home the adage that those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it, as today's short-sighted societies show by continuing to exhaust resources. Had the New England whaling ships been faster and better equipped they might have wiped out their prey before the modern era had its turn. In a backhanded way the book's a plea for conservation and common sense.

Leviathan is rich in anecdotes and facts, some new, with notes and references taking almost 100 pages. It brings to life the people and times that empowered and shaped the future of our nation, but oddly, given the modern view, does not seem to give non-whites their due. Native Americans, blacks, Cape Verdeans, and many more were very real people bringing their culture and traditions to the craft. They suffered more than they profited as well, but who were they?

It is tough to read about trying to make the killing more efficient, aware as we are that all whales suffer such deaths greatly. Today's killing is just as inhumane as ever. It is enlightening to see the perspective of science then, focused on the killing, where today we are more interested in how to keep the creatures alive. One photograph shows a sperm whale's "case" being brought aboard, to them a fortune in very special oil, to us the acoustical lens in the most sophisticated sound-producing organ that has ever existed.

Leviathan ends with what many at the time thought was the end of the whaling era, with the final voyage of one of the last of the sail-driven whalers, the Wanderer out of New Bedford. She was sermoned out of port in 1924 to the 26th verse of the 104th Psalm: "There go the ships; There is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to play therin". By dawn she had been driven ashore by strong winds just miles from port, and was savaged by the sea and scavengers. You know, to a whale lover that's not such a bad ending! But as well it could be a portent of events like the recent near-disastrous fire aboard the Japanese whaler in Antarctica. W.W. Norton & Co; July 2007; $27.95 cloth.

CSI would like to draw your attention to an excellent article in the July/August issue of Natural History magazine: How Now, Little Cow? "The vaquita, the world's smallest porpoise, lives only in the Northern Gulf of California. It often drowns in fishing nets as bycatch, and just 200 individuals remain. Can the species survive?" The article, written by Robert Pitman and Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho, is available on Natural History magazine's web site: http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/index_feature2.html