Combining presentations of both long-extinct as presently living species, Prof. Annalisa Berta’s new book “Sea Mammals; The Past and Present Lives of Our Oceans’ Cornerstone Species” provides her readers with a rich understanding of how, where, and at times even why these obligate air breathing creatures have come to spend their entire – or at least a significant part of their – lives in the planets seas.
The number of books encompassed by the many natural history series published by Reaktion Books and distributed by University of Chicago Press is truly impressive. From Animal and Botanical through Kosmos and Earth, scores upon scores of volumes (Animal alone, by my count, presently contains ninety-nine books) take up a wide range of topics that will keep an interested naturalist reading for years.
While many may likely most readily recognize Rachel Carson as the author of “Silent Spring,” the 1962 environmental science book that successfully reached a wide reading audience and opened the eyes of millions to the risks of indiscriminate overuse of pesticides, it was as a marine biologist that she began her writing career and became a popularly read author.
I fell head-over-field-kit in love with the Salish Sea the first time I set eyes upon it, and each return visit has only served to deepen and enrich my affections for it. Naturally, whenever I’m given the chance, I revel in walking along its shores, both to admire its beauty as well as to seek-out some of the fascinating forms of life it holds within its waters, made visible to land-bound observers in its coastal tide pools (as well as in the superb educational displays of such visit-worthy institutions as the Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea).