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Voices in the Ocean: From Susan Casey, the New York Times bestselling author of The Devil's Teeth and The Wave, a breathtaking look into the mysterious world of dolphins and their conflicted history with man.
Since the dawn of recorded history, humans have felt a kinship with the sleek and beautiful dolphin, an animal whose playfulness, sociability and intelligence seems like an aquatic mirror of mankind. In recent decades, scientists have discovered dolphins recognize themselves in reflections, count, feel despondent, adorn themselves, rescue each other (and humans), deduce, infer, form cliques, throw tantrums, gossip and scheme.
Several native peoples trace their lineage to dolphins. They are the stars of multi-million dollar aquatic theme parks, money which has fueled a sinister illicit trade as shown in the documentary Blackfish. The U.S. Navy has a secret program using dolphins as undersea soldiers. The theory that they are a superior, extraterrestrial species is popular among the new age fringe. They are the victims of brutal slaughters as depicted in the documentary The Cove. To swim with a dolphin is a transporting experience, an encounter with a being seemingly so like us, yet so alien.
No writer is better positioned to portray these magical creatures than Susan Casey, whose combination of personal reporting, intense scientific research, and evocative prose made The Wave and The Devil's Teeth contemporary classics of writing on the oceans. For two years Casey traveled the world, and has written a thrilling book about the other intelligent life on the planet.

Marine Wildlife of Puget Sound, the San Juans and the Straight of Georgia: The Inside Passage is alive and well and teeming with all manner of dolphins, whales, seals, and otter; loons, grebes, coots, and hawks; plus a scintillating variety of fishes, invertebrates, and seaweed. This 1,000-mile-long glacier-carved waterway stretches from Puget Sound in the south to the fjords of Juneau in Alaska, past strings of islands and coastal terrain that ranges from rocky beaches and tide pools to marshes and rainforests. The abundance of wildlife is magnificent, an unending joyous sensory experience of sight, sound, smell, and touch, there for the delectation of every kayaker, tide-pooler, birder, hiker, whale watcher, and casual passerby. The enjoyment can be increased, however, with Marine Wildlife from Puget Sound Through the Inside Passage. Without such a worthy guide, all you know is that you saw a bunch of birds, and you think some of them were ducks. You see birds in greater detail, however, when you're checking for the orange throat patch that distinguishes the double-crested cormorant from the pelagic or Brant's cormorant.

And as it goes for birds, so goes it for seals and sea lions, bread crumb sponges and boring sponges, and a vast array of fishes, from soles and sculpins to greenlings and poachers. The black-and-white illustrations and short but precise descriptions provided by Steve Yates are helpful in distinguishing anemones (brooding, green, plumed, and elegant), jellyfishes (lion's mane and moon jelly), flatworms and lugworms, spaghetti worms and tube worms, plus limpets, periwinkles, nudibranches, and all manner of clams, mussels, oysters, and so on. The more you seek, the more you see, and the more you really see, the more beautiful and meaningful the whole experience becomes.