Got a new batch of juvenile nonfiction in at the library, and the standout of the pile was this photo-essay about the dolphins that live off the coast of Australia and use sponges to hunt for a specific type of fish.
The Dolphins of Shark Bay
Pamela S. Turner, photographs by Scott Tuason
ISBN: 9780547716381
Read August 7, 2014
This is simply an excellent book. The narrative follows a set of "sponging" dolphins off the coast of Australia, and broadens out into discussions of dolphin feeding, tourists, dolphin family and social dynamics, the concept of cultural or learned behaviors (in this case, possibly the sponging behaviors) and all sorts of other really interesting dolphin-related information.
Our main human character is Janet Mann and her crew of scientists and PhD students, studying the dolphins of the Shark Bay area. Our main dolphin characters are a loose family arrangement of dolphins with peculiar names: Puck, Piccolo, Real Notch, Blip, Bytefluke, and Google among them.
The whole book is amazing, and anyone who is interested in intelligence and tool use and complex social behavior will find a lot to love here, but my absolute favorite thing is that the book takes interesting subject matters and breaks them down like a scientific problem, right there in the book, showing by example what the scientists are doing and studying, and how they are doing it so that their information is factual, relevant, quantifiable, and repeatable. Truly excellent writing.
My final note is on the photographs - the author thanks the photographer in the credits, mentioning that he "clicked away nonstop" to capture the photographs used, and the dedication really shows. These are excellent photographs, and truly enhance the appeal and impact of the writing and the subjects.
Excellent book all around.
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