Among all the large whales on Earth, the most unusual and least studied is the narwhal, the northernmost whale on the planet and the one most threatened by global warming. Narwhals thrive in the fjords and inlets of northern Canada and Greenland. These elusive whales, whose long tusks were the stuff of medieval European myths and Inuit legends, are uniquely adapted to the Arctic ecosystem and are able to dive below thick sheets of ice to depths of up to 1, 500 meters in search of their prey-halibut, cod, and squid.
Join Todd Mc Leish as he travels high above the Arctic circle to meet:
Teams of scientific researchers studying the narwhal’s life cycle and the mysteries of its tusk
Inuit storytellers and hunters
Animals that share the narwhals’ habitat: walruses, polar bears, bowhead and beluga whales, ivory gulls, and two kinds of seals
Mc Leish consults logbooks kept by whalers and explorers and interviews folklorists and historians to tease out the relationship between the real narwhal and the mythical unicorn. In Colorado, he visits climatologists studying changes in the seasonal cycles of the Arctic ice. From a history of the trade in narwhal tusks to descriptions of narwhals’ vocalizations as heard through hydrophones, Narwhals reveals the beauty and thrill of the narwhal and its habitat, and the threat it faces from a rapidly changing world.
Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g Hwaqd Ky LCQ&list=UUge4MONg LFnc Q1w1C_Bn Hcw&index=9&feature=plcp
Table of Content
Prologue
1. First Encounter
2. Whale Spotting
3. A Symphony of Moos
4. The Inside-Out Tooth
5. Mythology
6. Melting Ice
7. Greenland
8. Subsistence
9. Muktuk
10. To the East
11. Playing Catch
12. Gaining Ground
13. Looking Ahead
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Todd Mc Leish is the author of Golden Wings and Hairy Toes: Encounters with New England’s Most Imperiled Wildlife and Basking with Humpbacks: Tracking Threatened Marine Life in New England Waters. He lives in Pascoag, Rhode Island.
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