Monday, August 31, 2015

Voices in the Ocean by Susan Casey

Voices in the Ocean by Susan Casey was a solid book on how we as a people treat the environment, animals in it and specifically as the subject of this book, dolphins.

I was excited for the book after loving Casey's previous books, The Devil's Teeth and The Wave, which I wrote about in 2010, and this one was well-written and interesting, but also depressing.

Casey covers how dolphins are incredibly smart creatures, but oftentimes are either treated poorly for our amusement in places like traditional marine parks, subject to the effects of sonar tests conducted by the U.S. Navy, or slaughtered by people to make a few dollars, even to the point of basically putting a ransom on their heads. From places like the town of Taiji, Japan, where The Cove was set, to the Solomon Islands off Australia, Casey shows the atrocities people will commit against dolphins.

Casey writes a really thorough book that's as appreciation of dolphins, and also lament for them.