THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2019 // 19
BOOKMONGER
Fathoming the lives of whales
We may have saved
the humpback
whale, but what
about the world
they’ve returned to?
I am a born-and-raised
Pacific Northwesterner, but
in all my days, it wasn’t until
last fall that I finally had my
first personal sighting of a
whale, swimming wild and
free. It was an orca in Puget
Sound. Perhaps some of you
have seen orcas before, or
gray whales on their annual
migration along the Pacific
Coast, or maybe even the
world’s largest mammals,
the blue whales, farther
down the coast in California.
Whatever the species,
it’s a heart-pounding thrill,
isn’t it?
Naturalist Leigh Calvez,
of Suquamish, Wash., cap-
tures that excitement and
awe in her new book, “The
Breath of a Whale.”
Calvez has studied hump-
back whales from Massa-
chusetts to Maui. She has
led whale-watching tours
around the world. And she
THIS WEEK’S BOOK
THE BREATH OF A
WHALE
BY LEIGH CALVEZ
SASQUATCH BOOKS
240 PP
$19.95
maintains a cetacean list the
way other folks record birds.
Through all of this, Calvez
has developed an abiding
dedication to the well-being
of whales, their distinctive
cultures and their habitats.
In the early pages of this
book, she writes about the
comeback of humpbacks
from the brink of extinction.
“We have answered the
rallying cry of the 1970s: we
have saved the whales. But
have we saved a place for
them in the world they are
coming back to?”
She spends the rest of
the book sharing with us
the many reasons why we
should care about the answer
to this question.
We learn about the inde-
pendent research she was
doing on endangered hump-
back whales in Hawaii when
the Navy began its low-fre-
quency sonar testing, and
her witnessing of the dis-
ruption it caused in the
humpbacks’ calving sanctu-
aries. (In the years follow-
ing, the Natural Resources
Defense Council success-
fully sued to keep the Navy
out of the humpback whales’
main breeding and calving
grounds in Hawaii.)
The author also shares
with us the growing body
of evidence that hump-
backs demonstrate inter-
species altruism — they’ve
been witnessed interven-
ing on behalf of seals, sea
lions, gray whales and even
humans.
Calvez takes us along
when she visits researchers
studying blue whales off the
coast of California.
She teaches us the dis-
tinctions between orcas
and killer whales and false
killer whales. She also rec-
reates for us the story
behind the dramatic repa-
triation of orphaned baby
orca Springer, found swim-
ming alone in central Puget
Sound, to her clan in the
northern resident orcas, who
primarily inhabit the waters
off British Columbia.
She talks about the fasci-
nating changes in the food
procurement patterns of gray
whales.
And she introduced me to
species of whales I’d never
heard of before: the elusive
beaked whales of Hawaii —
Blainville’s, Cuvier’s, Long-
man’s — and there may be
a couple of other species as
well.
Through all of this,
Calvez threads her personal
story of a catastrophic illness
that sidelined her for a time,
and draws lessons about the
urgency of taking decisive,
positive action to ensure a
sustainable future for the
whales.
And in doing so, she
leads us readers on a whale
of a tour.
The Bookmonger is Bar-
bara Lloyd McMichael,
who writes this weekly col-
umn focusing on the books,
authors and publishers of
the Pacific Northwest. Con-
tact her at bkmonger@
nwlink.com.
Crossword Answers
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The cover of Leigh Calvez’s ‘The Breath of a Whale.’