Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss among Vanishing Orcas

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Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss among Vanishing Orcas

4.08 of 5 stars 4.08 · rating details · 24 ratings · 11 reviews

Science entwines with matters of the human heart as a whale researcher chronicles the lives of an endangered family of orcas

Ever since Eva Saulitis began her whale research in Alaska in the 1980s, she has been drawn deeply into the lives of a single extended family of endangered orcas struggling to survive in Prince William Sound.Over the course ofa decades-long career s...more

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Published January 15th 2013 by Beacon Press

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Jan 21, 2013 Amara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: edelweiss, 2013-release, 2013, 2013-a-z-reading-challenge, 2013-ebook-challenge, 2013-new-authors-challenge, 2013-women-challenge, 2013-arc-reading-challenge, reviewed

A copy of this book was provided free via Edelweiss for the purpose of review.

It's been quite a while since a book has had as great an emotional effect on me as Eva Saulitis's Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss Among Vanishing Orcas. By the end of the book, I was very close to tearing up; it's quite a touching story, and the reality of it resonates with me.

Into Great Silence is the story of Eva Saulitis, Prince William Sound, and the Chugach transient orcas. It's also a story of...more A copy of this book was provided free via Edelweiss for the purpose of review.

It's been quite a while since a book has had as great an emotional effect on me as Eva Saulitis's Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss Among Vanishing Orcas. By the end of the book, I was very close to tearing up; it's quite a touching story, and the reality of it resonates with me.

Into Great Silence is the story of Eva Saulitis, Prince William Sound, and the Chugach transient orcas. It's also a story of environmental catastrophe, impending extinction, and the tragic loss of life born of human carelessness.

Reading about Saulitis's experiences studying orcas in the Prince William Sound, I envy her. She describes her summers at the Sound amazingly; it's so easy to envision living there. From the frigid waterfall showers to the camping and hiking, from the long hours spent searching for and studying the orcas to the relationships with her research assistants. I can't help wishing that I could spend a summer that way—and this coming from a woman with a fear of open water!

But it's clear that I couldn't spend a summer like Saulitis's first summers in the Sound even if I had the initiative: the Sound is not the same place as it was then.

I was born several years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill that so fundamentally changed the Prince William Sound and its ecosystem. By the time I come into existence, the Prince William Sound is a different place from the beginning of the book with a different balance, a balance that may or may not be unsustainable for some of its residents. Namely, the Chugach transients.

As Saulitis familiarizes her readers with these elusive orcas, I couldn't help forming an attachment to them. I'm always a sucker when it comes to emotional connections with animals; I form them easily, whether warranted or not, and all it takes is an image or an anecdote to do it. So as Saulitis explains her emotions at the loss of these whales, it's all too easy to feel what she feels. It's all too easy to share in her mourning when she finally goes to visit the bones of Eyak, and there's no avoiding the mourning that must come with the realization that in a few more years, there may not be such a thing as a living Chugach transient.

Above all else, though, it hurts to think that a single careless oil spill may have been the proverbial straw to break the delicate balance of the Sound, and that its new state of balance may not include a niche for the orcas I fell in love with over the course of Into Great Silence.

So I'm very pleased to have read this book; this is the first real glimpse I've had into the world of orcas, and it's a bittersweet environmental lesson.

If you're interested in reading more about the Chugach transients, Eva Saulitis contributed to a National Geographic article on the subject. Read it here--and note the photograph of Eyak's bones.(less)

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Jun 17, 2013 Dee rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It was...okay. Eva Saulitis is definitely not a minimalist in her writing style. I found 2 big things lacking in this book.

#1 - I know this may be a small detail to some, but the map was too minimal. How ironic?! Ms. Saulitis believes in writing in such a flowery style, but leaves major details out of the map. She keeps talking about Whale Camp. I'd refer to the map to see where she was talking about...nothing. Then she kept talking about the Labyrinth. Again, I went back to the map...nothing....more

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Jan 15, 2013 Holly Madison rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I was so happy to receive this book from the Goodreads giveaway. As an Environmental Science major (and animal lover), I have always found the looming threat of animal extinction to be very close to home. Orcas in particular are such precious, gentle giants... it's difficult to imagine that we humans can have such substantial and devastating impacts on nature without even realizing it's going on. The world is crashing down around us and most of us don't even care. And in the wake of pollution, o...more

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Jan 22, 2013 Brittany rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: first-reads, non-fiction, my-bookshelf

Into Great Silence, by Eva Saulitis, is a moving memoir of her time spent in Prince William Sound studying the AT1 Transient pod orcas, better known to the author and reader as the Chugach Transients. Saulitis starts her story by showing the reader exactly how she started her study and how her fascination with the orcas began. Interestingly enough, her first encounter occurred while she was working at a fish hatchery, in which she saw the pod of orcas swimming nearby. Seeing as she was already i...more Into Great Silence, by Eva Saulitis, is a moving memoir of her time spent in Prince William Sound studying the AT1 Transient pod orcas, better known to the author and reader as the Chugach Transients. Saulitis starts her story by showing the reader exactly how she started her study and how her fascination with the orcas began. Interestingly enough, her first encounter occurred while she was working at a fish hatchery, in which she saw the pod of orcas swimming nearby. Seeing as she was already into the field of biology, her interest grew and – in an amazing stroke of luck – was chosen to help work on a boat called Lucky Star for Craig Matkin, who studied resident orcas. From there on, her love for the animals was fueled and – for her graduate thesis – she decided to study the habits of the Chugach pod. It wasn’t but a couple of years after she started to help Matkin and others that the Exxon Valdez spill occurred, forever changing the Sound and surrounding waters. Into Great Silence is largely focused on the life of the orcas after the fateful spill and how such a disaster affected their lives.

Saulitis tells the reader up front that this will not be a book with a very happy ending. In the prologue, she is already lamenting the great loss of life in the pod and – as we read through the subsequent chapters, Saulitis – with her beautiful and poetic storytelling – is able to instill in the reader love and great respect for the gentle giants of the Sound. By the end of the story, my heart was breaking for the poor animals who – against all odds – still try to live in the Sound to this very day, though their numbers are greatly dwindling. Saulitis herself wonders whether the pod will continue to survive or if there will come a day where she wakes up and discovers that the last of the whales she had come to know and love have perished.

Into Great Silence is a reminder to readers of the beauty and fragility of nature, that one single moment in time can forever alter a way of life that has existed for several thousands of years. It is a stunning, albeit tragic, story of love, loss, and human attempt to right a wrong great done over twenty-three years ago.
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Mar 01, 2013 Eva rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir, poignant, read-in-2013, nature, favorites

I'm going to have to do a much bigger (and more polished) review of this later but I had to write something now:

I loved slipping into the world of the Prince William Sound and the Chugach Transients with Eva Saulitis as a guide. Her writing is a pretty perfect mix of hard science but also emotion and personal reflection. Seeing her struggle with the horrific effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 on the Sound, it's creatures (the transiet orcas in particular), and herself was incredibly m...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Tim Anderson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: first-reads

I won this in a giveaway and was hoping I would. Thank you so very much. It was a great read. I was drawn into the mystery of Chugach transient orcas from the beginning. Eva's passion was infectious. I got so caught up in her search for answers that I kept turning to the front to follow on the map. Regretfully I had to google and find a better map. I tried to figure out where whale camp was located and exactly where the Valdez ran aground. This was my only downfall with the book.
I was inspire...more

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Jan 24, 2013 Ecoute Sauvage rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a great book on several levels. The author clearly loves orcas and has done wonders communicating with them - one wishes that she wouldn't call them "whales" though, as she obviously knows they are large dolphins.

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Oct 01, 2012 Henk-Jan van der Klis rated it 3 of 5 stars

Eva Saulitis shares her memoir of discovery and loss among vanishing Orcas in Into Great Silence. A biologist’s scientific eagerness meets human emotions such as loss and grief. Eva began her whale research in Alaska since 1986 in Prince William Sound. Instead of numbers or categories these giant fish show they’re a family. The effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989: a sudden stop in giving birth to calfs was fatal to the group. Into Great Silence got beautiful storytelling, a heartcry to...more

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Mar 30, 2013 Marianne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

warning: the "loss" in the title refers in part to the results of the Exxon Valdez oil spill... which makes parts of this book very bleak (though still more than worth one's time).

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Jan 01, 2013 Kari rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: first-reads

I received this book from goodreads first reads on Jan 14, 2013.

Great read.

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May 01, 2013 Erin Hollowell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Devastating and beautiful.

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Shelves: want_for_shelf

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Shelves: memoir-and-autobiography, nature-environment-animals, watery

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About Eva Saulitis

Eva Saulitis is the author of the forthcoming book, "Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss among Vanishing Orcas," (Beacon Press, 2012). She has studied whales in Prince William Sound, the Kenai Fjords, and Alaska's Aleutian Islands for the past twenty-four years. In addition to her scientific publications, her essays, poems, and reviews have appeared in numerous national journals, in...more

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