War of the Whales Quotes

“What if the catalyst or the key to understanding creation lay somewhere in the immense mind of the whale? . . . Suppose if God came back from wherever it is he’s been and asked us smilingly if we’ d figured it out yet. Suppose he wanted to know if it had finally occurred to us to ask the whale. And then he sort of looked around and he said, “By the way, where are the whales?” —Cormac McCarthy, Of Whales and Men”
― Joshua Horwitz, War of the Whales: A True Story

“For the past 15 years, the Earthwatch volunteer program had provided the sole financial support for the decadelong photo-identification survey of the beaked whales here in the Bahamas and of the killer whales in the Pacific Northwest. The Earthlings, as Ken and Diane called them, traveled from across the United States and around the world to assist their survey and to catch a fleeting glance of the deepest-diving creatures in the ocean: the beaked whales that lived inside the underwater canyon offshore from Sandy Point. For the most part, they were altruistic tourists, from teenagers to golden-agers, looking for a useful vacation from the winter doldrums up north. At Sandy Point, they could learn a little about whales, lend a hand in a righteous eco-science project, and enjoy the Bahamian sunshine.”
― Joshua Horwitz, War of the Whales: A True Story

“whale behavioral researcher, Woods Hole Oceano-graphic Institution. Jim Mead Curator of marine mammals, Smithsonian Institution, Washington,”
― Joshua Horwitz, War of the Whales: A True Story

“respectively. Diane Claridge Dolphin and beaked whale researcher; wife and research partner of Ken Balcomb. Darlene Ketten Whale and human hearing expert; forensic pathologist, Harvard Medical School and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Roger Payne First cetologist to decode and promote humpback whale song and conservation. Chris Clark Director, Bioacoustics Research Program, Cornell University Lab of Ornithology; protégé of Roger Payne.”
― Joshua Horwitz, War of the Whales: A True Story