Into Great Silence

October 15, 2012
An evocative meditation on shifting boundaries and the kinship we feel to other species. In 1986, fresh out of college with a degree in fish and wildlife biology, Saulitis (Many Ways to Say It, 2012, etc.) took a job in an Alaskan fish hatchery. There, she experienced a life-changing moment when she saw a female orca, and thus began a lifelong fascination with these extraordinary creatures. The author connected with a nearby scientific group of whale watchers in Prince William Sound who were studying a population of local orcas made up of "transients" (mammal eaters) and "residents" (fish eaters). After two years of working as a volunteer, she entered a doctorate program. For her thesis, she analyzed the calls of a pod of 22 local transient orcas. During her field sessions, Saulitis recorded more than 6,000 calls, and she was able to separate them into 14 discrete call types. She then attempted to correlate these with specific behaviors--e.g., quiet calls when hunting, clicking noises to orient themselves, etc. (The author accepts that these interpretations are subjective and therefore speculative.) In 1989, the author's Alaskan idyll was shattered by the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Since then, she and her co-workers have been involved in documenting the damage to the local whale population. The group of transients she studied has been reduced by half and is no longer able to reproduce. She herself suffered a potentially life-threatening bout with cancer in 2010, but she remains optimistic. The Sound, to which she returns every year, is once again a functioning (though transformed) ecosystem. A vivid, moving depiction of a way of life tragically becoming increasingly endangered.

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October 1, 2012

This sensitively written memoir chronicles the 25 years poet and scientist Saulitis (Leaving Resurrection) spent as a field biologist in Prince William Sound, AK. She observed a specific group of transient orcas, also known as killer whales, as they traveled through the area, photographing them, observing and recording their behavior, and listening to their vocalizations. The meticulous, detailed, even tedious nature of such work is apparent, yet Saulitis conveys her deep appreciation for the whales and their surroundings. Unfortunately, the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill fouled this environment and contributed to the premature deaths of several of the orcas. A list of books about the spill, a map, a family tree of the whale population under study, and several photographs are included. VERDICT Readers who enjoyed Alexandra Morton's Listening to Whales: What the Orcas Have Taught Us will be fascinated by Saulitis's account of her often remote, cold, and wet life as a field biologist and her respect for the whales and the people who lived around her.--Judith B. Barnett, Univ. of Rhode Island Lib., Kingston

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2013
When graduate student Saulitis volunteered to help study a group of killer whales, or orcas, in Prince William Sound in 1988, she set her life's course and found herself in paradise. A year later that paradise was lost when the wrecked Exxon Valdez spilled millions of gallons of oil into the pristine sea. Saulitis continues to study one extended family of mammal-eating orcas, though her painstaking research into how they communicate has been shadowed by her witnessing their rapid extinction, poisoned in a contaminated world. Looking back while receiving treatment for breast cancer, Saulitis displays a power of recall and a gift for precise, poetic description that are exceptional and deeply affecting. We feel as though we, too, are soaked with fog and rain, struggling with a camera, and elated at the sight of the magnificent, mysterious orcas. Saulitis' stunning and sorrowful book of contemplation elucidates the discipline, tedium, danger, and bliss of whale studies; the solace she finds in art; and her intense relationships with her fellow orca experts. Candid, transfixing, and cautionary, Saulitis celebrates and mourns for a wondrous and imperiled species.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)