Marine mammal guide makes identification easy
March 25, 2015
Deborah Mercy
907-274-9698
3/26/2015
Off the Hawaiian coast, a spray of water catches your eye. You see a Fraser’s dolphin, or is it a short-beaked common dolphin? The answer can be found in the latest field guide available from the Alaska Sea Grant bookstore.
“Guide to Marine Mammals and Turtles of the U.S. Pacific” follows two previous marine mammal guidebooks written for Alaska and the Atlantic. Kate Wynne, marine mammal specialist for the Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program, wrote and designed her third book with field scientists and boaters in mind. Garth Mix is the illustrator.
The idea for a trilogy of field guides followed publication of the first book, “Guide to Marine Mammals of Alaska,” in 1992.
The Alaska guide was created in response to a need for quick and accurate identification of marine mammals at sea. In the late 1980s, Wynne was working with commercial fishermen who were required by the Marine Mammal Protection Act to report interactions with marine mammals. Wynne discovered that fishermen were reporting mammals never found in Alaska’s waters.
“The guys had to choose from poorly drawn pictures of marine mammals, many found in other regions. They couldn’t be sure, so they just went with whatever looked closest,” said Wynne.
In the interest of getting more accurate data, Wynne proposed writing a field guide that would be easy to use on a working boat. As it turned out, the published book not only worked well for fishermen but also appealed to a broad range of people, including U.S. Coast Guard and Navy personnel, recreational boaters, teachers and children. More than 34,000 copies have been distributed.
Soon after Alaska Sea Grant published the first field guide, Wynne attended a marine mammal conference. A biologist from Hawaii approached her and asked if she was planning to publish a series. The biologist said they needed a book like the Alaska guide for the Pacific.
“It wasn’t until that point that I thought, 'Well, there could be a three-book series—Alaska, the Pacific, and the Atlantic,'” Wynne said.
The field guides are printed on waterproof paper and designed for quick identification. They include photos, drawings, distribution maps and comparisons to other mammals that might look similar. Marine mammal and turtle behavior, habitat and life history information also is presented.
“We pass the book around to people from the four corners of the Earth. Thanks for helping us help visitors to Alaska get a better appreciation for the wonderful life in the ocean,” said a naturalist lecturer about the Alaska guide.
For more information about this title and the others in the trilogy, visit http://seagrant.uaf.edu/bookstore/pubs/MAB-64.html.
ADDITIONAL CONTACT: Kate Wynne, kate.wynne@alaska.edu, 907-486-1517.
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