Casey, Susan. The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among American's Great White Sharks. New York: Holt. 2005. Print.
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Mowat, Farley. Never Cry Wolf: Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves
The killing took place at dawn and as usual it was a decapitation accomplished by a single vicious swipeBlood geysered into the air, creating a vivid slick that stood out on the water like the work of a violent abstract painter. Five hundred yards away, outside of a lighthouse on the island's highest peak, a man watched though a telescope.
Description:
Who isn't fascinated by the great white sharks? Looming menacingly off the coasts of Australia and California, occasionally biting down on a surfboard (or surfer)? Of course, Jaws fascinated and horrified an entire generation enough to keep people out of New England and other beaches worldwide for years.
Now Susan Casey offers a close up peek into the world of these great whites and the people who study them in her riveting new book, The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among American's Great White Sharks
She introduces researchers Peter Pyle and Scot Anderson, temporarily living on the barren Farallones Islands 26 miles off the coast of San Francisco. With only one house and an abandoned lighthouse, battered by very rough seas and weather, hounded by thousands of birds who make these menacing craggy islands their home, the forbidding Farallones (nicknamed "The Devil's Teeth") are also the feeding ground of great white sharks for three months a year.
Pete and Scot are the first scientists to study the sharks daily using the lighthouse lookout and small boats taken out to film the sharks' killing behavior. It's dangerous, lonely work, but these two men observe incredible data about this previously unknown fish, from how great whites attack sea lions (decapitation), their curiosity (exploring towed decoy surfboards), and the individual characteristics of over one hundred sharks (leading to names like "Stumpy," "Cal Ripkin," and "Cuttail").
And then, there are the "Sisters," the enormous, secretive females who return every other year.These rarely seen behemoths are over twenty feet long (most other great whites are twelve to fifteen feet long), eight feet wide and six feet deep! "Swimming buses" is how the Sisters are described when seen from the scientists' tiny observation boat, aptly nicknamed, "Dinner Plate."
Author Casey joins these men for several of the feeding seasons and observes the sharks as well as the men and the lives of both. Living conditions are rough, the house is haunted, and boat-wrecking storms occur regularly. A few tourist boats come to the Farallones to observe whales and sharks. But there are also heart-stopping tales from Ron Elliott, the last of the divers in the shark-infested waters still gathering valuable sea urchins there surrounded by great whites.
Casey is definitely up to the task of recording great white shark behavior, providing the history of the Devil's Teeth and its inhabitants, and relating her own fears and thrills that come with studying these sharks up close. She even tosses in a historic story about the discovery of underwater stone shark pens found during the construction of Pearl Harbor "where men faced off against sharks in aquatic gladiatorial matches."
You may think you don't want to know this much about great white sharks, but you would be so, so wrong. They are fascinating, silent, efficient, and personable kings (and queens) of the sea. Devils Teeth reveals them for the first time, and boy, what a picture it paints of these magnivicant, fearsome creatures.
Now Susan Casey offers a close up peek into the world of these great whites and the people who study them in her riveting new book, The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among American's Great White Sharks
She introduces researchers Peter Pyle and Scot Anderson, temporarily living on the barren Farallones Islands 26 miles off the coast of San Francisco. With only one house and an abandoned lighthouse, battered by very rough seas and weather, hounded by thousands of birds who make these menacing craggy islands their home, the forbidding Farallones (nicknamed "The Devil's Teeth") are also the feeding ground of great white sharks for three months a year.
Pete and Scot are the first scientists to study the sharks daily using the lighthouse lookout and small boats taken out to film the sharks' killing behavior. It's dangerous, lonely work, but these two men observe incredible data about this previously unknown fish, from how great whites attack sea lions (decapitation), their curiosity (exploring towed decoy surfboards), and the individual characteristics of over one hundred sharks (leading to names like "Stumpy," "Cal Ripkin," and "Cuttail").
And then, there are the "Sisters," the enormous, secretive females who return every other year.These rarely seen behemoths are over twenty feet long (most other great whites are twelve to fifteen feet long), eight feet wide and six feet deep! "Swimming buses" is how the Sisters are described when seen from the scientists' tiny observation boat, aptly nicknamed, "Dinner Plate."
Author Casey joins these men for several of the feeding seasons and observes the sharks as well as the men and the lives of both. Living conditions are rough, the house is haunted, and boat-wrecking storms occur regularly. A few tourist boats come to the Farallones to observe whales and sharks. But there are also heart-stopping tales from Ron Elliott, the last of the divers in the shark-infested waters still gathering valuable sea urchins there surrounded by great whites.
Casey is definitely up to the task of recording great white shark behavior, providing the history of the Devil's Teeth and its inhabitants, and relating her own fears and thrills that come with studying these sharks up close. She even tosses in a historic story about the discovery of underwater stone shark pens found during the construction of Pearl Harbor "where men faced off against sharks in aquatic gladiatorial matches."
You may think you don't want to know this much about great white sharks, but you would be so, so wrong. They are fascinating, silent, efficient, and personable kings (and queens) of the sea. Devils Teeth reveals them for the first time, and boy, what a picture it paints of these magnivicant, fearsome creatures.
Happy reading.
Fred
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