Undiscovered Scotland

 

"The Last Sunset in the West: Britain's Vanishing West Coast Orcas" by Natalie Sanders is an updated and republished edition of the author's personal account of her experiences of the orca, the ocean's apex predator, often known as the killer whale. As the author explains, "As the largest member of the dolphin family, orcas are not actually whales at all, but it is commonplace to refer to them as such.'

The book is in two parts. In the first, the author tells the individual stories of ten orcas with names as diverse as John Coe, Moon, Aquarius and Moneypenny, all members of the West Coast Community of orcas. Because the author deals with them as individuals the reader is forced to think of them in the same way. This really helps bring these creatures to life in a way that is deeply engaging and helps make this book stand out as something really rather special. In the second part of the book the author recounts the voyage of the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust research vessel Silurian around the inner and outer Hebrides in 2014. The result is a lovely book that should be considered essential reading for anyone who cares about the planet we live on and those we share it with.

You get a good sense of the book from the publisher's description of it. "In 2014, marine biologist Dr Natalie Sanders joined the crew of the research vessel Silurian to seek out Britain’s West Coast Community of orca and study them before we lose them forever. Though this orca pod has delighted scientists and whale watchers for years, we still know relatively little about them, and what we do know comes mostly from citizen science and chance encounters. But what is abundantly clear is that pollution, entanglement, military sonar and climate change continue to have an enormous impact on whales and dolphins and other marine life throughout the world’s oceans. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the marine world in this age of climate change. A captivating yet poignant account, it takes the reader from the Western Isles of Scotland to Vancouver Island and elsewhere. It also delves deep into the history of our relations with these beautiful and sentient creatures to explain what their loss means and how we can avoid similar tragedies in the future."