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Twenty metres below water, the oceanographer François Sarano came face to face with a five-and-a-half metre great white shark. Seduced by the gentle elegance of this majestic creature, Sarano experienced a profound sense of affinity with her as they swam side by side, shoulder to shoulder, eye to eye, cutting a single figure through the ocean depths. It was an experience which made him realize the depth of our ignorance of the lives of sharks, leading him to become a passionate advocate for their protection.
Drawing on the latest scientific research on the biology and ethology of sharks and their exceptional characteristics, this book aims to break through the barrier of prejudice and to pay homage to their true nature. Representing a last vestige of wildness, their populations are nevertheless under threat - like so many species, they have been hunted and exploited by humans. Sarano argues for a change of mindset in which we lose ourselves in the world of the other, so that each living entity, human and non-human, can take their rightful place in the broader global ecosystem.
List of contents
Foreword by Sandra Bessudo
Introduction: Giving the 'Voiceless' a Voice
1. A Matter of Misunderstanding: From Pliny to Disney
2. Shark? What Shark?
3. Giving Life
4. Inside the Shark's Head
5. On the Road to Personality
6. The Shark, Where it Belongs
7. The Ocean is their Garden
8. Fading Silhouettes
9. The Confrontation
10. Reconciliation
Notes
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Index
Report
'In a prior incarnation, François Sarano lived as a shark. Here he shares the experiences of swimming, sensing, feeding and thinking as a shark. The book is a brilliant and beautiful advance towards interspecies communication.'
Jesse Ausubel, The Rockefeller University, New York City
'When it comes to our relations with sharks, there's a lot that needs fixing. Sarano's passionate, eye-opening book sets the record straight about one of the most misunderstood and unfairly demonized groups of animals on Earth.'
Jonathan Balcombe, author of What a Fish Knows and A Boy and a Fish
