Kenneth S Norris

Scientist, teacher, author, and champion of the natural world, Dr. Kenneth S. Norris reveals the insights gained over a lifetime devoted to learning and teaching about the natural world and human nature, and the global environmental crisis we've helped to bring upon ourselves.

Dr. Norris tells us how the dolphins swim, find food, breathe in rough weather, and how they protect themselves in an underwater world totally without places to hide. Norris shows us how his scientific ideas evolve, takes us on a hair-raising trip aboard a tuna vessel where he and his colleagues dive in the net to search for solutions to the kill, and finally suggests how the “magic envelope,” the dolphins’ group protection system, might be the key to releasing them unharmed.

Twenty years in the making by a distinguished dolphin expert and his associates, "The Hawaiian Spinner Dolphin" is the first comprehensive scientific natural history of a dolphin species ever written. From their research camp at Kealakeakua Bay in Hawaii, these scientists followed a population of wild spinner dolphins by radio tracking their movements and, with the use of a windowed underwater vessel, observing the details of their underwater social life. The authors begin with a description of the spinner dolphin species, its morphology and systematics, and then examines the ocean environment, the organization of dolphin populations, and the way this school-based society of mammals uses shorelines for rest and instruction of the young. The dolphins' reproductive cycle, their vision, vocalization, hearing, breathing, and feeding, and the integration of the school are carefully analyzed. The authors conclude with a comprehensive evolutionary analysis of this marine cultural system, with its behavioral flexibility and high levels of cooperation. This absorbing book is the richest source available of new scientific insights about the lives of wild dophins and how their societies evolved at sea.