Customer Reviews

The Secret Life of Sharks: A Leading Marine Biologist Reveals the Mysteries of Shark Behavior

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was really disappointed by this book. By the title, I expected it to cover shark behavior. Unfortunately, it was mainly a biography of the author with very little about shark behavior. This is not a criticism of the author, a respected expert on sharks, but if you want to learn about shark behavior, I suggest checking this book out in the store before buying it or you may be disappointed. I sent mine back for a refund.

Did everything you know about sharks come from watching JAWS? Do you think that there is a real truth out there beyond the hype on the silver screen? If you want to find out what sharks are REALLY like, A. Peter Klimley's THE SECRET LIFE OF SHARKS will explain the mysteries of shark behavior, and you might find that what sharks actually do is much more amazing than anything that has been seen in the movies!

As a professional biologist, college instructor, and life-long shark aficionado, I was about to embark on a late July "dream" trip to South Africa to participate in a white shark research project. I read this book hoping to get a bit of insight into the animal that I was going half-way around the world to study, and THE SECRET LIFE OF SHARKS provided that and a great deal more. Dr. Klimley effectively blends hard science and a spirit of adventure into an exciting and informative story about his 30 years of studying sharks. He describes the amazing ability of hammerheads to navigate through the featureless oceans using the earth's magnetic fields, explains how huge white sharks avoid "tooth to tooth" combat with each other by communicating with thundering tail slaps, offers reasonable and reassuring explanations for shark attacks on humans, and much more. He dispels the outdated myth that sharks are mindless killing machines, and presents them as evolutionary perfection with special senses, complex social behaviors, and unique physiological adaptations to the sea. By diving with sharks, observing them from land and sea, and even dressing up as a killer whale to swim with them, he has developed an understanding and appreciation of these amazing fish, and provides compelling reasons for their conservation. Enjoy this book and you, too, will hopefully become a champion for these fascinating and endangered animals.

By now, any nature enthusiast is well aware of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, and has seen endless footage of sharks doing exciting things... like biting fish, and biting surfers, and biting seals, and, well pretty much just biting stuff. But there's a lot more to these gorgeous, fascinating animals than their teeth. Similarly, there's a lot more to being a scientist than just riding around in boats taking pretty pictures. When the film crews pack up and go home, the scientist is left with reams of data from which to extract something meaningful. It takes creativity, training, passion, and endless hours of tedious but meticulous work, and very few people are zealous enough to take on the challenge. These are the things that Pete Klimley tries to show us in his new book. He sheds light onto some of the interesting aspects of shark behavior that he has studied, and shows how he approached the research -- actual science, not the made for TV version.

It's true, the title is somewhat misleading -- this is more a book about being a scientist -- but it's a good read, well written, and well worth the time for anyone who is curious about what goes on behind the shark week glamour.

"The Secret Life of Sharks" is a wonderful novel designed to demonstrate the true nature of sharks through the personal experience/insight of a man who knows sharks on a level well beyond even the most avid shark enthusiast. Klimley provides historical context to his career in shark behaviour and his motivations for pursuing the directions he choose to pursue right from his very beginnings as a grad student. For those that know his work, this book reveals the personal thoughts and stories behind Klimley's research seen in the primary literature. For those new to this world of shark behaviour, this book is a great introduction to sharks and their inner workings presented in a way that is not only informative and knowledgeable to read, but is also so entertaining and enthralling as one does not want to put the book down.

Presented here is a book that puts a true face to shark behaviour and offers an honest look into the most misunderstood and usually misrepresented animals of our time. Follow Klimley into the realm of the hammerhead and great white and see that there really is much more to sharks than just shark teeth and JAWS.

It's refreshing to read "stories from the field", especially when you are dealing with the wild world of Apex Predators.

Dr. Klimley takes you there with his unflinching accounts of his time with the worlds most feared and misunderstood ocean predators. This book had just the right amount of science, story telling and facinating facts/sharky revalations to keep me enthralled for the past week.

I will be passing on this book to other "shark fans", once I have read it for a second time! Well done Dr.Klimley-thanks for sharing your memories from the field with us.

Cheers,
Patric Douglas

Dr. Peter Klimley has been studying sharks for decades. He has always preferred to study them on their own turf, rather than in the lab. Through his years of experience with a variety of species, including the much-feared great white shark, he has been able to shed light on natural behaviors not witnessed by more traditional scientists. He repeatedly found that the "mindless maneater" image is grossly inaccurate, and sharks are very complex, even social animals. This book is an enjoyable read, well-written, and full of valuable information about sharks, and how a leading expert has devoted his life to studying them. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in sharks and other ocean life. Klimley offers a refreshing perspective on these fascinating apex predators.

I bought this book because I love to read and I adore the shark in general. Its population dwindling due to both cuisine and greed sadden me beyond belief. I thought that this book would enlighten me to the facts that aren't often discussed, yes, during "shark week". I was right. I was also bored out of my mind reading the book. Dr. Klimley loves his job. He also loves the noun-verb-noun and noun-linking adjective sentence. I found myself struggling after the third page -- not with the intellectual content, mind you, but with the banal sing-song of his writing technique. Paragraph after paragraph of noun-verb-noun sentences shyly punctuated with an occasional compound-complex sentence (methinks thrown in by the publisher) rattled in my brain like tumbling dominoes, until all of the wonderful information that I was trying to ingest fell out of my ears.

Sigh.

To his credit, he's incredibly intelligent, devoted, and quite in love with his job. I applaud all of this. However, he's also somewhat, uncomfortable for me to state, a bit of a traitor to the animals of the sea. He thanks Sea World, of all places, for help with his research. Sea World has been responsible for more cetacean deaths than I can remember reading about. I think that 33% of the dolphins, orcas, belugas, etcetera, die way before their appropriate expiration date at Sea Worlds nationwide often due to boredom and extremely small habitats. No one in the profession of marine biology should ever thank a Sea World. They are interested in the Great White shark, I am convinced, as a money maker, should they ever succeed in capturing one and managing to keep it alive in captivity. In the meantime, the ones that die in the quest for the perfect man-made habitat will be as quietly disposed as the numerous ailing "Shamu"s that we are not aware of.

I would have enjoyed this book to absolute death had Dr. Klimley allowed someone else to write it for him and had he thought about disconnecting himself from a mega-corporation that has been responsible for exactly what every marine biologist should hate with fervor -- the exploitation of animals for profit at no consideration to their safety or livelihood. I give it mostly a thumbs down.

I loved this book because it doesn't show sharks how many books and movies show them to be. They are complex animals with complex behaviors. I love how it is written; and just an overall great book. I reccomend this to ANYONE who wishes to know more about sharks; their behaviors; and generally everything about them. This is a MUST READ for anyone who likes sharks. This doesn't depict them as man-eating monsters swimming right out of our nightmares.

While the majority of shark scientists have worked hand in hand with fishermen, investigated inside cadavers, or else studied their subjects using tags inserted into the animals from above the surface while never getting to know them in their own realm, Professor Klimley took the time and energy to study sharks underwater.

His book is a revealing account of one of the very few shark ethologists in the world, and that he described his thoughts, approaches, and those of his colleagues as well as his discoveries, only adds to the importance of this book.

The late, pioneering shark ethologist, Arthur A. Myrberg, Jr., told me that in his opinion, this is the best book ever written on shark behaviour.

Anyone who thinks that there are any books out there that can reveal the truth of shark behaviour is unfortunately optimistic. Sharks are so unusual, and their lives are so hidden from us, that NO ONE KNOWS really anything about them.

This book reveals much about why that is, in relating to us the simple human difficulties of discovering and publishing such findings about wild sharks.

I am no marine biologist, but after reading many of these books, it gets drilled into my head that sharks aren't the eating machines 'everyone' claims them to believe. I think everyone interested in buying this book should already know that. The description of unique mating patters intrigued me, however. found that downplayed in the book.