The Marine Mammals of the Gulf of Mexico
a review by Ron Mader

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The Marine Mammals of the Gulf of Mexico describes the marine creatures of the Gulf with numerous color photos and paintings by artist Larry Foster. This is a well-written and highly-recommended reference guide that will be particularly useful to readers or travelers visiting the Gulf.

Included in the book is a set of drawings of the skulls of Gulf species allow readers who find beached animals to identify the animal. Sketches provide dorsal, ventral and lateral views.

The authors discuss the environmental problems of the Gulf as they affect marine mammals, concluding: "Suffice it to say that our love for these creatures has the capacity of being turned into a positive conservation force, not for just them but also for their fragile environments worldwide." This is a recommended title!

Excerpts from The Marine Mammals of the Gulf of Mexico:

The Gulf of Mexico is a semi-enclosed embayment of the Atlantic Ocean bounded by the United States, Mexico and Cuba. It covers about 1.5 million square kilometers opening to the Atlantic Ocean at the narrow Straits of Florida to the east. The Gulf and adjacent Caribbean Sea have been referred to as the American Mediterranean, because both the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea are enclosed almost entirely by land masses and have about the same maximum depth (5 kilometers). Because the two are so enclosed and adjoin the two most industrially developed continents on earth -- North America and Europe -- it can be expected that some of the same problems of industrial activity and pollution affect both bodies of water.

Thirty-one species (28 cetaecans, 2 pinnipeds and 1 manatee) of marine mammals are known from the Gulf of Mexico. At least three additional species (the long-finned pilot whale and the short-beaked common and the long-beaked common dolphins) have been recorded so close to the boundaries of the region that they may be found eventually in the area.

When David Schmidly started this book more than ten years ago, knowledge about the marine mammals of the Gulf of Mexico came mainly from the strandings of dead animals -- individual carcasses lying on some often desolate shore... From these remains alone, the untrained observer might find it difficult to imagine that these animals had lived sophisticated social lives and that they experienced kinship and friendship relationships similar to those of all social mammals.

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Ron Mader lives in Mexico City and travels frequently throughout the Americas. He hosts the award-winning Planeta.com website -- http://www.planeta.com -- and is the author of the Mexico: Adventures in Nature guidebook and the Exploring Ecotourism in the Americas resource guide.

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