Cousteau, Jacques-Yves
Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a naval officer and French oceanographer, underwater photographer, film maker, and author of international recognition. Creator of the Bathyscaph, an immersible boat. Director of the Oceanographic Museum and Institute in Monaco from 1957 to 1988. With Frederic Dumas he was the author of The Silent World and an Oscar-winning movie based on the book. Among his other books were : Jacques Cousteau: The Ocean World and The Living Sea, with James Dugan.

The only creatures on earth that have bigger - and maybe better - brains than human are the Cetacea, the toothed whales and dolphins. Newsletter

During the past thirty years my team and I have spent thousands of hours diving in Aqua-Lungs and other underwater devices. During that time I have observed and studied, and with my own eyes I have seen our waters sicken. Certain reefs that teemed with fish only ten years ago are now almost lifeless. The ocean bottom has been raped by trawlers. Priceless wetlands have been destroyed by landfill. And everywhere are sticky globs of oil, plastic refuse and unseen clouds of poisonous effluents. A Cousteau Society Bulletin

Often, when I describe the symptoms of our environmental illness I hear remarks like "they're only fish" or "they're only whales" or "they're only birds." I assure you that our destinies are linked with theirs in the most profound and fundamental manner. All life is interconnected and the great life-giving bank is the sea. Ibid.

If the oceans should die - by which I mean that all life in the sea would finally cease - then this would signal the end not only for all marine life, but for all other animals and plants of this earth, including man. Ibid.

When a harpoon pierces a whales lungs, the stricken animal inevitably lets out a last bloody gasp that whalemen referred to as the "flurry." Whales (with Yves Paccalet), 1986.

Very, very few human beings have had the good fortune to watch as whales describe flawless arabesques beneath the ocean surface. The combination of gigantic size and effortless grace is a wonderful thing to behold. Ibid.

Have we taken leave of our senses? Even if it took fifty or a hundred years of hard work and self-restraint, should we not at least try and restore to nature&endash;and to future generations&endash;the staggering sight of massed whales breaching, mating, or gorging themselves on wriggling shoals of pink plankton? Ibid.

No treatise, poem, or painting can convey the overwhelming massiveness of a free-swimming whale. Ibid.

Do these mighty nomads of the sea have their own traveling cities, perhaps even their own nations? They court, form families, carefully raise their young. The oceans reverberate with their whistles, grunts, songs, and conversations. Their pulsating calls are hymns to animal intelligence. Ibid.

Whales are sociable, affectionate, devoted, gentle, captivating, high-spirited creatures. The entire ocean is their empire&endash;and their playground. Theirs is a "leisure society" that predates ours by some forty million years. Ibid.