Critics' Opinion:
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Published Sep 2011
288 pages
Genre: Science, Health and the Environment
Publication Information
Dolphins aren't just beloved, they are brilliant and conscious. So why do we treat them so terribly?
Diana Reiss is one of the world’s leading experts on dolphin intelligence. In addition, as a dolphin advocate, she is a leading rescuer who helped inspire and served as an adviser for the Oscar-winning film The Cove.
Here, she combines her science and activism to show just how smart dolphins really are and why we must stop mistreating them. Readers will be astonished at their sophisticated lifelong creativity and playfulness, their emotional intelligence, their level of self-awareness, and their ability to communicate with humans. Her beloved mentor dolphins (as she calls them), each with distinct personalities, create their own toys, use underwater keyboards, tease and scold her playfully, and give us glimpses of their intelligence that often seem very familiar. The Dolphin in the Mirror is both a scientific revelation and an emotional eye-opener, revealing one of the greatest intelligences on the planet.
"Riess's is an enthusiastic if unwieldy project, a hodgepodge of personal memoir, tutorial on captive dolphin behavior, and advocacy for halting large-scale dolphin hunts in Taiji, Japan." - Publishers Weekly
"A smart and humane book, and who doesn't love dolphins?" - Library Journal
"Among the author's purposes in writing this engrossing scientific memoir is to build support to stop the annual massacres of dolphins in Japan and elsewhere." - Kirkus
This information about The Dolphin in the Mirror was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Dr. Diana Reiss is Professor in the Psychology Department at Hunter College and in the Biopsychology and Behavioral Neuroscience Program of The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She directs the Dolphin Research Program at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. She is also adjunct faculty in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology at Columbia University, and she served as a member of the Animal Welfare Committee of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Her research focuses on dolphin cognition and communication, comparative animal cognition, and the evolution of intelligence. She has authored papers published in numerous international scientific journals and book chapters and her work has been featured in many television science programs. She has authored papers published in numerous international scientific journals and book chapters and her work has been featured in many television science programs.
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