Swiming with giants

Swimming With Giants

My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins, and Seals

The novel Swimming With Giants, by Anne Collet was an extraordinaire piece of literature about a biologists experience with the animals she loves. It is simply a book that expresses not only the wonder but also the tenderness that encounters with whales and other giants of the sea engender. The story tells of Anne Collet’s experiences as a young girl to a well known biologist.

When Anne Collet was a child she had her first encounter with the sea, as many young children do, by going on vacations with her family. From that point on she knew it was what she would want to do with her life. She went to college at a university in Brest and enrolled into the department of marine biology. This is where she began to study the sea and all its creatures in it. In 1973 Anne had her first Dolphin encounter and from then on became infatuated with the “Giants” of the sea. Her passion was for Dolphins and Whales.

Collet became, and is today, the founder and director of the Center for Research on Marine Mammals in La Rochelle. She has been a Biologist for the past twenty years and has enjoyed every second of it. In her books she speaks with vivid intensity of her encounters with whales, dolphins and seals throughout the world’s oceans. She conveys the thrilling aspects of her work with marine mammals, from the sublime gaze of a whale’s eye to the race to save animals harmed by drift nets or toxic spills. Like the teenagers she regularly takes on her voyages, the reader will not only learn about such things as whale evolution and the unusual sensitivity of dolphins’ skin, but will experience her passion for the ocean, respect for its creatures, and heartfelt concern about “scorched sea” policy of over fishing, trawl fishing and pollution.