Whale Speaker Series

When Whales Stopped being Fish by Uko Gorter.

The American Cetacean Society, Oregon Chapter, continues its Speaker Series in person at the McEntee meeting room on the lower level of the Newport Public Library (35 NW Nye Street, Newport). This event takes place on Saturday, Oct. 28 at noon. The featured speaker will be Uko Gorter. Following the speaker series will be a silent auction. Funds raised are used to provide Graduate Student Research and Travel Grants to students studying cetaceans or cetacean education.

About the talk:

"When Whales stopped being Fish: Cetaceans as a taxonomic anomaly
 
'The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish'
 
Thus proclaims Ishmael, the narrator and protagonist of Herman Melville's epic novel of Moby Dick (1851), a mere decade before Darwin's publication "On the Origin of Species" (1859).
Today every third-grader can tell you that whales are mammals. A notion that seems no longer contested. Yet for centuries, whales, dolphins, and porpoises (cetaceans) defied systemizers and naturalists as to where to place them in the natural order.
Ancient classical thinkers took a philosophical approach to classifying the natural world, and did not contemplate evolutionary relationships.
In the dark ages, whales were reduced to monstrous fishes serving as religious allegories. Naturalists in the Renaissance unquestionably followed the ancient philosophers' scala naturae. Well into the Age of the Enlightenment, naturalists still grouped whales among the fishes and other aquatic animals, against all the evidence they themselves provided. We'll dive back in time and unravel the scientific journey.
 
Uko Gorter biography:
 
Born in Arnhem, Holland, Uko Gorter ended a seventeen-year career as a professional ballet dancer in 1997. Following in his father's footsteps, he subsequently pursued his lifelong dream of becoming an illustrator. Uko enrolled in the School of Visual Concepts and the School of Realist Art, both in Seattle, WA.
His interest in nature led him to become a natural history illustrator. Specializing in marine mammal illustration, Uko Gorter has traveled extensively to observe whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals in their natural environment. Uko’s work has appeared in scientific journals, museums, interpretive signs, and many books. The culmination of this work was illustrating all marine mammal species for the second edition of “Marine Mammals of the World: A Comprehensive Guide to Their Identification”, authored by Thomas Jefferson, Marc Webber, and Robert Pitman (Elsevier Press, 2015). More recently his work was featured in the "Anatomy of Dolphins; Insights into Body Structure and Function (Cozzi et al., 2017), and the Encyclopedia of Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises (Erich Hoyt. 2017).
Uko joined the American Cetacean Society in 2002, and is the current president of the American Cetacean Society. Uko lives with his wife in Kirkland, Washington."

The library has new protocols- you must enter the library through the main entrance. There are stairs and an elevator to the lower level. Doors open for the event at 11:40 a.m. Email Judi Adelman with any questions at foodiejudi@yahoo.com.