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Mark Leiren-Young

Mark Leiren-Young Quotes

Journalist

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Famous Mark Leiren-Young Quotes

“The orca’s big brain was bigger than he had hoped—five times the size of a human’s and weighing in at nearly fifteen pounds. And this was from a young whale, not a mature adult. The brain was also more complicated than McGeer had imagined—more complicated than a human brain. Dolphin brains were impressive, but this brain was spectacular.”

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Book:The Killer Whale Who Changed the World
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“We now know that killer whales are one of the very few mammalian species that can learn new sounds and reproduce them. Dogs and cats, for example—there’s not a chance you could teach a dog to meow or a cat to bark. It’s a very rare ability to learn sounds and reproduce them. We can do it, as humans. Some primates can. Some of the whales can. The calls Moby Doll made in 1964—we still hear today from his kin group that still exists out there. If all roads lead to Rome, all oceans lead to Moby Doll.”

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Book:The Killer Whale Who Changed the World
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“People had considered this the most fearsome creature on the planet. The most vicious. The most predatory. Without any rivals. It could beat anything in the ocean, so, therefore, it qualified as the most feared of all beasts. Totally wrong. So I guess Moby Doll changed the world’s attitudes towards killer whales. Instead of seeing a killer—a savage monster like Moby Dick—the world met a cuddly companion, Moby Doll.”

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Book:The Killer Whale Who Changed the World
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