Visit the South Australian Maritime Museum for an intriguing talk about the mysterious and catastrophic decline of humpback whales in the 1960s.  

Associate Professor Ryan Tucker Jones will tell the story of how two marine biologists, Graham Chittleborough and Bill Dawbin, began the first serious study of Southern Ocean humpbacks in the late 1950s, and almost immediately found that the whales were rapidly disappearing. Both scientists had connections with Australia’s shore-whaling stations, and wondered if they were to blame. But the real reason, as they later discovered, was something else entirely… 

Speaker: Associate Professor Ryan Tucker Jones
MC: Dr Adam Paterson 

EVENT DETAILS:
Date: 5 November 2023
Time: 2.00pm for a 2.30pm start – 3.30pm
Location: South Australia Maritime Museum, 126 Lipson Street, Port Adelaide 

Ticket fee includes entry to the SA Maritime Museum

Ryan Tucker Jones is the Ann Swindells Associate Professor of history at the University of Oregon. He is the author of Empire of Extinction: Russians and the North Pacific’s Strange Beasts of the Sea, 1741–1867 and coeditor of Across Species and Cultures: New Histories of Pacific Whaling. 

Ryan’s current research interests include the environmental history of the oceans, trans-Pacific connections, and animal history. His book Red Leviathan: The Secret History of Soviet Whaling is published by University of Chicago Press.  

Copies of the book Red Leviathan: The Secret History of Soviet Whaling will be available for purchase signed by the author. 

Tickets