White Dolphin (24 page)

2)
 
Write to your MP about sustainable fishing and cleaning up our seas.

3)
 
Be a volunteer at your local Wildlife Trust and help to clean up your beaches.

4)
 
Adopt a dolphin with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society:
www.wdcs.org/hych/adopt/dolphin/dolphin.php

5)
 
Raise money for an organization that helps to support dolphins.

This book couldn’t have been possible without the help of many people.

I’d like to thank James Barnett of British Divers Marine Life Rescue for information on dolphin strandings (
www.bdmlr.org.uk
), Dave Murphy of the Finding Sanctuary Project for his wealth of experience as a fisherman and his invaluable insight into providing a sustainable future for all who use the sea (
www.finding-sanctuary.org
), members of the RYA sailability for their inspiration and technical advice (
www.ryasailability.org.uk
), Mikey Jones for showing me that anything is possible, and Mylor Sailing School for teaching an old dog new tricks.

I’m indebted to my agent Victoria Birkett and to Liz Cross and all the staff at Oxford University Press for pulling this story out of the hat.

Biggest thanks as always to Roger, Georgie, Bethany, and Jemma.

My research about the effects of commercial scallop-dredging came from the Lyme Bay Project funded by the Wildlife Trusts (
www.savelymebayreefs.org
). Their twenty-year study of the reefs off the Dorset coast has shown not only the full impact of damaging fishing practices but also the potential for marine habitats to recover if given protection and sufficient time. Protection has to be the key to marine conservation, because at our current rate of plundering the oceans’ resources, time is running out.

Gill Lewis spent much of her childhood in the garden where she ran a small zoo and a veterinary hospital for creepy-crawlies, mice, and birds. When she grew up she became a real vet and travelled from the Arctic to Africa in search of interesting animals and places. She worked in Cornwall for several years and spent many hours of her spare time in the cold Atlantic, learning how to fall off a surfboard.

Gill now writes books for children. Her debut novel,
Sky Hawk
, was published to much critical acclaim and has been translated into twenty languages. The publishers of
Sky Hawk
generously sponsored a satellite-tagged osprey through the Highland Foundation for Wildlife, fulfilling Gill’s dream that her writing could contribute directly to wildlife conservation.

She lives in the depths of Somerset with her husband and three children and writes from a tree house in the company of squirrels. She still loves to visit Cornwall, but prefers to take the bodyboard to tame the waves instead.

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