Beneath the Surface

“I highly recommend Beneath the Surface to readers of all ages, including those youngsters about whom Hargrove writes, who want to be just like him when he trained orcas to perform stupid and unnatural tricks. Hargrove is a very courageous man, and his book is open and honest and we should all thank him for taking the time to write it.”—Marc Bekoff, The Huffington Post

“A story of both dread and wonderment . . . books such as this have the ability to shine a light into the inner workings of corporate greed and redirect efforts from selling tickets to preserving, nurturing and enhancing the orcas' lives.”—The Huffington Post

“Elaborates on . . . [Blackfish's] claims but also testifies to the thrill of standing athwart four tons of muscle rushing through the water at 30 miles an hour. And, equally, the nearly mystical experience of bonding with an intelligence eerily similar to our own, yet ultimately unfathomable—and uncontrollable.”—Smithsonian Magazine

“As Hargrove's love for and knowledge of [orcas] increased, he gradually concluded that the work he was part of at SeaWorld was harming them . . . Hargrove covers both the joy of his own experiences with orcas as well as the case for why such interactions in captivity should end.”—Scientific American

“[Hargrove has] delved deeper into the ethical issues surrounding orca captivity, convincingly making the case that these intelligent, sentient animals can only be free in the wild.”—Nature World News

“Beneath the Surface instantly grabs the reader's attention with a vivid description of an aggressive incident between a captive orca and former SeaWorld trainer John Hargrove. Clearly there is still much to reveal about the grim reality behind the 'glamorous' orca show. This firsthand account may be the final push that ends the inhumane practice of keeping the world's largest marine predator and one of the most intelligent and social mammals on the planet in concrete tanks.”—Naomi A. Rose, Ph.D., Animal Welfare Institute

“This deeply personal look at the lives of whales in captivity will open your eyes and tug your heart. John Hargrove's work as a senior trainer at SeaWorld made him understand how we need to rethink our relationships with the animal world.”—Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs and Einstein: His Life and Universe

“A deeply honest personal account of a man's awakening from orca trainer to orca advocate as he learned the painful truth about what lies beneath the surface of SeaWorld”—Lori Marino, Ph.D., Researcher and Founder, The Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy

“The thin veneer of SeaWorld's fantasy that the orca are happy in their tanks is peeled back in this mesmerizing and compelling book about Hargrove's work as a trainer and his journey to become one of the few speaking out against the cruelty being conducted even to this day.”—Ingrid N. Visser, researcher and founder of the Orca Research Trust

“How would you cope if you felt that your life work contributed to a cause in which you no longer
believed? . . . Blends natural history and corporate indictment into an emotional story about a man changing sides in the argument over human domination of the animal world.”—Booklist

“It is with this same unique amalgam of "dread and wonderment" that Hargrove characterizes both his longtime, high-ranking professional relationship with orca whales and his astonishment at how broken the performance animal arena has become—particularly at SeaWorld . . . A shocking, aggressively written marine park exposé."—Kirkus Reviews