On Thursday, October 21st at 5:30pm, in conjunction with October being Orca Awareness month, or “Orca-tober,” join Lopez local author and marine ecologist Gene Helfman for a virtual launch of his newly published first novel Beyond the Human Realm. Noted by fans to be “an imaginative and compelling story” told in part from the perspective of an Orca whale, “combining biological rigor with a deeply felt sense of place. Helfman takes readers on an immersive inter-species journey through pain and redemption. If you’re an orca lover…you must read this book!”
Thursday, October 21st at 5:30pm
Watch the recorded program here
Part of the Fall 2021 local author speaker series
Gene Helfman is an animal behaviorist turned conservation biologist. With a PhD in Ecology from Cornell University, Gene was on the faculty of the University of Georgia for thirty years, authoring four books on fish and marine conservation and dozens of related scientific papers. He spent much of his professional career underwater demonstrating that fish are smarter than conventionally thought. In an effort to get the conservation message to a larger audience, and recognizing that more people read fiction than non-fiction, he has written a sharksploitation horror/comedy screenplay about shark finning and an eco-thriller novel about endangered killer whales.