Nederlandstalige informatie

Short introduction

Originally, I started this marine mammal information site by converting the raw material I had collected for my contribution to the IUCN Conservation Action Plan for seals, fur seals, sea lions, and walrus, to web pages (see my publications page for the full reference to this report). Over time, it has developed into a general marine mammal site by adding information about whales and dolphins. The information includes natural history, taxonomy and population status. Where available, photos have been included from my personal collection. In addition, a number of my publications are now web-enabled (see the online papers page).

Using this site

Navigating this site is facilitated by the framed menubar. However, you have some control over the look and feel of the site. You can select a layout (framed or non-framed) from the screen layout menu. You also use this menubar to break free of frames of other sites.

To prevent excessive loading times, the pictures included in the text are small versions. There are larger versions available of a number of them. You can load them by clicking on the small image. You can return to the original page by using the Back button or Back menu option on your browser.

This site was developed with education in mind, so you can use the information on this site freely. However, if you want to use (parts of) the pages or some pictures on a public medium (such as your web site), please contact me first. Consider all material on this site © 1997-2009, Jaap van der Toorn. This includes the Dolphin FAQ, the official Frequently Asked Questions list of the alt.animals.dolphins newsgroup.

For all the information on this site, published references and links to online information are provided, if available, so that you can look up the original work, if you want or use the references for further reading. The golden rule of web-based information gathering: Don't believe everything you see. Verify it.

What sceptical thinking boils down to is the means to construct, and to understand, a reasoned argument and, especially important, to recognize a fallacious or fraudulent argument. The question is not whether we like the conclusion that emerges out of a train of reasoning, but whether the conclusion follows from the premises or starting point and whether that premise is true. (Carl Sagan, in: The Demon-Haunted World - Science as a candle in the dark (1996))

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These pages are designed and maintained by: Jaap van der Toorn