Language: Trilingual in English, German, and Portuguese
From Whale Hunting to Whale Watching / Von der Waljagd zur Walbeobachtung / Da Caça à Observação de Baleias has been written to remind islanders and enlighten visitors of the Azores of the almost forgotten era of whaling on São Miguel. This photo documentary shows the almost unimaginable change from the cruel period of whale hunting to the equanimity of whale watching in a few short years. The chapters tell stories not only of the harsh times, the tough working conditions, the poverty of the working families and of their memories, but also of the fascinating, almost unbelievable moments that can be experienced out on the open Atlantic with whales and dolphins today.
Wulf H. Koehler was born in Königsberg, Germany on the Baltic Sea in 1940. He studied Mathematics & Physics as well as Mechanical & Electrical Engineering at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.
At the age of fifteen he started diving. He fell in love with underwater photography, which took him to almost all the seas around the planet. Wulf participated in a research project in the Red Sea living in an underwater laboratory for two weeks. He worked as an engineer designing the lighting system for a research dive vessel and when completed, descending to 660 ft down to the bed of the Red Sea as the vessel‘s photographer.
His own company, "OceanOptics Germany“, specialized in developing and manufacturing underwater camera housings and electronics. Apart from that he worked as a camera assistant with several wildlife cinematographers and as the underwater project engineer for the Hollywood feature film The Deep. In 1980 he qualified as a private pilot and subsequently built his own experimental aircraft in the USA.
Wulf is an honorary member of the "National Geographic Society“, as well as a member of the "Historical Diving Society,
USA“. Today he lives on the Azorean island of São Miguel.