Barbara Todd

Barbara Todd has a degree in education and did postgraduate work in early childhood education. She taught for many years before her love of the sea turned her from the classroom.
She then spent the next 20 years working with research teams studying whales in both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. She has worked with orca in the Pacific Northwest, humpbacks in the Caribbean and Tonga, sperm whales in New Zealand and Southern right whales in New Zealand's sub-Antarctic Auckland and Campbell islands.
Barbara has written 12 children's books on marine life as well as the book Whales and Dolphins of Kaikoura, New Zealand. She has also provided photographs and written articles for numerous publications, conducted worldwide workshops on whales, produced educational materials and featured in documentaries on whales and dolphins including National Geographic’s Divine Dolphins.
In 1987, Barbara and her partner Roger Sutherland started Nature Watch Charters, the first eco-tourism whale-watching venture in New Zealand. Valuable data and photo-id images of the area's whales and dolphins were collected on every trip, and shared with other scientists as well as New Zealand's Department of Conservation. The award-winning company attracted many thousands of people from around the world and inspired documentaries such as TVNZ's Cold Water, Warm Blood.