Back Road To Crazy: Stories From The Field [Paperback]

Jennifer Bove (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2005

Strap on your snake chaps and slap on some sunscreen as biologist Jennifer Bové takes you out to the field in the company of biologists working on the frontlines of wildlife studies, botany, and resource management. This exuberant and entertaining collection of stories ranges from Myanmar to the Midwest, from Argentina to Alaska and many points in between, offering tales that are by turns thoughtful, funny, tragic, and just-plain-crazy.

During five years of working in snake-ridden sloughs and rough northern seas, Jennifer Bové often asked herself 'Why am I doing this?' Realizing her own experiences were only the tip of the iceberg, she invited friends and colleagues to answer the same question. The result is stories that include deadly snakebites, a plague of marmots, special delivery skunk oil, bald eagle wrangling, and a mountain goat loose in the galley of a research vessel. These adventures are the details behind the data collected by these men and women driven to unlock nature’s truths. In The Back Road to Crazy, seasoned researchers and novices alike reveal the impulse to trade the comfort of a more sheltered career for demanding physical labor, whims of weather, and the company of unruly creatures.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Back Road to Crazy is an entertaining and enlightening buffet of firsthand anecdotes about conservation fieldwork. It's all here: drama, adventure, toil, tedium, tears, laughter, mystery, terror, wonder, and ecological insight throughout. Overall, The Back Road to Crazy is a colorful path to wisdom."—Chip Ward, author of Hope's Horizon: Three Visions for Healing the American Land

From the Author

Each contributor’s account, whether humorous or tragic, will draw you beyond the bounds of the book into a profession that pays you to perform almost any kind of outdoor assignment imaginable, from traversing woodlands thick with grizzly bears to riding out furious arctic seas, all in the unyielding pursuit of scientific knowledge. Diverse in both subject matter and style, these stories collaborate fluently to represent biological fieldwork in a manner that is entertaining, informative, and intrepidly honest.

You will find a common thread of philosophy woven throughout the book’s assorted writings. From hidden corners of America to distant reaches of the globe, biologists share the notion that, in the course of fieldwork, what doesn’t kill you will make you tougher, deepen your sense of ecological accountability, and provide you with a cache of memorable stories to tell.

(Excerpted from the Introduction of The Back Road to Crazy)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: University of Utah Press; 1 edition (January 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874808162
• ISBN-13: 978-0874808162
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #952,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

After 5 years of bushwacking, snorkeling, and wrangling wildlife as a field biologist, I fell headlong into the uncharted territory of full time motherhood. These days, I scramble to raise wild and wonderful kids while earning my keep writing for 2 national magazines: MaryJanesFarm and Your Big Backyard (published by the National Wildlife Federation). I also write a column for my local newspaper based on my own adventures in "green" living. Stop by my blog weekly to read the latest: www.bovesboots.blogspot.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Field Biologists Will Understand This Book!, December 25, 2005

By 

David B Richman (Mesilla Park, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Back Road To Crazy: Stories From The Field (Paperback)

I have to warn the reader that I am a field biologist and thus somewhat prejudiced. However I think Jennifer Bové has collected a great series of stories about what it is like to be a biologist in the wild in her new book "The Back Road to Crazy: Stories From the Field." I only have met one of the authors, but in my life I have had or have known someone who has had many similar experiences as her writers describe. From Mark Moffett's sad account of a herpetologist who dies from krait bite in the Myanmar forests to Jeff Beane's lament in the North Carolina mountains this is a treasure trove for field biologists, people who like travel stories and just plain "nature nuts", to use John Acorn's Canadian TV program's title.

While I have not been to Myanmar or even North Carolina's mountains, I could tell a number of such stories, from a rainy "rattlesnake night" in Arizona and watching scorpions court under UV light on a hillside at midnight in New Mexico to an absolutely insane collecting trip to Ichetucknee Springs in northern Florida and seeing leatherback turtles come ashore to lay their eggs on Trinidad's east coast. All field biologists have a stock of such tales, because you simply cannot be a field biologist without having unusual things happen to you, even if you plan well (and, as any field biologist will tell you, a badly planned field trip can be an absolute disaster!) Jennifer Bové has now opened up this store of great stories and presented us with an absolute feast of them.

Anyone who wants to know what field biologists do should read this book. Keep in mind that there can be hours, days or weeks of boredom, but to be honest in field biology we are seldom really bored. The neat part about being a field biologist is that there is discovery awaiting all of us in every forest, desert, prairie, sea shore, creek, pond or lake. We are truly fortunate in that even waiting near a city vacant lot we can find interest in the ever fascinating tapestry of living things. It is what makes all the risks worth it. Although I could point out that crossing a street in any large city in the United States is usually more dangerous than any field work in a rain forest or desert!