Customer Reviews

Back Road To Crazy: Stories From The Field

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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!