Customer Reviews

Strange Encounters: Adventures of a Renegade Naturalist

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As a long standing fan of Botkin's excellent DISCORDANT HARMONIES I looked forward to diving into this autobiographical account of this remarkable naturalist's career & thoughts. Alas, by about a third of the way through I found my attention drifting away & kept asking myself "Yeees... so what?" as essay piled on essay. Botkin has obviously done some really interesting things & has been to some odd and interesting places, but this book has far too much of the feel of satisfying a publisher's request of "why don't you root around in the attic & see if you can throw something together on sabbatical" & not enough of "so here's how my life informed my work & my work informed my life". I passed the book along to one of my best undergrads, and she said almost the same thing without prompting. Several essays seem to be heading for some sort of exciting peak, but then they sort of fizzle out & we are on to the next adventure without really understanding how to place what went before. This is too bad as I am confident that Botkin is capable of much much more. As an alternative, for folks interested in how the lives of ecologists affect their professional work I would suggest Dennis Chitty's excellent DO LEMMINGS COMMIT SUICIDE?

The book is an intriguing mixture of elements. On the one hand it describes the author's sometimes hilarious experiences as he seeks to answer such questions as "how long does a whale sleep," and "how much does an elephant eat." On the other hand he raises sobering questions about the capacity of the discipline of ecology to solve environmental problems. I enjoyed the book both for its human interest and for the author's reflections on the state of our understanding of nature.

Until my sister bought this book for me for my birthday a few months ago, I had never heard of Daniel Botkin before. Though he holds a PhD in ecology, he received his BA in physics (rather than biology). He has contributed to fascinating projects all over the world, worked for NASA, taught at UC Santa Barbara, and been involved with various conservation programs. He also has a MA in literature and a keen interest in the Lewis and Clark Expedition and Henry David Thoreau. If there's anything he can be accused of, being uninteresting isn't it.

So it's all the more unfortunate that this book is so weak. In bite-sized chapter after bite-sized chapter, Botkin starts to tell miscellaneous stories that just kind of trail off without a resolution or a clear point. Most chapters have to do with him being asked to answer certain questions, such as "how long do whales sleep?"; "how many leaves are on a tree?"; and "what happens, over time, to an irradiated forest?" The answers (respectively) are along the lines of: "We never found out," "we never found out," and "they cut our funding (so we never found out)."

A few other chapters are philosophical musings on nature and how the American mythos of nature has changed over time. The answer seems to be "nature is... something..(?)"

Perhaps the most disappointing waste of potential is when Botkin describes an idea he and some fellow scientists came up with to battle cancer. The idea is to take the opposite approach usually employed by a conservationist -- that is, to ruin cancer's environment and make it go extinct. Sounds fascinating, doesn't it? Well don't get too excited; this topic takes up the smallest portion of the book -- the epilogue.

Botkin is an interesting man who's led an interesting life, been to some interesting places, had some interesting jobs, and has an interesting perspective for an ecologist (a field I'm very interested in). It's such a shame this book was so uninteresting! I see here on Amazon that he's written quite a few books. I'll probably eventually get around to giving him another shot, but I wouldn't recommend this one.

There are a lot of really great books out there about natural history, but Botkin's approach is a little different. He includes anecdotes about New England water mills, and sounds a little like McKibben; then he crosses the continent to write about sea lions-now he sounds like Moore. He crosses the ocean to Africa in order to write about elephants, and one is reminded of Quammen's Natural Acts. Botkin is not copying the styles of other writers, he is simply exploring similar topics, but from a different perspective-that of an ecologist.

Through twenty-eight essays, and a poignant account of the ecology of his wife's battle with cancer, Botkin approaches each problem-whale hunting, sustainable salmon fisheries, forest management, endangered species, and more-with a completely open mind. He will not accept dogmatic explanations, and his inquisitiveness leads him on a life-long hunt to try to solve some-any-ecological problem. He writes in humorous tones of the slings and arrows of the idealist ecologist, and wonders how, as a forestry expert, he wound up with jobs trying to learn how long whales sleep (no one knew), or how much food an elephant ate (no one knew), or how many leaves are on a tree (no one knew). He despairs that he will ever make a positive contribution to ecology: "Ever the optimist, I had readily accepted the opportunity to work on the salmon issue. Perhaps this time I can really make a difference..." In each essay it appears as if his contribution is minor, until one takes in his body of work, over his long career, to discover that his contribution was actually enormous and invaluable.

The reader of natural history will enjoy Botkin's experiences and insights, but more importantly, those unfamiliar with ecology or natural history (reds, you know who I mean) will learn a great deal without feeling threatened.

A world-class ecologist, with a mind disciplined by the study of physics, recounts his experiences studying a wide-ranging array of environmental problems. With humor, incredulity and pathos he recounts examples of "ecological truth" which are based on untested assumptions. The recurring theme from beginning to end is: measure, measure, measure. This is a must read for students planning a career in science and young scientists just starting out. For this old forest ecologist, I hope the younger generation heeds the wisdom in this book.

Daniel Botkin's new book continues his string of must read books that provide a valuable perspective on the environment. His wealth of experience in field work and academic science is nicely complemented in this book through his reflections on a number of scientific issues with which he has engaged over his career. From the engineering of New England mills to studying ocean life, Botkin's reflections on his work will keep you engaged throughout the book and leave you looking for more. Whether you are an aspiring or practicing naturalist, or just looking for a good read, this book is a great choice.