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"Magnificent . . . A joyful, hopeful book. Safina gives us ample reasons to be enthralled by this astonishing ancient animal--and ample reasons to care."
--Los Angeles Times
As Carl Safina's compelling natural history adventure makes clear, the fate of the leatherback turtle is in our hands. The distressing decline of these ancient sea turtles in Pacific waters and their surprising recovery in the Atlantic illuminate the results--both positive and negative--of our interventions and the lessons that can be applied, globally, to restore the oceans and their creatures.
We accompany award-winning natural history expert Safina and his colleagues as they track leatherbacks across the world's oceans and onto remote beaches of every continent, including a thrilling journey from Monterey, California, to nesting grounds in Papua, New Guinea. Throughout, in his peerless prose, Safina captures the delicate interaction between these gentle giants and the humans who are playing a significant role in their survival.
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In my life and my writing I explore our relationship with nature, especially the sea.
An early interest in fishing led me eventually into ocean science and studies of seabirds, which earned a PhD in ecology from Rutgers University.
In the 1990s, I helped lead campaigns to ban high-seas driftnets, re-write U. S. federal fisheries law, work toward international conservation of tunas, sharks, and other fishes, and achieve passage of a United Nations global fisheries treaty. During that time I turned increasingly to writing, for the power I recognized in written words.
I've written six books. I consider myself very, very lucky to have had the opportunity to develop as a writer and to be published, and to travel widely in the course of researching my books. Also very luckily, my books have attracted some generous recognition. My first book, Song for the Blue Ocean, was chosen a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction selection, and a Library Journal Best Science Book selection; it won the Lannan Literary Award for nonfiction. My second book, Eye of the Albatross, won the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing and was chosen by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine as the year's best book for communicating science. Voyage of the Turtle was a N. Y. Times Editors' Choice. My first children's book was published in 2010.
The View From Lazy Point; A Natural Year in an Unnatural World (new in 2011), is, I think, my best work to date. It's both very personal and global. it's main conclusion is that nature and human dignity require each other.
I'm also scheduled to have another book, about the Gulf of Mexico oil blowout, published in April 2011. It's about both the series of bad decisions leading to the blowout, and the emotional topography of the season of anguish that followed, including the often inane response.
In addition to my books I've written a lot of scientific and popular publications, including featured work in National Geographic and The New York Times, and a Foreword to Rachel Carson's The Sea Around Us. I've been profiled on Nightline and twice in the New York Times; received Chicago's Brookfield Zoo's Rabb Medal, been named among "100 Notable Conservationists of the 20th Century" by Audubon magazine, and featured on the Bill Moyers PBS special "Earth on Edge." My writing has been supported by fellowships from Pew, World Wildlife Fund, and Guggenheim, and by a MacArthur prize.
This book is very well-written and entertaining. Mr. Safina knows some interesting people doing interesting work on leatherbacks. He provides a good account of leatherback biology and population statistics (his description of how they stay warm in cold water is particularly good). He covers all of the sea turtle species to some degree, but keeps his focus on leatherbacks.
However, if you are looking just for a few facts and figures on sea turtles, you are missing much of what this book has to offer. Mr. Safina spends much time showing readers the insides of the industries, fishermen, coastal villages, and other people who affect sea turtles. For someone who does not live near the sea, having a narrator sailing with real American fishermen in the 21st century, giving voice to their views, was a real eye-opener. Furthermore, Mr. Safina touched upon the role of other institutions, from law to religion, that affect the sea turtles. Fortunately, Mr. Safina understands these people and various aspects of society, something that makes him a better conservationist and better author.
If you want to learn a lot and be awed by the leatherbacks, read this book.
For those of you interested in learning more about life on our planet this book is MUST read. As in his previous books, Dr. Safina is able to once again meld science and natural history in understandable layman's terms. The jouney of the Leatherback Turtle will both astound and mystify the reader. Many sea turtle species are on the verge of extinction including the Pacific Leatherback. Reading this book will open your eyes to the many facets of how scientist around the globe are trying to prevent this from happening. So, prepare to travel along with Dr. Safina & these magnificant creatures to far away places that most of us can only dream about!
When I first opened Carl Safina's new book, "Voyage of the Turtle : In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur," I felt a sense of being with him on the beach at Matura, Trinidad. This was not just because of his description of the area, which was quite accurate and very well done, but because I was with a group of biologists on this same beach seven years ago at night under a waning gibbous moon and in view of the Atlantic waves. We, like Safina and his group, were waiting for the signal that would indicate that one of the Nature Seeker scouts had discovered a female leatherback turtle coming ashore. We were drenched by two tropical rainstorms before the light down the beach brought us to our feet and, following our guide, to the sight of the boulder-like turtle maneuvering on the beach sand until she found the right spot to settle in and lay her eggs. What followed is well described by Safina. It was a night and early morning I'll never forget. I even got to touch the 800 lb monster! To add to the tropical atmosphere, the fireflies in the forest that edged the beach were mirrored in the sky by Alpha and Beta Centauri and the Southern Cross, the latter just visible in the moonlight during the early part of the night. Finally, as we walked back along the beach, we nearly stumbled over a second female.
Safina has captured the magic of that Trinidadian beach, and he goes on to describe further wonders relating to this largest of all living turtles and the other sea turtles. The leatherback is a huge turtle (males are even larger than females) that ranges whole oceans and is found in virtually all of the Atlantic and Pacific. Only recently have the movements of individual turtles been well documented and this has revealed an astonishing fact- they can easily cross the Pacific or travel from Trinidad to the North Atlantic off Canada and then to Africa! Once more these giant leatherbacks feed on jellyfish! Thus the very solid turtles are sustained by the most unsubstantial seeming large organisms on the planet!
Safina has written a wonderful book on the leatherback and other sea turtles. All of these giants have suffered at man's hands- directly and indirectly. Yet in some areas conservation efforts have paid off. Leatherback numbers are increasing along Florida and on Trinidad beaches. Still, the battle is far from won, for this and the other sea turtles. If you would taste the wonders of these fascinating sea creatures and understand why they should be protected, this great book is a good place to start.
