Customer Reviews

Voyage of the Turtle: In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur

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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.

This third book of Carl Safina's is every bit as magical and enthralling as his first two. Once again we are taken on a journey throughout the world, with stop-overs in places that I thought I understood (Florida, Trinidad, Costa Rica, New Guinea) but that are clearly filled with fascinating persons and practices that are strikingly new -- and uplifting -- to me. I was moved by the plight of turtles, such glorious beings, and saddened to realize how their only real danger are human practices ... and yet Safina probes each situation deeply enough to find the wildly varied knots of dedicated people who are succeeding in helping to bring these deserving creatures back from the edge of extinction. I was thrilled to find that Safina had written another book -- his other two are amonsgt my favorites of all time -- and this one was just as intriquing and poetic and important as I could have hoped.

I finally had the chance to meet the author in person, after reading this and some of his other publications. I don't think there is anyone who is more serious yet also more full of hope than Carl about protecting our world's oceans and all beings dependent on them. Read this book and you will learn why it is important that we pay attention to the plight of animals that are endangered or which we humans are taking to the brink of extinction because we do not know all the facts. We have only one Earth and we need to preserve it for the generations to come. This book will bring you close enough to the life of these amazing relics from the dinosaur age to imagine you are right there on the beach, witnessing a clutch of eggs hatching, observing the hatchlings' attempts at survival. Learn about the migration of these animals, and follow their path with the help of state-of-the-art tools or old-fashioned hands-on research. The book focuses mainly on leatherbacks, but also deals with the greater picture of ocean conservation. An interesting read, a mixture of story-telling and scientific report which will keep any conservation-minded reader entertained as well as informed.

I have read just about every book regarding sea turtles over the past 40 years. This book by Carl Safina is at the top of the list !! The facts he contains are new and very recent. His focus on the leatherback sea turtle is remarkable and much needed as this is the turtle we know the least about. It is a mix of data, sociology, history and philosophy all told as a story and gives an entire picture of the natural history of the leatherback. Dont miss this one !!
Larry Cartmill, Ph.D.
Herpetology Instructor

This is an amazing well written book about a fascinating subject. It is a story of hope for not just the turtles but for mankind.

A must read for anyone that inhabits the earth. Safina has the perfect blend of facts and emotions, and in the perfect balance that neither gets too cloying or despair-inducing.

The human diaspora across the planet has been Nature's most jarring event since the Cretaceous. Not since an asteroid slammed into the Caribbean 65 million years ago has anything exceeded what our species has done to upset the diversity of life. A mysterious group of animals, leftovers from that bolide, is revealing its secrets to enquiring scientists. The sea-going turtles, whose peregrinations around the world's oceans, are revealing new information about their enigmatic lives. Carl Safina followed the turtles and the people studying them to describe the findings and what they mean. This brilliant account reveals turtle life and the threats they endure.

After reminding us that only seven species of sea turtle remain, Safina visits the Caribbean to describe the great Leatherbacks coming ashore and nesting. Emerging through the night's surf, she finds a particular spot, one which may require more than one attempt, then with her back to the site, uses her rear flippers to blindly scoop out a hole to drop her eggs. Safina describes his wonder at her ability to do this without seeing the effect of her digging. Not all turtles manage this without mishap, and in a few cases the caring observers do the digging for her. In either case she drops her eggs, covers them with sand in a way to camouflage the spot, then returns to the sea. From the surf line, she swims away to some unknown destination. When the eggs hatch, the surviving young follow her to the sea. For the males, it's the last time they will feel land under their flippers.

The destination long remained a mystery until tagged turtles began appearing thousands of kilometres away. Safina joins a boat seeking Swordfish over the Canadian Grand Banks as a means of finding the giant turtles. Leatherbacks plying these waters are of Caribbean origin. Those females feed on Cannonball Jellyfish along the Carolinas before shifting north, later to cruise the vastness of the Atlantic to the Azores. It's a fabulous migration, but there are bigger surprises in store.

Along the eastern Pacific, Leatherbacks and other species were once common. Nature's most voracious predator has sharply reduced their number, chiefly by removing eggs just after they're laid. Villagers consumed or sold them in vast numbers. After a tour of a miniscule beach nesting site in Costa Rica, Safina meets with various students of turtle habits. He flies with Sandy Lanham and Laura Sarti to count turtles on the Mexican Coast, where lengthy beaches no longer experience turtle numbers that once was the case. To learn what has happened to them, Safina must cross the Pacific to Papua on the west end of New Guinea. With researchers working in the area with local people, he learns of ways poverty-stricken villagers can be employed to assist in saving turtles. Here, where humans might have first contacted the Leatherback after over 100 million years without a serious enemy, turtles exhibit their vulnerability to our predatory ways. The Pacific Leatherbacks are beset by those who don't even intend it. Longliner fishing boats string over 1.4 billion hooks per year on lines running to 90 kilometres length. The hooks snag flippers or are swallowed with lines. Turtles need air, just like us, but drown before the lines are brought up. Exact statistics are hard to come by, Scafina notes, but the evidence points to these boats as the most destructive force to turtles after egg poaching.

The author notes, however, that cures are available to help restore turtle populations. Beaches in some nations are declared "off limits" and patrolled. New hook designs that catch fish without snagging turtles have been developed, but need universal application - a difficult task with conservative fishermen. In Florida, shoreline communities have learned to douse lights to protect nesting sites - otherwise the hatchlings cannot find the sea. Incorporating local help has proven effective by showing how tourism and controlled collection can bring in more money than simple predation produces. In some species, there have been gains in new populations. Are the rising numbers significant? They apply only to certain species and locations. The greatest obstacle is the issue of turtle maturity, since breeding adults may take a human generation to start laying eggs. It means patience, dedication and continuing watchfulness on conditions are required. An elusive factor is what effect climate change will have on beaches and the sealife the turtles need to survive. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

You need not be a scientist to understand this or any of Dr. Carl Safina's books. His writings are sheer poetry and will give you a clear and easy to understand read of his subject matter. His devotion to his work comes out clearly in his written works. His ability to make his words come alive will give you chills when you read them. His writing skills are truly a gift. Not many authors of scientific topics have the ability to draw you in the way Dr. Safina does.

I highly recommend this book as well as The Song of the Blue Ocean and Eye of the Albatross. You will not be disappointed.