No Turning Back: The Life and Death of Animal Species (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Everybody knows what extinction is..." (more)
Key Phrases: nonavian dinosaurs, giant sable, terrestrial dinosaurs, North America, New Zealand, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In No Turning Back, Richard Ellis makes a survey of animals that have disappeared through anthropogenic or other means. "Everybody knows what extinction is," he writes, but theories of why it happens are hampered by "the inability of biologists and paleontologists to agree on exactly what a species is." Still, Ellis manages to pick perfect examples to show how extinctions happen in the natural world, and how humans unnecessarily contribute to some of them. It's hard to look at the careful illustrations of long-gone animals such as the Irish elk, Steller's sea cow, quagga, or even the dodo, without feeling that the world would be better with some of them around. Ellis also introduces little-known species currently close to extinction, such as the spot-tailed quoll, the bilby, and the saiga, to add to the list of well-known threatened animals such as the white rhinocerous or the orangutan. Ending on an optimistic note, Ellis tells how some animals have been brought back from the brink of extinction through hard work, careful conservation, and lots of money. A master of the shocking ecological fact, and a thoroughly accessible and engaging narrator of the natural world, Ellis has succeeded in explaining extinction and its causes by showing readers what there was to love about creatures long gone. --Therese Littleton

From Publishers Weekly

In his latest book, multitalented marine naturalist Ellis (Imagining Atlantis; The Empty Ocean) broadens his attention from life in the oceans to an examination of the process of animal extinction. Readers will be tantalized by brief descriptions of many odd species—some extinct, many endangered. They will learn about the 50-foot-long megatooth shark; the 10-foot-tall duck known as Bullockornis, or "the demon duck of doom"; and the tiny leaf deer of southeast Asia, so named "because it was small enough to wrap its body in a single large leaf." Ellis condenses a century of research and postulation into one comprehensive volume of extinction; additionally, he discusses recently discovered species ("The Anti-Extinctions") and offers future extinction-prevention techniques ("Rescuing Animals from Oblivion"). Even with much compelling material, however, the book is not wholly successful. Although Ellis presents some fascinating theories (among them, he casts doubt on Christianity's placement of "humans confidently perched on the top rung" of the animal ladder), the text as a whole fails to develop a focused message, and lacks the intrigue necessary to sustain reader interest throughout. While certainly a home run on information, this volume proves only a single on entertainment. 70 line drawings.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; Book Club edition (August 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060558032
• ISBN-13: 978-0060558031
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #486,770 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crying wolf, January 13, 2005

By	Russell Finley "Biodiversivist" (Seattle, WA, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"No Turning Back" is a hybrid of several other books on the subject that I have read: "Extinction-Evolution and the end of man" by Michael Boulter, "The Sixth Extinction" by Richard Leakey, and "Song of the Dodo" by David Quammen. Interestingly enough, the blurbs on the back cover are for other books written by Ellis, not this one. His thirteen or so previous books all dealt with sea life.

Ellis is an excellent writer. This book is well-researched and full of interesting facts. You would think that I would know a thing or two about extinction judging from the books I have read on the subject but I learned a lot from this one. For example, hyperdisease is a disease capable of wiping out an entire species. Irrevocable evidence of just such a disease has been found in the most recent bones of Mastodons. It is assumed by the timing of the epidemic to have been spread by people and their dogs. We may be witnessing the same thing with the frogs of the world. I do not want to give too much of the book away, but you can count on seeing lots of good tidbits like this.

Anything a lay person would want to know about the topic of extinction in general is covered. He also talks about species that have been brought back from the brink, the probability of resurrecting extinct species, and new species that have been discovered. If you do not already know much about extinction, this book will be fascinating.

Personally, I am less interested in ancient extinction events than in finding solutions to halt the one currently in progress. Ellis finishes his book with the standard ominous suggestion that humanity may be positioning itself for extinction. This warning bell has been ringing out since 1962 when Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring." You would think (as we head for the half-century mark for her book) that the concept would have taken hold, but it hasn't, strongly suggesting that it never will. The wolf may be coming, but the warning has lost its effect over time. The debate over using DDT is raging all over again.

Missing from the book, as with most other books like it, are innovative suggestions for how to end this event. It has been estimated that for about 28 billion dollars enough critical habitat could be bought or leased to protect 70 percent of the known plant and animal species in the world. Our current attempt to establish a democracy in Iraq has already cost us five times that much. Such is human nature.

It is also human nature to form into groups complete with a geographic boundary and a label. These boundaries are called countries. All through history, in times of war, the areas adjacent to the warring parties widen into what is called a no man's land. Given time, these off limits areas are taken back by nature. This has happened in the no man's land between the two Koreas and it is an excellent example of what happens when human beings are kept out, in this case, by warring factions. No one goes hungry in South Korea just because that piece of land is not farmed. Whereas the hunger found in North Korea is caused by its poor economy. Will our technology explosion outstrip our population explosion? Can we find ways to stay housed and fed without destroying the rest of nature?

I highly recommend Ellis' book. It is by far the best I have read on the subject of extinction.

Russ Finley, Author of "Poison Darts-Protecting the biodiversity of our world."

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Last Lonely One, June 30, 2006

By	Seachranaiche (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: No Turning Back: The Life and Death of Animal Species (Paperback)

In "No Turning Back", Richard Ellis conjures these emotions for the sole remaining members of species soon to be extinct, such as the last passenger pigeon or the last Carolina parakeet, which finished out their lives in zoos. It is not the animals themselves who feel the lonely demise of their DNA, their unique genetic make-up, their strings of molecules that are never to be known on the Earth again--Ellis does not anthropomorphize, the animals have no idea that they represent the last of their kind--but humans who have viewed the last of these species and have known that this is it; there will be no more. There is the odd case here and there when a migrating species has been reduced to such a low number that the few remaining individuals--still engaging in their migratory behavior--return to breeding grounds to find that they are all alone. They carry on, though, back and forth through their migratory cycle until they die of natural causes or other events. These few survivors cannot know that they are the last of their kind, but they must know deep in their genes that something is terribly wrong.

It is all very sad, and such a waste.

Ellis spends a great deal of the book discussing recent man-caused extinctions. This testimony is the most disturbing, especially when modern extinction events are dwarfing those massive extinction events that occurred deep in geologic time, extinctions that may have been caused by astronomical events or geologic upheavals; that humans are capable of such destruction. It is all very sobering. Too often, a dying species is known to be on the brink, even by the least educated among us, yet the killing goes on against tigers and elephants and rhinoceros and apes... Ellis works to downplay the notion that an extinct species somehow deserved its extinction, as if its inability to adapt quickly to the rise of Homo sapiens shows that it is inferior in some way.

The book does not just describe human-caused extinctions--Ellis discusses historical extinctions as well, and calls into question some recent theories such as the Cretaceous asteroid impact. How could this event affect only dinosaurs, leaving just about everything else virtually intact, including many fragile species? He applies this question to many of the periodic extinction events, with one sure conclusion: There must have been much more going on than we are aware.

Overall, this is a very informative book; its modern chapters are akin to Douglas Adams' "Last Chance to See" in the wasteful finality of it all, but the book is organized poorly and is difficult to read. Ellis jumps back and forth, from birds to mammals and then back to birds again throughout the book, as if the book were pasted together from remnant articles collected over a period of time (and perhaps this is the case). He mentions the "K-T Extinction...which wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs" so many times that I lost count, and I wondered why he kept bringing it up.

Read the book as a reference resource for extinction events, but be prepared to be at it for a while: the book is very dry.

4.0 out of 5 stars Nutty Morons Aside..., May 11, 2009

By	C. Rancour "Internet Automaton" (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

After reading the review from the raving egotist who gave the book one star simply because Mr. Ellis doesn't think he's as smart as his mom told him he is I thought that I should write one too, but I'll keep it short.
If you are interested in nature, science, etc. and are looking for an engaging, casual book to spend some time with you'll learn a lot from this one.
The book is written for the Average Joe and is in Average Joe language, so if you believe that you're the guy Einstein stole all his ideas from you might find the book too simplistic, but if you're a normal person who likes reading about science the book will keep you entertained.
Oh and watch out for Steve Alten. He's apparently been getting into dad's special Kool-Aid again.