Last Chance to See...random thoughts

Last Chance To See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine.

Let me just say this to start with: There is no way on Earth that I am going to be able to put into words how amazing this book is.

I'm not even sure how to describe this book. Non-fiction--well yes, that's easy. Natural science--yep. Travelogue--yeah, sort of. Humorous--most definitely. Serious--again, most definitely.

 Briefly, Douglas Adams (yes, the Douglas Adams) and Mark Carwardine, a zoologist, head out on a mission to find and document some of the world's rarest animal species. They travel to Indonesia to see Komodo dragons...China to see blind river dolphins...Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) to see mountain gorillas and white rhinos...New Zealand to see kakapos...the islands of Mauritius to see Rodrigues fruit bats (though they learn of the even worse outlook of the some of the islands rare birds, thus changing the focus of that visit). They encounter spectacular environments and meet some very interesting folks who have dedicated their lives to trying to save these species.

(Note: This book was published in 1990, so the status of some of these incredible animals has changed. In fact, here is a website with updates. However, the fact that this book is twenty years old, in my opinion, does not for a second take away from its awesomeness. It is still a powerful, important look at the subject of biodiversity loss.)

I have to admit something--I was just a tad wary of reading this book. Because I knew that the book was supposedly quite humorous. My brain just screamed out at this idea..."Why the hell would anyone want to write a humorous book about such an incredibly sad subject?!!!" Well, you know what, I'm not sure anyone else could have written this book, and managed to convey with such respect and honesty and reverence, the seriousness of the potential loss of these beautiful species. And yes, he did it in the most hilarious way imaginable. My brain told me this approach could not possibly work...but reading is believing.

It's sort of strange. I know many people go positively ga-ga over dolphins. But I'm not one of them. Don't get me wrong--I have nothing at all against them. I have a deep love and respect for all animals. (Okay, it's a bit harder to love mosquitoes than it is most other animals, but I'm sure you know what I mean.) But dolphins don't capture my imagine the way some other animals do. Anyway, that is why it surprised me somewhat that it was the story of the Baiji, the Yangtze river dolphin, that hit me the hardest, that twisted my insides, that made the tears flow most freely. These beautiful creatures, which now are functionally extinct, were nearly blind...they had no need of sight because the Yangtze is such a muddy river that sight was of no benefit. They relied on their other senses, especially their sonar for navigation and feeding. And this served them just fine until too many people with too many "advanced" vessels began crowding the river. The fact that they have essentially disappeared is heart-breaking. But so is the picture of how these last generations had to live their lives:

As I watched the wind ruffling over the bilious surface of the Yangtze, I realised with the vividness of shock that somewhere beneath or around me there were intelligent animals whose perceptive universe we could scarcely begin to imagine, living in a seething, poisoned, deafening world, and that their lives were probably passed in continual bewilderment, hunger, pain, and fear.

 It's hard to believe that this book contains humor after reading that, huh? But it does. In massive doses. For me, some of this humor hit close to home, being married to a biologist. For example:

One of the characteristics that laymen find most odd about zoologists is their insatiable enthusiasm for animal droppings. I can understand, of course, that the droppings yield a great deal of information about the habits and diets of the animals concerned, but nothing quite explains the sheer glee that the actual objects seem to inspire.

 You might think he's exaggerating there. He ain't. Proof:

Yep, that's what you think it is. Biologist husband actually collects poop (though he, of course, uses the term "scat" to keep it all on the scientific up-and-up), shellacs it, and then stores it in jars. (And don't worry, I promise you, most of Adams's humor is directed at subjects a little less unseemly. :P)

Well, as predicted, I didn't even come close to doing this book justice. And that's a darn shame.

*****
Many thanks to Ana--it was her incredible review that made me pick up this book to start with, and for that I am quite grateful.

some days are hardly worth writing about

Interspersed amongst the essays/articles in The Biodiversity Crisis are short little case studies as well as mini biographies of some of the people out there in the world battling biodiversity loss. All I managed to read yesterday from this book was one of these little (3 pages) case studies. It was about Lake Victoria and the cichlids. That whole situation is so utterly heartbreaking, both on a ecological level and on a human one. Anyone interested should watch the documentary Darwin's Nightmare. Such a powerful, disturbing, heartbreaking movie. And really, it's a vitally important story that most people know nothing about.

Bedtime brought me back to Harry. But unfortunately I'd stayed up too late that by the time I settled in to read, I could hardly keep my eyes open. Only read 18 pages. The shit was really starting to hit the proverbial fan, and still I couldn't win the battle against sleep. Oh well, just means tonight's reading will be mighty exciting.

*****
And in the dangerous world of blog-reading, this book has been added to my wish list:

*Tamar by Mal Peet (thanks to the lovely Ana's review)

a truly slow day

Not a large page count for the day. Higher marks for variety though.

Read another essay (5 pages) in The Biodiversity Crisis: Losing What Counts, "Nest Gains, Nest Losses" by Scott K. Robinson. Really good. Another example of how we don't always realize the detrimental effects of our actions. Songbirds have enough problems to deal with these days, and this article pointed out yet another. The author and several other research teams in the Midwest worked together on a comprehensive study and found that the fragmentation of forests is really hurting several songbird species. Thanks to the parasitism of cowbirds. Cowbirds must live within four miles of farmland and open spaces to forage for food, and thus the fragmentation of forests is leaving less and less deep forest where songbirds are safe from their parasitism.

Then on a totally different track, I read the first 15 pages in a book I got yesterday, Organize Now! A Week-By-Week Guide to Simplify Your Space And Your Life by Jennifer Ford Berry. Now that school is coming to an end for the year, I'm on a quest to get my life, my home, my everything organized again. Not sure if this book will actually help...I don't plan to follow it to the letter or anything, but it does seem to be full of tips I can put into practice. My first step (though not a tip gleamed from the book) was to start another blog to chart my progress. Yeah, just what I needed, huh? But I'm hoping that tracking my progress will provide motivation. (And yes, I do realize that setting up another blog was maybe not my most productive use of time--I could have been reading or trying to finish up the last of the school stuff for the year or working on actually getting something organized--my excuse being that I was feeling really sick most of the day and just couldn't stay focused on anything "productive.")

Finally, at bedtime, I managed to read 10 pages in Harry Potter before falling asleep.