Book details

Voyage of the Turtle

In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur

Author: Carl Safina

Voyage of the Turtle

Voyage of the Turtle

$22.99

About This Book

The story of an ancient sea turtle and what its survival says about our future, from the award-winning writer and naturalist

Though nature is indifferent to the struggles...

Page Count
416
On Sale
05/29/2007

Book Details

The story of an ancient sea turtle and what its survival says about our future, from the award-winning writer and naturalist

Though nature is indifferent to the struggles of her creatures, the human effect on them is often premeditated. The distressing decline of sea turtles in Pacific waters and their surprising recovery in the Atlantic illuminate what can go both wrong and right from our interventions, and teach us the lessons that can be applied to restore health to the world's oceans and its creatures. As Voyage of the Turtle, Carl Safina's compelling natural history adventure makes clear, the fate of the astonishing leatherback turtle, whose ancestry can be traced back 125 million years, is in our hands.

Writing with verve and color, Safina describes how he and his colleagues track giant pelagic turtles across the world's oceans and onto remote beaches of every continent. As scientists apply lessons learned in the Atlantic and Caribbean to other endangered seas, Safina follows leatherback migrations, including a thrilling journey from Monterey, California, to nesting grounds on the most remote beaches of Papua, New Guinea. The only surviving species of its genus, family, and suborder, the leatherback is an evolutionary marvel: a "reptile" that behaves like a warm-blooded dinosaur, an ocean animal able to withstand colder water than most fishes and dive deeper than any whale.

In his peerless prose, Safina captures the delicate interaction between these gentle giants and the humans who are finally playing a significant role in their survival.


"Magnificent . . . A joyful, hopeful book. Safina gives us ample reasons to be enthralled by this astonishing ancient animal—and ample reasons to care." -- The Los Angeles Times

Imprint Publisher

Holt Paperbacks

ISBN

9780805083187

In The News

“Carl Safina is like some extraordinary astronaut who goes into space and comes back with fantastic tales of other planets and the creatures who inhabit them. Except that the marvelous planet is our own. This is a story of stoicism and wonder that will make the oceans seem that much richer to all who read it.” —Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy

“That remarkable voice for the marine realm, Carl Safina, reveals the riveting tale of that most extraordinary creature, the Leatherback Turtle, overlain with the drama and hope of the battle for its conservation. No naturalist or planetary citizen can hope to be complete without Voyage of the Turtle. A fabulous book.” —Thomas E. Lovejoy, President, The Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment

About the Creators

Voyage of the Turtle

Voyage of the Turtle

$22.99