Another winner from Weidensaul that belongs in every birder’s library.
Bird researcher and writer Weidensaul unpacks the state of bird migration research and conservation efforts.
Bird migration is a wonder, a natural force that pushes small, fragile creatures to fly immense distances with both speed and tenacity. In his latest contribution to the subject, the Pulitzer Prize finalist provides a wide-ranging investigation into migration, including the success stories as well as current problems and those on the horizon: climate change, which “is reshaping every single thing about migration”; habitat loss and forest fragmentation, “a serious danger to…migrant songbirds”; rat infestation; and hunting—especially after “wild meat became a status symbol rather than a mere source of protein.” As in many of his previous books, Weidensaul is a peerless guide, sharing his intoxicating passion and decadeslong experience with countless bird species all over the world. Another pleasing aspect of the narrative is the author’s fine-line descriptions of the often remote landscapes through which he has traveled and the vest-pocket character portraits of his birding comrades. Each of the chapters covers one or more species and locales—e.g., frigatebirds in the Galápagos, Amur falcons in China and Mongolia, whimbrels on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, more than 160 species of birds in Denali National Park—but the author also ventures into other areas, such as a bird’s “magnetic orientation” ability and the “genetic road map” that allows them to embark on a successful migration. Of course, significant problems abound: the disappearance of birds’ habitat preferences and favored diets; the traditional trapping of songbirds in the Mediterranean for consumption (according to one estimate in 2016, “trappers were killing between 1.3 million and 3.2 million birds annually in Cyprus, making this small island one of the worst places…for this slaughter”); and the disorientation of urban lights. As the author notes, because of the variety and number of routes, habitats, and species, their protection will require a vigorous global approach.
Another winner from Weidensaul that belongs in every birder’s library.Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-393-60890-8
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
McPhee (Irons in the Fire, 1997, etc.) winds up his artful geohistory of the US by going deep into the heartland—Kansas, Nebraska—in pursuit of deep time: the Precambrian. Included in this collection are his four previous forays into geology—Basin and Range (1981, which, to encapsulate, delineated plate tectonics), In Suspect Terrain (1983, Appalachian geohistory and some broadsides at plate tectonic theory), Rising from the Plains (1986, Wyoming curiosities and environmental conundrums), and Assembling California (1993, a showcase for active tectonics). Here he adds "Crossing the Craton"—craton being the rock basement of the continent—delving into the realms of "isotopic and chemical signatures, cosmological data, and conjecture," in the company of geochronologist Randy Van Schmus. McPhee has a way of making deep structures seem freestanding, right there to ogle: "the walls of the rift are three thousand feet sheer," they're also 600 feet below the surface. Dexterous as ever, McPhee takes on the creation—early island arcs and vulcanism and microcontinents—and tells it with all the power and simplicity a genesis story deserves.
Pub Date: June 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-374-10520-0
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1998
Not light reading but essential for policymakers—and highly recommended for the 40 million people who rely on the Great...
An alarming account of the “slow-motion catastrophe” facing the world’s largest freshwater system.
Based on 13 years of reporting for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, this exhaustively detailed examination of the Great Lakes reveals the extent to which this 94,000-square-mile natural resource has been exploited for two centuries. The main culprits have been “over-fishing, over-polluting, and over-prioritizing navigation,” writes Egan, winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award. Combining scientific details, the stories of researchers investigating ecological crises, and interviews with people who live and work along the lakes, the author crafts an absorbing narrative of science and human folly. The St. Lawrence Seaway, a system of locks, canals, and channels leading to the Atlantic Ocean, which allows “noxious species” from foreign ports to enter the lakes through ballast water dumped by freighters, has been a central player. Biologically contaminated ballast water is “the worst kind of pollution,” writes Egan. “It breeds.” As a result, mussels and other invasive species have been devastating the ecosystem and traveling across the country to wreak harm in the West. At the same time, farm-fertilizer runoff has helped create “massive seasonal toxic algae blooms that are turning [Lake] Erie’s water into something that seems impossible for a sea of its size: poison.” The blooms contain “the seeds of a natural and public health disaster.” While lengthy and often highly technical, Egan’s sections on frustrating attempts to engineer the lakes by introducing predator fish species underscore the complexity of the challenge. The author also covers the threats posed by climate change and attempts by outsiders to divert lake waters for profit. He notes that the political will is lacking to reduce farm runoffs. The lakes could “heal on their own,” if protected from new invasions and if the fish and mussels already present “find a new ecological balance.”
Not light reading but essential for policymakers—and highly recommended for the 40 million people who rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-393-24643-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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