Virtually 60 years in the past, herpetologist and conservationist Archie Carr launched the wonder and splendor of sea turtles to the world in his now traditional So Wonderful a Fishe. It was 1967, and Carr was already warning readers of the risks these magnificent creatures confronted attributable to fishing nets, ocean air pollution and human encroachment on breeding grounds. The plight of sea turtles hasn’t improved a lot since Carr’s time, however due to marine biologist and ecologist Christine Figgener’s charming My Life With Sea Turtles: A Marine Biologist’s Quest to Defend One of many Most Historic Animals on Earth, readers can perceive the life cycle of sea turtles, the forces that endanger them and the steps we should take to save lots of them from extinction.
Figgener was in an undergraduate analysis program in Egypt when she encountered her first sea turtle and, mesmerized, watched it swim by means of the waters of the Pink Sea. She moved to Costa Rica to work as a analysis assistant in a company dedicated to saving endangered leatherback turtles from extinction. Figgener recounts this early analysis with urgency that brings you proper into the second together with her, peering at a sea turtle as she lays her eggs within the sand.
With zeal and fervour, Figgener shares a wealth of details about these creatures. For instance, sea turtles migrate backwards and forwards between their nesting seashores and their feeding grounds, some species overlaying as many as 7,450 miles from website to website. Nesting feminine sea turtles lay tons of of eggs every year, however solely 50-60% hatch, and as soon as the hatchlings go away the nest, solely a small share survive the arduous journey again to the ocean, sneaking or scuttling by predatory birds and crabs. As soon as within the ocean, the newborns face marine predators and should navigate polluted waters crammed with plastics and fishing nets that may ensnare, maim or kill them.
Half memoir, half science reporting and half conservationist tract, Figgener’s illuminating My Life With Sea Turtles sheds gentle not solely on the wonder and thriller of sea turtles, but additionally on the pressing want to save lots of them.