Watching, from the Edge of Extinction

Rating:
Summary: A book not to miss
Review: A book not to miss--if one loves the environment and fears for its future.

Watching from the Edge of Extinction is a rare read for many reasons; not the least of which it is written by a husband and wife, who bring different voices and expertise to the project they undertake. Their book offers solid science, culture, and a disciplined attention to factual detail as well as the great shadings of human personalities as this couple sets out to document ten cases of creatures nearing the end of their species' existences on the earth.

What makes the book so fascinating and ultimately such a challenge is that the authors do away with any tinge of moralism and show us that the effort of trying to save a creature is a complex, costly combination of acts and interactions that often absorbs people and groups for periods as long as a lifetime. The passions, victories and defeats inside each story make the book one that should be read one chapter at a time. The political, scientific and practical realities slowly sink in. These are stories that are existential in every sense. The end is not written and even the meaning or consequences of one's actions are not simple to describe or predict. In environmental actions undertaken to protect a species, there are protagonists on all sides. Even the very best of the "good" guys still finds him or herself sometimes disarmed because of the nearly invisible way animals, birds and insects have developed their niches and patterns. These patterns must be understood in order to consider saving a species. Often the very acts of study--such as nearing nests to take population counts--are events that eventually stress the remaining members of the creature. The stories, which are of triumphs and defeats, are deeply involving because they are true. They are sobering because they offer no simple solutions other than rigor and dedication. Often the people who are working to save a species are heroes whom we have never heard of. They are passionate, modest people who sometimes have devoted their lives basically for the reason that it is a shocking reality to face the death not only of an individual but of a group.

The Stearns finish their book with a more literary chapter on the Gibbon who disappeared from China centuries ago. Yet nearly two thousand years ago its being filled the pages of Chinese poetry and its symbolism was painted century after century. This wealth comes to an end.

As our technologies alter our rhythms and reflect our own minds since we invented them, their brilliant book reminds us that most of the world lived without us. The world filled with living creatures showed us other worlds that were not ourselves. They found patterns and ways which now we must assist them in maintaining, before we are left alone on the planet, without bird-song, without howls and roars, and bright spouts from blow-holes. They ask us to think about creatures as committed to experiencing the joy of life as we ourselves.