Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Fire in the Turtle House: The Green Sea Turtle and the Fate of the Ocean by Osha Gray Davidson ISBN: 1586480006 Publisher: PublicAffairs Pub. Date: 02 October, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5
Rating: 5
Summary: Bad News, And Not Just For Turtles
Comment: You didn't need to be told that humans are ruining natural environments all over the place. In the competition for survival, we are winning, beating out competitors, causing havoc, and claiming victory, however short term it may be. It is only particular aspects of the problem that are news, and we do need to be told of them for the purpose, if nothing more, of keeping our eyes open to the onslaught. Here is an aspect that you may not know about: green sea turtles are being killed off by a mysterious illness. A sincere and thoughtful book will tell you of the problem, if you can stand to hear about it: _Fire in the Turtle House: The Green Sea Turtle and the Fate of the Ocean_ (PublicAffairs) by Osha Gray Davidson. Davidson is a fine storyteller, and has pulled the history of sea turtles together with documentation about their current fate, as well as giving vivid portraits of the idiosyncratic turtle fans who are trying to do something about the turtles' problem. The particular problem for them is serious, and as Davidson's subtitle tells, it reflects a general and larger disaster.
The green sea turtle has survived for over a hundred million years, and it simply may not be around much longer. It has been overhunted, but as Davidson makes clear, overhunting is so cause-and-effect obvious that it is often blamed as the reason extinctions happen. However, a hundred years ago we were learning that the indirect methods of ignorance and indifference were far more efficient vectors of biological collapse by means of habitat destruction. We are also turning coastal waters into a breeding ground for a revolting disease called fibropapillomatosis, or FP for short. Tumors sprout on the flippers restricting motion, and around the eyes causing blindness, and within the guts causing eventual death. They are warty or smooth, and leeches live in them for the blood supply, and blood flukes lay eggs in them. In 1986 researchers were shocked that there were outbreaks of the disease in both Florida and Hawaii. The exact mechanism of the disease is in doubt, but what is not in doubt is that turtles with this disgusting and sad disease come from the areas which are most highly polluted, by fertilizers and sewage, or have sea beds gouged by trawling. Turtles from the few remaining pristine areas are so far unaffected, but no ocean creature will be unaffected by ocean temperature change, which is another way the sea becomes friendly to pathogens.
Davidson's work is full of facts and scientific information, and skillful portraits of people involved in trying to do something about this horrendous illness. If there is any defect in his book, it is that it spends its bulk explaining the problem carefully, and leaves only a few paragraphs for instruction on what we can do, and such instruction is general: "We could stop treating the ocean as if it were the world's largest garbage dump and start treating it like the sacred source of all life that it is... We could balance growth and development with habitat preservation. We could, finally, get serious about stopping global warming." Davidson is no pessimist, but sadly, it is probable that our "we coulds" are not going to change into "we wills" in time to stop this disaster, and the others connected to it.
Rating: 5
Summary: More than just a sea turtle problem...
Comment: ....although the sea turtle problem is bad enough. I got this book for Christmas and read it in two days, it was that compelling. Davidson does a great job of describing the awful FP virus that is decimating the ranks of sea turtles all over the world. Sea turtles have been on this earth since dinosaur times, he notes, and it would be tragic to see them go extinct now. The problem affects other species too and it is caused by overfishing and polluting the oceans, and probably global-warming as well. I don't want to repeat the whole book here, but I just want to say that this is fascinating and alarming reading for anyone who cares about the oceans and for the beautiful and endangered turtles.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Must Read
Comment: A well writen, easy to read, shocking and informative review of the epidemic plaguing the sea turtles of the world. A must read for anyone interested in sea turtles and/or the health of the world's oceans in general. Once I started reading I couldn't put it down.
 |
Title: The Enchanted Braid : Coming to Terms with Nature on the Coral Reef by Osha Gray Davidson ISBN: 047117727X Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: May, 1998 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
 |
Title: Sea Turtles (Worldlife Library) by Jeff Ripple ISBN: 0896583155 Publisher: Voyageur Press Pub. Date: January, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
 |
Title: The Windward Road: Adventures of a Naturalist on Remote Caribbean Shores by Archie Fairly Carr ISBN: 0813006392 Publisher: University Press of Florida (T) Pub. Date: March, 1979 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
 |
Title: Sea Turtles: The Watcher's Guide by M. Timothy O'Keefe ISBN: 0936513470 Publisher: Larsens Outdoor Publishing Pub. Date: 01 May, 1995 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
 |
Title: The Biology of Sea Turtles, Volume II by Peter L. Lutz, John A. Musick, Jeanette Wyneken ISBN: 0849311233 Publisher: CRC Press Pub. Date: 16 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $99.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
