Voyage of the Turtle: In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur Paperback – Illustrated, 29 May 2007

A factual and well written description of turtles. I bought this as a gift for a 10 year old who has coped with the content. I have also found it to be an interesting book. Photographs are great.

Beautiful book. Lovely photos.

The human diaspora across the planet has been Nature's most jarring event since the Cretaceous. Not since an asteroid slammed into the Caribbean 65 million years ago has anything exceeded what our species has done to upset the diversity of life. A mysterious group of animals, leftovers from that bolide, is revealing its secrets to enquiring scientists. The sea-going turtles, whose peregrinations around the world's oceans, are revealing new information about their enigmatic lives. Carl Safina followed the turtles and the people studying them to describe the findings and what they mean. This brilliant account reveals turtle life and the threats they endure.After reminding us that only seven species of sea turtle remain, Safina visits the Caribbean to describe the great Leatherbacks coming ashore and nesting. Emerging through the night's surf, she finds a particular spot, one which may require more than one attempt, then with her back to the site, uses her rear flippers to blindly scoop out a hole to drop her eggs. Safina describes his wonder at her ability to do this without seeing the effect of her digging. Not all turtles manage this without mishap, and in a few cases the caring observers do the digging for her. In either case she drops her eggs, covers them with sand in a way to camouflage the spot, then returns to the sea. From the surf line, she swims away to some unknown destination. When the eggs hatch, the surviving young follow her to the sea. For the males, it's the last time they will feel land under their flippers.The destination long remained a mystery until tagged turtles began appearing thousands of kilometres away. Safina joins a boat seeking Swordfish over the Canadian Grand Banks as a means of finding the giant turtles. Leatherbacks plying these waters are of Caribbean origin. Those females feed on Cannonball Jellyfish along the Carolinas before shifting north, later to cruise the vastness of the Atlantic to the Azores. It's a fabulous migration, but there are bigger surprises in store.Along the eastern Pacific, Leatherbacks and other species were once common. Nature's most voracious predator has sharply reduced their number, chiefly by removing eggs just after they're laid. Villagers consumed or sold them in vast numbers. After a tour of a miniscule beach nesting site in Costa Rica, Safina meets with various students of turtle habits. He flies with Sandy Lanham and Laura Sarti to count turtles on the Mexican Coast, where lengthy beaches no longer experience turtle numbers that once was the case. To learn what has happened to them, Safina must cross the Pacific to Papua on the west end of New Guinea. With researchers working in the area with local people, he learns of ways poverty-stricken villagers can be employed to assist in saving turtles. Here, where humans might have first contacted the Leatherback after over 100 million years without a serious enemy, turtles exhibit their vulnerability to our predatory ways. The Pacific Leatherbacks are beset by those who don't even intend it. Longliner fishing boats string over 1.4 billion hooks per year on lines running to 90 kilometres length. The hooks snag flippers or are swallowed with lines. Turtles need air, just like us, but drown before the lines are brought up. Exact statistics are hard to come by, Scafina notes, but the evidence points to these boats as the most destructive force to turtles after egg poaching.The author notes, however, that cures are available to help restore turtle populations. Beaches in some nations are declared "off limits" and patrolled. New hook designs that catch fish without snagging turtles have been developed, but need universal application - a difficult task with conservative fishermen. In Florida, shoreline communities have learned to douse lights to protect nesting sites - otherwise the hatchlings cannot find the sea. Incorporating local help has proven effective by showing how tourism and controlled collection can bring in more money than simple predation produces. In some species, there have been gains in new populations. Are the rising numbers significant? They apply only to certain species and locations. The greatest obstacle is the issue of turtle maturity, since breeding adults may take a human generation to start laying eggs. It means patience, dedication and continuing watchfulness on conditions are required. An elusive factor is what effect climate change will have on beaches and the sealife the turtles need to survive. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Voyage of the Turtle: In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur If you want to know about turtles and their struggle this book is amazing and so well written you will be hard pushed to put it downlove it!