Book titles that make me sad
Among the new books I was processing at work today was Witness to Extinction: How we failed to save the Yangtze River Dolphin. I only read about the baiji/YRD a few months ago in Douglas Adams and Mark Carwadine's Last Chance to See (of which more later), and the species seemed pretty fundamentally fucked then (late 80s; population 200; river uninhabitable and unlikely to change), though the book was hopeful about efforts to move the remaining animals into reserves. I actually dreamt about them the other night, or at least dreamed I was trying to convince someone not to go boating on the Yangtze because she might hurt the dolphins. But apparently they were declared if-not-extinct-then-as-good-as in 2006, and a tentative sighting of one animal in 2007 really isn't enough to change that.
One of the things that made me simultaneously very sad and kind of hopeful about Adams' and Carwadine's book is that, while Adams is unexpectedly dead, some of the animals they visited (like the kakapo and the echo parakeet) are doing a lot better. Just not the baiji, apparently.
ETA: And, watching the Stephen Fry remake, looks like the northern white rhino's gone, too.
One of the things that made me simultaneously very sad and kind of hopeful about Adams' and Carwadine's book is that, while Adams is unexpectedly dead, some of the animals they visited (like the kakapo and the echo parakeet) are doing a lot better. Just not the baiji, apparently.
ETA: And, watching the Stephen Fry remake, looks like the northern white rhino's gone, too.