Saving sea turtles: extraordinary stories from the battle against extinction.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.
Octavo, dustwrapper, 216 pp. colour photographs.
In April 2007, eleven Leatherback turtles captured the imagination of the public worldwide as they 'raced' from Costa Rica toward the Galapagos Islands. Known as the Great Turtle Race, this event tracked these critically endangered sea turtles, drawing attention to their fragile status and generating data on the turtles vital to efforts to study and protect them. But the Great Turtle Race is just one of many tools marine conservationists use to inform people about the status, biology, and lives of the seven sea turtle species. Once plentiful, due to human actions sea turtle population levels plummeted throughout much of the twentieth century, stabilizing somewhat only after Archie Carr and Jacques Cousteau popularized their plight. With this book, award-winning author James R. Spotila picks up where Carr and Cousteau left off, going inside the modern-day conservation movement to tell the tales of today's sea turtle conservationists. He provides a complete overview of sea turtle biology and life cycles, discusses the human and natural world threats they face, and examines the new methods and technologies humans are using to save them.