Saturday, September 19, 2009

100 Heartbeats: The Race to Save Earth's Most Endangered Species

Survival. Jeff Corwin’s new book, 100 Heartbeats: The Race to Save Earth’s Most Endangered Species, is a plea for us all to do the right thing and save those animals that are closest to extinction. He describes the plight of several species that face habitat erosion, poaching, invasive predators and other severe threats to survival. Readers who love animals will feel great sadness from some of his stories in 100 Heartbeats. Corwin also notes several successful efforts to help species survive. After presenting his vivid examples of the problem, he concludes with the realistic assessment that we face a matter of resource allocation, and that the costs of species conservation are small in relation to other problems that receive significant resources. His argument never quite convinced me, inclined though I am toward conservation. He did help me realize that what we do to reverse global warming will help those animals whose habitat is threatened by that problem. I’m just not convinced that the priority he expects to address the problem of extinction can be achieved given the multiple challenges demanding resources around the world.

Rating: Two-star (Mildly Recommended)

Click here to purchase 100 Heartbeats from amazon.com.

No comments:

Post a Comment