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A review by penguin_emperor_of_the_north
Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl by Jonathan C. Slaght
5.0
I really liked this. It wound up being more about the quest to study the fish owls than fish owls themselves. The details about fish owl life are dropped throughout and builds up to the end as a sort of climax but the focus is definitely on the work done to collect that data.
The book dwells on the author's adventure in the Russian Far East most. There's the tracking and identifying where the eagles live, figuring out how to trap and attach a transmitter to the owls and later trapping and removing the transmitters for data retrieval. And throughout it all, there's the constant difficulties of navigating the Russian Far East, dealing with the extreme cold of winter, working against the deadline where the spring thaw will render the area impassable and dealing with the various eccentrics in the area who range from everyday Russians curious about the foreigner to, apparently, voluntarily self-exiled recluses in the back country.
The fish owls manage to be a ghostly, illusive presence in their own book. It makes sense as it sounds like Slaght was the first to do a field study on the fish owls but we only get more details on the fish owl's life and behavior as that information is learned in the narrative. On the one hand, it made the book not about the fish owls as much as I would've liked but it did give a good idea of what Slaght (and presumably other naturalists) went through to learn this information.
Finally, at the beginning and towards the end, the book emphasizes the need for conservation solutions that work for humans, fish owls and other wildlife alike. Which I always appreciate seeing, a lot of popular science books seem to take a 'humans bad' standpoint towards the end so I liked seeing the proposals for how humans and fish owl could coexist in this book.
And I found an article talking about Slaght's work in the Far East here. The fish owls are a dang cool looking bird.
The book dwells on the author's adventure in the Russian Far East most. There's the tracking and identifying where the eagles live, figuring out how to trap and attach a transmitter to the owls and later trapping and removing the transmitters for data retrieval. And throughout it all, there's the constant difficulties of navigating the Russian Far East, dealing with the extreme cold of winter, working against the deadline where the spring thaw will render the area impassable and dealing with the various eccentrics in the area who range from everyday Russians curious about the foreigner to, apparently, voluntarily self-exiled recluses in the back country.
The fish owls manage to be a ghostly, illusive presence in their own book. It makes sense as it sounds like Slaght was the first to do a field study on the fish owls but we only get more details on the fish owl's life and behavior as that information is learned in the narrative. On the one hand, it made the book not about the fish owls as much as I would've liked but it did give a good idea of what Slaght (and presumably other naturalists) went through to learn this information.
Finally, at the beginning and towards the end, the book emphasizes the need for conservation solutions that work for humans, fish owls and other wildlife alike. Which I always appreciate seeing, a lot of popular science books seem to take a 'humans bad' standpoint towards the end so I liked seeing the proposals for how humans and fish owl could coexist in this book.
And I found an article talking about Slaght's work in the Far East here. The fish owls are a dang cool looking bird.