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A review by vegancleopatra
The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions by David Quammen
3.0
Overall this was a well written book revolving around biogeography, ecology, evolution and extinction (amongst a plethora of other things). Quammen makes it a bit of an ecology travel log of sorts, which sometimes adds but sometimes detracts from the overall goal of the book. Quammen does enjoy tangents and this can distract from the book and many times I found myself thinking that a passage should have been included in a different section or left out altogether. The lists of Latin names and titles of articles caused unnecessary brain overload and again, distraction. One error, which is not Quammen's fault, was the discussion regarding the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger. The thylacine went extinct due to a number of factors, the main one being blamed for the killing of sheep and of course then hunted. However, recent studies have proven that the thylacine jaw was never strong enough to kill sheep, so they were never the perpetrators of the very acts they were essentially wiped from the planet for doing. Rather like sending a man to the electric chair when he was innocent.
My least favorite chapter by far was the one regarding Wallace and Darwin. I did not want to hear the name Alfred Wallace ever again after Quammen’s little love-fest of a chapter for him (only 100 pages of it!). I felt the chapter did not add terribly much to the topic overall and despite Quammen’s efforts, I did not care a bit for Wallace and just wished the book would move on.
A few passages bothered me, one being the scene were the mongoose was brutally killed by the scientist on the island of Mauritius. While understandably the mongoose is an alien species on the island of Mauritius and was hunting the birds the scientist was trying to save from extinction, I felt it terribly cruel. Bashing the skull in? Regardless of the brutality, why did Quammen insist on including it? Another scene depicted a small insect handled with care by Quammen only to be literally pinched and thrown away by the scientist with him because the species was foreign to the area (although the scientist is the one that brought it into the world in the lab). Perhaps Quammen was simply trying to point out the dog eat dog world but these scenes left me unsettled. But the one major issue I took was when Quammen made no comment, and since it is his book (aka platform) he could very well state whatever he wishes, regarding an individual he met who bred macaques for money. While the book overall would leave you to believe Quammen would have sympathy for such a situation he does not seem to be bothered by the hundreds of monkeys being bred to be shipped to laboratories around the globe only to then be injected, dissected and a plethora of other vile things people dare call "science". This individual made me sick, breeding these poor macaques for laboratories for PROFIT. But moving on....
The book, when all is said and done, did well to enlighten the reader to the extinction and population declines islands are inclined towards and how this very same issue can and IS taking place on continents due to habitat fragmentation. While the book is outdated fourteen years later, as science is an ever-changing field, many of the points stand true, many truer, today. Unfortunately many of the species and habitats discussed in the book have been pushed even further to the brink since the book was written.
My least favorite chapter by far was the one regarding Wallace and Darwin. I did not want to hear the name Alfred Wallace ever again after Quammen’s little love-fest of a chapter for him (only 100 pages of it!). I felt the chapter did not add terribly much to the topic overall and despite Quammen’s efforts, I did not care a bit for Wallace and just wished the book would move on.
A few passages bothered me, one being the scene were the mongoose was brutally killed by the scientist on the island of Mauritius. While understandably the mongoose is an alien species on the island of Mauritius and was hunting the birds the scientist was trying to save from extinction, I felt it terribly cruel. Bashing the skull in? Regardless of the brutality, why did Quammen insist on including it? Another scene depicted a small insect handled with care by Quammen only to be literally pinched and thrown away by the scientist with him because the species was foreign to the area (although the scientist is the one that brought it into the world in the lab). Perhaps Quammen was simply trying to point out the dog eat dog world but these scenes left me unsettled. But the one major issue I took was when Quammen made no comment, and since it is his book (aka platform) he could very well state whatever he wishes, regarding an individual he met who bred macaques for money. While the book overall would leave you to believe Quammen would have sympathy for such a situation he does not seem to be bothered by the hundreds of monkeys being bred to be shipped to laboratories around the globe only to then be injected, dissected and a plethora of other vile things people dare call "science". This individual made me sick, breeding these poor macaques for laboratories for PROFIT. But moving on....
The book, when all is said and done, did well to enlighten the reader to the extinction and population declines islands are inclined towards and how this very same issue can and IS taking place on continents due to habitat fragmentation. While the book is outdated fourteen years later, as science is an ever-changing field, many of the points stand true, many truer, today. Unfortunately many of the species and habitats discussed in the book have been pushed even further to the brink since the book was written.