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Title details for Relicts of a Beautiful Sea by Christopher Norment - Available

Relicts of a Beautiful Sea

Survival, Extinction, and Conservation in a Desert World

by Christopher Norment
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Along a tiny spring in a narrow canyon near Death Valley, seemingly against all odds, an Inyo Mountain slender salamander makes its home. "The desert," writes conservation biologist Christopher Norment, "is defined by the absence of water, and yet in the desert there is water enough, if you live properly." Relicts of a Beautiful Sea explores the existence of rare, unexpected, and sublime desert creatures such as the black toad and four pupfishes unique to the desert West. All are anomalies: amphibians and fish, dependent upon aquatic habitats, yet living in one of the driest places on earth, where precipitation averages less than four inches per year. In this climate of extremes, beset by conflicts over water rights, each species illustrates the work of natural selection and the importance of conservation. This is also a story of persistence—for as much as ten million years—amid the changing landscape of western North America. By telling the story of these creatures, Norment illustrates the beauty of evolution and explores ethical and practical issues of conservation: what is a four-inch-long salamander worth, hidden away in the heat-blasted canyons of the Inyo Mountains, and what would the cost of its extinction be? What is any lonely and besieged species worth, and why should we care?

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 29, 2014

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781469619835
      • File size: 2606 KB

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781469619835
      • File size: 2606 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 15, 2014
      In a moving meditation on nature "woven out of science, poetry, aesthetics, and personal experience," Norment, a professor of environmental science and biology at SUNY College at Brockport, calls attention to six desert animals "restricted to aquatic habitats: a salamander, four types of pupfishes, and a toad." Though they don't have the cachet of poster-friendly endangered species like the California condor or the giant panda, Norment argues they are "stunning and compelling" in their own ways, demonstrating resilience and adaptability. He locates the creatures in and around California's Death Valley National Park and Nevada's Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, appreciating the stark landscapes and coming "to love the creatures that have endured in the face of so much adversity." For example, Norment is amazed that the Inyo Mountains slender salamander (Batrachoseps campi) even exists, considering it's a "lungless salamander that breathes only through its moist skin" that survives in "one of the most unreasonable and inhospitable places in the world." In examining small details in nature, Norment manages to effectively address larger existential issues.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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