Last Chance to See

In which Douglas Adams, author of [b:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 11 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1) Douglas Adams https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1531891848l/11.SY75.jpg 3078186] and [b:Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency 365 Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Dirk Gently, #1) Douglas Adams https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1554401296l/365.SY75.jpg 1042123], is escorted by zoologist Mark Carwardine to some remote parts of the world in order to see and report on various endangered species. They visit:• the aye-aye lemur (Madagascar)• the man-eating dragon lizard (Komodo, Indonesia)• the mountain gorilla and northern white rhinoceros (Zaïre)• the kākāpō flightless parrot (New Zealand)• the baiji river dolphin (China)• the Rodrigues fruit bat, Mauritius kestrel, pink pigeon, and echo parakeet (Mauritius)What Adams produced at the end of this expedition was a half-humorous, half-serious travel-and-nature book (mainly humorous about the travel, mainly serious about the animals): the sort of thing Gerald Durrell used to write. It's very readable, amusing in places, and quite interesting. Even if you're not particularly interested in animals, you can read it as a travel book.It includes 66 good-quality colour photos illustrating the text: animals, people, and landscape.Of the species mentioned in the book, according to Wikipedia in 2024 the northern white rhinoceros is now critically endangered (possibly extinct in the wild); the kākāpō flightless parrot is critically endangered; the baiji river dolphin is possibly extinct.The aye-aye, the Komodo dragon, the mountain gorilla, and the Rodrigues fruit bat are still endangered.The Mauritius kestrel was reduced to a population of 4 in 1974, but deliberate conservation efforts restored the population to about 400 by 2019. The pink pigeon and echo parakeet have also recovered from critically endangered to merely vulnerable.

I don't know if I would have made it through reading a book like this if it weren't written by Douglas Adams. The loss of his wit and wordplay was a huge one for this world. This book, written 30 years ago, details mayhem-filled journeys to track down some of the then rarest species in the world. What's heart-breaking is to look up the species today and see which ones are still around. Some are better (Good on you, New Zealand) and some are gone entirely (Get your shit together, China!). The success stories are minimal and the book stresses exactly how many species we just don't know are going extinct all the time because we are blundering through fragile economies and setting predatory rats loose everywhere. Adams, journeying around as a 6'5” Englishman through 1980s travel mayhem, provides a great travel journal that balances out the serious issues we humans really need to deal with because it's already too late for so many. I'm curious to read his zoologist co-writer's update to this book as well. The tone is hopeful, but that hope is founded in work.