David S. Wilcove

I'd never really thought of "animal migration" as an interesting topic, but No Way Home is a neat overview of some of the world's great animal migrations, their histories, routes, reasons and current status. Air, Land and Sea chapters cover everything from Monarch butterflies to American Bison and African Wildebeest to Whales and Salmon. In almost all cases habitat destruction and other human causes have either completely destroyed or severely set back migrations. As Wilcove says, once a migration is gone it is extremely difficult to restore. But it's not a depressing book, some migrations have been brought back from the edge and are healthy today, such as some sea turtles, whales. It suggests the destruction of nature is not a foregone conclusion, it can be saved with the right attention. The chapters on the butterflies and bison stood out from the rest as the most interesting, perhaps because I have been to some of the places. It's great to have these short narrative stories about some of the worlds great migrations.… (meer)