Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl

This book is right up there with my all-time favorites. It's an immediately engaging account of intrepid field biologists at work in a world I never knew. Great descriptions of the owls, the ice, the search, the travails, the people. The author brings you right in alongside him as he and his cohorts track the elusive Fish Owls. Lots of fascinating information and adventures in this well-written, engrossing book. Highly recommended!

Well written non-fiction story that is accessible to readers of all levels of interest and experience. Slaght’s writing lacks the pedantic jargon and personal bias that plagues and distracts the readers from valuable lessons in other wildlife conservation-oriented literature. Instead, he brings you along on his journey to document information on a little-known population of Blakiston’s fish owls in the Primorye region of eastern Russia near the Sea of Japan. All the while allowing the reader to make their own judgements and draw their own conclusions. The extreme field conditions described and the local people that live on the “edge” adds as much to the story as the field work and process of studying the world’s largest owl species. The book ends on a positive note and leaves the reader loving a part of the world that relatively few have seen.In addition, this piece helps develop a picture of the challenges associated with conserving and managing wildlife species in the remote corners of the world where human interest and survival often competes directly with the persistence of a species or entire ecological communities. When I think of human wildlife conflicts in places like Africa and India, I recall farmers conflicting with elephants for crops, direct predation of humans by large carnivores, competition for forage for domestic livestock with native ungulates, the bushmeat trade etc. Situations where the proximate issue for people that live side by side with wildlife are not easily comprehended by those living thousands of miles away in comfortable urban or suburban settings. This book helps to shed light on a region less romanticized and its unique conflicts from the local concern for Amur tigers and the occasional predation of unsuspecting ice fishermen, the need for protein sourced from the rivers and surrounding forests and mountains without regard to species legal status, economical motivators such as trapping sable and harvests of timber and development of logging roads that expose previously inaccessible areas via vehicles to sudden influx of road based poaching and other human pressures previously non-existent. For this reason, anyone who has held judgement against native populations for their consumptive perceptions of the resources around them or questioned how species could possibly be decimated around the world should consider this book. In this world aesthetics and intrinsic value often come a distant occupant on a long list of concerns that ensure the locals live from day to day.Another aspect is that this book provides and honest description of Slaght’s experiences studying a little known species, in a remote and little known place, with little financial interest/backing. These are challenges that he was able to overcome but not without mental fortitude, ability, and character. Things that any hopeful wildlife or conservation biology major will need to be successful in research. For this reason this book is a must read for all levels of natural resources and conservation professionals; from dreaming pre-biologist to grizzled elderly retired professionals looking for a good story to live vicariously through.Finally, it’s just a good story and the perfect companion for any travel, marathon read, morning coffee on the couch, or your night cap. If you are curious about the world, this one’s a piece of the puzzle you didn’t know you were missing. The people, the places, Slaght, and certainly the Blakiston’s fish owls and their surreal lives and appearance will find a permanent place on your bookshelf.

It was interesting to read about this biologist's field work in Russia with fish owls. A good look into the culture, too, of this part of that country. I feel sorry for the Russian women, it sounds like all their husbands do is drink vodka.

It is hard to put this book down it is so well written. It is a combination of science, adventure and culture all rolled into a exciting narrative.

An excellent book, giving the reader a realistic view of the joys and gritty hard work of somebody who does the REAL work of being a conservationist, and having to work with others out in the woods... great insights into the sparse living locals on the East coast of Russia, and most of all, beautifully heartwarming insights into the lives of these reclusive owls. Important research findings at the end, without having to read the PhD thesis :-) Really enjoyed this.

This is the perfect book for right now. The story of Jon’s initial experiences in Primorye and his journey to help preserve these amazing creatures is so engaging, funny, and well-written. The owls themselves are just insanely cool, and the cleverness required to find and track and protect them is really fascinating. There is a great blend of descriptive language, humor, and action. When you think about wildlife research, you don’t imagine two dudes up all night in a tent in the freezing cold, waiting for a beeper to go off so they can jump into waders and skis and headlamps and zoom off into the dark to see if their trap worked. It is reminiscent of a medical resident on-call, trying to grasp at the few available minutes of sleep, only to have the emergency pager go off and start sprinting down the hall to save someone’s life.This is the perfect book for right now because it provides an engaging, exciting story that also serves as a distraction to all the chaos and sadness going on around us. It’s important to interact with that chaos and sadness, and let it inspire you to be active, but we all need an escape, even for just a little while...this book is perfect for that.

This book details the research and field work of a very dedicated scientist, Jonathan C. Slaught, now a leading authority on the Blackistone Fish Owls, found in Siberia and Russia's Far East. If that does not sound like your cup of tea, give the book a chance anyway, because it is also a serious look at obsessive work ethic and the value of pursuing knowledge and beauty. For me, it covered an area of the world I knew nothing about and the research into these huge owls was also new territory. I feel I learned a lot from this book, which is often the case when it is a completely new topic. If you enjoyed Barry Lopez's, Arctic Dreams or Peter Matthiessen's Snow Leopard, then you will enjoy this.

O produto chegou em perfeito estado, em qualidade de envio protegido, chegou antes do tempo estimado!

Me encanta este libro. Muy buen hecho. Entrega rápida.

The world's largest owl, Blakiston's Fish Owl, occurs year round in far eastern China, Korea, Japan and Russia. Although it appears to have a large breeding range, the owl has habitat requirements that limit the world population to a few thousand individuals. The owls which capture and eat fish require rivers and streams that have ice-free sections year round. They also require old growth trees containing cavities large enough to support the female's considerable size as she incubates 1-2 eggs. These habitat characteristics limit the owls to valleys lined with old growth riparian forest. Jonathan Slaght describes in east to read prose his years as an American graduate student trying to discover the fish owls' secrets in the wilderness of Primary Province, Russia, which borders the Sea of Japan. Birders, ornithologists, raptor enthusiasts, naturalists, and lovers of travel literature will enjoy this book. Free of technical language, The Owls of the Eastern Ice struck me as a particularly honest account of the daunting difficulties some biologists will face to learn about and due their best to preserve wilderness.

Jonathan slaght and his hardworking and dedicated field assistants explore forests of russian far east looking for blackiston's fish owls. Their tale is equal parts adventurous and funny as they meet numerous challenges and various persons with strange ways and odd pasts. The assistants too reveal themselves to be no less eccentric but get the job well done !

Sometimes the most rewarding books are on a subject about which one knows almost nothing. Few of us will have heard of Primorye province, the furthest east in Russia where the port of Vladivostok is the capital. This is a harsh place where a sparse population makes its living from fishing, hunting, and logging. It is the home of the world's largest owl species , Blakiston's fish owl, a magnificent denizen of the forests and rivers of this distant land. Jonathan Slaght is an American ornithologist. For two decades he has been developing and promoting a conservation plan for this splendid creature.A Russian winter must be among the least attractive times to carry out field research. The rivers are frozen over, snow envelops the land, the wind howls down from the arctic, bringing blizzards with it and it is perishingly cold. Unfortunately it you want to research fish owls, this is the time to carry out field studies. And of course with owls, much of the work has to be done at night. Vehicles break down or get stuck in the snow, any travel is fraught with difficulty and danger, and it is easy to get lost in the forest. When spring approaches and a thaw sets in, the ice begins to melt and flooding becomes a risk. Living in tents or dilapidated huts in the forest, Dr Slaght and his Russian colleagues brave these conditions, searching for likely territories for owls and seeking out their feeding and nest sites. The problems the team encounter create a sense of adventure and humorous interactions between the participants lighten the tone and sit well with the scientific purpose of the project.Just finding owls is not enough. In order to develop an effective conservation plan, knowledge of the birds' daily needs is necessary. Owls have to be captured and fitted with GPS tags and their movements monitored. No easy task with an enormous bird which does not take kindly to its temporary capture. Various capture methods are successful deployed and the birds' movements can then be discerned. Careful analysis of the data will unravel the secrets of where the birds nest, feed and roost, and the habitat to sustain a healthy population. Many questions have to be answered; what are the favourite nesting trees? Where are their fish prey most abundant? What fish species live in the rivers? What is the optimum forest by tree density , understorey etc? The team finds the answers through meticulous fieldwork, Dr Slaght, working closely with his Russian hosts. The results are then analysed and it becomes clearer how these birds' needs can best be met, by making compromises with loggers, hunters and fishermen with whom they have to coexist. There is a sting in the tail but owls are resilient so let us hope they can cope with any challenges they face.This project was a voyage of discovery for the writer, and so it becomes for the reader. An unfamiliar part of the world, a remote landscape, a harsh environment, a variety of locals, some helpful, others less so and of course unfamiliar birds. Sometimes the investigative work seemed a shade intrusive but as Dr Slaght points out "fish owls were a species that needed a voice and by teasing out their secrets, we were giving them one" Quite simply, they cannot have found a better voice.