Product Description

After years of reflecting on the absurdities of life on other planets, Douglas Adams teams up with zoologist Mark Carwardine on an expedition to find out what's happening to life on this one. In Zaire, Bali, New Zealand's Fiordland and on the Yangtze River, as well as on some of the remotest small islands in the world, Adams and Cawardine are awed by the strangeness and incredible beauty of the wildlife surviving there. From silverback mountain gorillas and African elephants to flocks of Rodrigues fruit bats, via baiji dolphins, pink pigeons, komodo dragons and echo parakeets - probably the rarest bird in the world - Last Chance to See is an amazing insight into the lives of some of the most endangered creatures on our planet.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #69761 in Books
• Published on: 1991-11-08
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

The Times
`Descriptive writing of a high order . . . this is an extremely intelligent book'

Listener
`The best in Adams's writing . . . constantly springing on the reader the kind of dizzying shift in perspective that was the stock in trade of Hitchhiker'

Atlantic Monthly
`Lively, sharply satirical, brilliantly written and funny . . . ranks with the best set pieces in Mark Twain'

Customer Reviews

If you only ever read one book - make it this one.
It is hilarious - it is sad - how can you cry and laugh at the same time? Read about the Kakapo!
I bought and read this book the week it was released. I quoted from it this afternoon. My 6 year old son asked me about Kimodo dragons - he wants one for his birthday - I could explain exactly why I was saying no. I think that although this book is over 15 years old it is extremely relevant to today. We must learn about our disappearing world - this is the easiest, funniest and most painless ways to do it. I hope Douglas and Mark were as proud of this book as I am of their writing it. Every week we lose hundreds of species - I'm not the conservation gestapo, however I do think more about what I do to the world since I read this book. Maybe you will too.

Last Chance to See
Most readers will probably be more familiar with Douglas Adams fictional output, but any fans of Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy et al would be making a grave mistake if they failed to investigate this book. Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine's globe-trotting journey to visit some of the most endangered species on the planet is not only a thought-provoking treatise on the plight of extinction but also a funny and warm travelogue, with Adams playing the role of perpetually bemused Englishman abroad. Amusing, insightful, important and highly readable.

Don't blink!
Somewhere in the depths of its vast corporate wisdom, the Guardian/Observer news organisation found a pearl of good sense. The pearl hatched a precious jewel of an idea. Send Douglas Adams, creator of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, accompanied by zoologist Mark Carwadine, to seek out some of the Earth's disappearing species. His account is classic Adams, with vivid description, poignant observations and incisive study of the people and places he encountered. The age of this book is of small account, even with the "Mark's Last Word" update segment closing the book. The book remains a pleasure to read.

Starting by his admission that he was "entirely qualified" for his role as "an extremely ignorant non-zoologist", Adams then describes their visit to Madagascar to find the aye-aye. A nocturnal lemur that "seems to be assembled from bits of other animals". He notes that the island was bypassed by the monkeys due to continental drift. It was the lemurs that occupied the aboreal environment. This was fine for the lemus until a different monkey, humans, arrived and began cutting down the trees. The lemurs, having fewer places left to hide, are increasingly constrained for habitat. This, of course, is the theme of the entire book.

The touring team moves through Southeast Asia to view the komodo, which may be the origin of the many "dragon" myths. Komodos are eating machines. Adams description of the way tourists are entertained by feasting komodos isn't something for the squeamish. Yet as he rightly points out, there is a tourist dollar factor to consider in how some disappearing species are to be saved. Government action is to be considered, but when wildlife becomes symbolic to a regime, endangered animals are just as likely to be further threatened. A "Leapordskin Pillbox Hat" resting on a President's head isn't the best example of conservation of species.

Of all the poignant accounts in this narrative, the kakapo must rate very high in our concern. Adams sets the scene with a vivid description of New Zealand's South Island - a place to "make your brain quiver". Landing a helicopter in that landscape also makes the brain quiver as Adams account of flying onto a ridge top demonstrates. His radio operator refuses to look over the edge while interviewing the pilot. But all the skilful piloting is of no avail as the team seeks the object of their quest. A strange, flightless bird, whose mating call was like "A Heartbeat in the Night", no longer offers his call from the ridge top. The kakapo, which inhabited the mountains for millennia, mate infrequently in a courtship beset with difficulties. With no natural predators, they failed to adapt to human-introduced dogs, cats and rats. Consequently, the population is down to about forty individuals when Adams visited New Zealand. In this case, a government has expended much effort in protecting this plump, lonely bird. An island suffered an extinction due to New Zealand's conservation efforts - it killed every cat on it. Free of predators, the island is now home to all the kakapos in existence. Every parrot bears a number tag, and a name. We meet finger-chewing Ralph whose sharp, powerful beak that never did duty as a defensive weapon.

Adams travelled to Africa to find rhinos and China to locate baiji dolphins in the murky Yangtze River. The rhinos almost escaped his gaze, but the baiji remained out of sight. The silty river caused the dolphins to adapt their hearing to life in the dark, but the multitude of noises created by human boats confuse them. The slaughter of dolphins by boat propellers is exterminating them. More active disturbances by our species have already extinguished the dodo on the island of Mauritius. Other species face similar fates. Adams encounters one of conservation's more exotic figures, Carl Jones [who also received attention from David Quammen in "Song of the Dodo"]. Jones' methods of preserving the Mauritius kestrel provides Adams with one of the most hilarious accounts in the book. How well Jones has succeeded remains to be determined.

The book is a delightful read, but that doesn't distract from the seriousness of the issue, nor Adams dedication to species preservation. Graced with some enchanting photographs, this highly personalised account still captures the reader's heart. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]