Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures
“Not since Rachel Carson’s . . . Silent Spring has a book come along that can make readers think about and consider myriad options from a different perspective.”
Katherine Rundell's new book, Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures, is a compilation of anecdotal tales of animals at risk of extinction. The animals included in this slim and powerful volume are alive today, but their numbers are dwindling. The causes encompass overdevelopment, overhunting, hatred, fear, and just general ennui, responsibility for which lies at the feet of the most dangerous animal of all—humans.
Her stories range from the wombat and the crow to seahorses, bears, giraffes, and elephants. Some are in danger because there are people who want trophies, heads to hang on their walls. Others because of cultural or religious beliefs about the magical powers parts of these animals impart to humas. The common denominator? Animals are endangered and becoming extinct because of people.
Rundell leads the reader on a delightful but sober journey through the world of various animals that are at risk, yet it is by no means fully comprehensive. Her stories about the animals, along with a soupçon of chastisement for the role humans are playing, are relayed in a lyrical almost conversational manner and that makes the book an often-surprising reading experience.
Readers are introduced to species that one may not think of as vulnerable or about which many do not care such as spiders or bats. Both species usually suffer from an antagonistic response from many people. Rundell points out, for example, that bats have such a highly developed sense of elocution that it is almost impossible for a bat to fly into one's hair; it's one of the may myths dispelled in this book. Likewise, the service spiders and bats provide to the environment is ignored because of the fear and general disgust these species prompt among humankind.
Not since Rachel Carson intrigued millions with her Silent Spring has a book come along that can make readers think about and consider myriad options from a different perspective.
Her chapter on the tuna is in turn disturbing, fascinating, and instructive. Consider that they are born two days after fertilization and the new tuna is "barely the size of an eyelash," and their life can last 40 years—assuming neither a shark or a human eats them first.
The bluefin tuna, viewed as a delicacy, is threatened, but not in the way many think. According to Rundell, the Mitsubishi conglomerate controls a 40% share of the world market, and they are hoarding huge stocks of the fish because, in the author's opinion, they are counting on the price skyrocketing when the fish becomes extinct. Rundell reveals there is a name for these activities—it is called "extinction speculation." She wonders who can tell, in a blind taste test, "between a bluefin and yellowfin" tuna, and does it matter if it's the latter when one thinks about the former becoming extinct.
Rundell also dismisses claims about the "dolphin safe" labels on cans of tuna. Industrial fishing takes place "miles out to sea, where regulation cannot be constant, and inspectors can be bribed." The ocean waters are full of dolphin corpses caught up in the longlines and discarded as "unprofitable." Hardly "dolphin safe."
Throughout her book Rundell reminds readers not to succumb to laziness. What humans do to prevent the destruction of Mother Earth matters, and "hope—active, purposeful, informed hope—is what we owe the world. A body of unimaginable splendor turns on its axis, calling us to its aid."
Perhaps if humans follow Rundell's lead, to protect what now exists, everyone living and others yet to see the light of day will enjoy a world of "unimaginable splendor" that Rundell promises.