The first fish owl specimen was collected in 1883 in Japan, the first Russian nest discovered in 1971. (The owls hunt only rivers that don’t freeze over, and the region’s radon springs work perfectly for the purpose.) The dreadful enemy is usually the same in any tale recounting the quest to save a rare animal: humans in general, with our penchant for decapitating habitats. Slaght’s main mission is to formulate conservation guidelines that may save the uncommon species from loss: of the enormous, damaged but still standing trees it requires for nesting and of the highly particular waters that provide its food. From the first paragraph of this propulsive narrative, Slaght chronicles his years-long campaign in Primorye, Russia, where he studies the endangered Blakiston’s fish owl, a sixto ten-pound magisterial behemoth of a raptor that feeds solely on fish. JONATHAN SLAGHT, a modern-day knight-errant, adventures deep into the forests of the Russian Far East and returns with a magnetic account of conservation science wrapped in a literary thriller.
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