Owls of the Eastern Ice: The Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl [9780241333938]

A breathtaking portrait of Russia's remote far eastern forest, and of the world's most extraordinary owl.

Primorye, a remote forested region near to where Russia, China and North Korea meet in a tangle of barbed wire, is the only place where brown bears, tigers and leopards co-exist. It is also home to one of nature's rarest birds, the Blakiston's fish owl. A chance encounter with this huge, strange bird was to change wildlife researcher Jonathan C. Slaght's life beyond measure.

This is the story of Slaght's quest to safeguard the notoriously elusive owl from extinction.

Over decades, during months-long journeys covering thousands of miles, he has pursued it through its forbidding territory. He has spent time with the Russians who struggle on in the harsh conditions of the taiga forest. And he has observed how Russia's logging interests and evolving fortunes present new threats to the owl's survival.

Preserving its habitats will secure the forest for future generations, both animal and human - but can this battle be won?

Exhilarating and clear-sighted, Owls of the Eastern Ice is a timely meditation on our relationship with the natural world and on what it means to devote one's career to a single pursuit.

AUTHOR: Jonathan C. Slaght is one of the world's foremost experts on the Blakiston's fish owl. He is the Russia and Northeast Asia Coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation Society and has spent more than twenty years travelling and living in the Russian Far East. He translated Across the Usuri Kray (1921) by explorer and naturalist Vladimir Arsenyev; and his work has been featured in the New York Times, BBC World Service, Smithsonian and Audubon. Slaght spends about three months of each year in Primorye and the rest of the time with his wife and two children in Minneapolis.