**"Captivating. . . . a full portrait of this adorable and ecologically important animal." —Publishers WeeklyA science journalist travels the Pacific Coast in search of sea otters in this entertaining and inspiring book on the importance and history of this charismatic endangered species**Sea otters—the adorable, furry marine mammals often seen floating on their backs holding hands—reveal the health of the coastal ecosystem along the Pacific Ocean. Once hunted for ...

This book profiles fourteen of New England’s most rare and endangered flora and fauna—mammals, birds, insects, plants, and fish—by following the biologists who are researching, monitoring, and protecting them. Each chapter includes a first-person account of the author’s experience with these experts, as well as details about the species’ life history, threats, and conservation strategies. McLeish traps bats in Vermont and lynx in Maine, gets attacked by marauding birds in Massachusetts, an...

Among all the large whales on Earth, the most unusual and least studied is the narwhal, the northernmost whale on the planet and the one most threatened by global warming. Narwhals thrive in the fjords and inlets of northern Canada and Greenland. These elusive whales, whose long tusks were the stuff of medieval European myths and Inuit legends, are uniquely adapted to the Arctic ecosystem and are able to dive below thick sheets of ice to depths of up to 1,500 meters in search of t...