A young woman’s secret may tear her rural Minnesota community apart, in this “emotional tale of star-crossed love, vengeance and regret” (Publishers Weekly). In the tumultuous days after World War I, Herman Richter returns from the front to find his only sister, Liesel, allied with Lester Sutter, the “slow” son of a rival clan who spends his days expertly trapping lake turtles. Liesel has sought Lester’s friendship in the wake of her parents’ deaths and in the shadow of her own dark secret. But what begins as yearning for a human touch quickly unwinds into a shocking, suspenseful tragedy that will haunt the rural town of New Germany, Minnesota, for generations. Woven into this “great, rattling, breathless mystery” (NPR’s Weekend Edition) are the intense, illuminating experiences of German immigrants in America during the war and the terrible choices they were forced to make in service of their new country or in honor of the old. It is a vibrant, beautifully wrought look at a fascinating piece of American history—and the echoing dangers of family secrets. “Historical fiction with a slight touch of magical realism, The Turtle Catcher is a moving portrait of difficult times and vividly realized characters” (Booklist) from “the most promising Minnesota writer in a generation” (Minneapolis Star Tribune). “One mark of a good book is that it keeps you up all night reading it. But if it’s nearly dawn and the book is closed and you still can’t sleep, the book’s either brilliant or scary as hell. Nicole Helget’s first novel, The Turtle Catcher, is both.” —MinnPost

The story of an ancient sea turtle and what its survival says about our future, from the award-winning writer and naturalist Though nature is indifferent to the struggles of her creatures, the human effect on them is often premeditated. The distressing decline of sea turtles in Pacific waters and their surprising recovery in the Atlantic illuminate what can go both wrong and right from our interventions, and teach us the lessons that can be applied to restore health to the world's oceans and its creatures. As Voyage of the Turtle, Carl Safina's compelling natural history adventure makes clear, the fate of the astonishing leatherback turtle, whose ancestry can be traced back 125 million years, is in our hands. Writing with verve and color, Safina describes how he and his colleagues track giant pelagic turtles across the world's oceans and onto remote beaches of every continent. As scientists apply lessons learned in the Atlantic and Caribbean to other endangered seas, Safina follows leatherback migrations, including a thrilling journey from Monterey, California, to nesting grounds on the most remote beaches of Papua, New Guinea. The only surviving species of its genus, family, and suborder, the leatherback is an evolutionary marvel: a "reptile" that behaves like a warm-blooded dinosaur, an ocean animal able to withstand colder water than most fishes and dive deeper than any whale. In his peerless prose, Safina captures the delicate interaction between these gentle giants and the humans who are finally playing a significant role in their survival. "Magnificent . . . A joyful, hopeful book. Safina gives us ample reasons to be enthralled by this astonishing ancient animal—and ample reasons to care." -- The Los Angeles Times

Edward Curtis was charismatic, handsome, a passionate mountaineer, and a famous photographer, the Annie Leibovitz of his time. He moved in rarefied circles, a friend to presidents, vaudevill stars, leading thinkers. And he was thirty-two years old in 1900 when he gave it all up to pursue his Great Idea: to capture on film the continent's original inhabitants before the old ways disappeared.

The true story of the controversial battle to save the world’s most famous endangered species. The journals of early maritime explorers traversing the Atlantic Ocean often describe swarms of sea turtles, once a plentiful source of food. Many populations had been decimated by the 1950s, when Archie Carr and others raised public awareness of their plight. One species, the green turtle, has been the most heavily exploited due to international demand for turtle products, especially green turtle soup. The species has achieved some measure of recovery due to thirty years of conservation efforts, but remains endangered. In The Case of the Green Turtle, Alison Rieser provides an unparalleled look into the way science and conservation interact by focusing on the most controversial aspect of green turtle conservation—farming. While proponents argued that farming green sea turtles would help save them, opponents countered that it encouraged a taste for turtle flesh that would lead to the slaughter of wild stocks. The clash of these viewpoints once riveted the world. Rieser relies on her expertise in ocean ecology, policy, and law to reveal how the efforts to preserve sea turtles changed marine conservation and the way we view our role in the environment. Her study of this early conservation controversy will fascinate anyone who cares about sea turtles or the oceans in which they live.

The story is of a young Chahta-Choctaw boy¿s odyssey into manhood prior to the European discovery of the Americas. The young man Issi, Deer, lives at Nanih Wayia, the Chahta ¿Mother Site,¿ Winston County, Mississippi. Throughout the story, Issi shows a great deal of character as he nears adulthood, mixing the real world with the spirit world. In a cross-cultural way, the story is a kind of imaginary time travel, where people lived quite differently from us, yet were as human and as loving, having the same feelings and hopes but expressing and achieving them with different thoughts and actions. They are referred as the Oklafihna and the Chito, meaning the Great People. The Oklafihna are a village and community, and a part of the greater collegium of peoples later known as the Chahta. Within the story are brief glimpses of the people, the geographic place, and the environment. The story is a fictional adventure, placed primarily in Mississippi and the adjacent states. Comments on the ethnographic customs and descriptions of daily living and activities are based upon the written literature, enhanced by the writer¿s personal interpretations of the Southeastern United States Indians and their archaeology, and imagination. Many places referenced are actual, though little known. Brief historical comment is made of places when important to the understanding of the story and place. The story hopefully builds a believably real and acceptable construct of Issi¿s time, place, and adventure, mixed with the spirit world. Moderate use of Chahta words throughout the story lend authenticity. About the Author Richard Arling Marshall has spent more than fifty years as a teacher and archeologist. Born in 1928 in Belen, New Mexico, he grew up in Missouri, graduating with a bachelor¿s in art and science and obtained a master¿s degree in anthropology from the University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri. After 1966 the author was associated with the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the Cobb Institute of Archaeology, Mississippi State University, as professor of anthropology, and conducted research and salvage archaeology and Cultural Resource Surveys throughout that state. He retired in 1994 as associate professor of anthropology emeritus. The author¿s wife is Helen Justine Noe, formerly of Lilbourn, Missouri. Together they have two daughters and five grandchildren. (2013, Paperback, 568 pages)

Who could have known two born to such different circumstances could forge an unbreakable friendship that would demand that they work as one in order to endure a dying way of life and create a new future for themselves and America? The old tree's demise, struck by the finger of God, would be home for the two boys as they begin an odyssey into a war-torn America. Four long years separated from their families, struggling just to survive; relying on each other and their combined wits, their adventure tinged with gain, loss, danger, and love, where they will leave their homes, wander, and come back more American than ever.

Wildlife Research in Australia: Practical and Applied Methods is a guide to conducting wildlife research in Australia. It provides advice on working through applications to animal ethics committees, presents general operating procedures for a range of wildlife research methods, and details animal welfare considerations for all Australian taxa. Compiled by over 200 researchers with extensive experience in field-based wildlife research, teaching and animal ethics administration, this comprehensive book supports best practice research methods and helps readers navigate the institutional animal care approval process. Wildlife Research in Australia will help foster a national approach to wildlife research methods, and is an invaluable tool for researchers, teachers, students, animal ethics committee members and organisations participating in wildlife research and other activities with wildlife.