The Empty Ocean
Richard Ellis
It's the grimmest of roll calls: the Atlantic gray whale, Steller's sea cow, Labrador duck, Caribbean monk seal … just a few of the oceanic creatures that have gone extinct over the past few centuries. And unless something is done to stop the ruthless harvesting described in Richard Ellis' The Empty Ocean (Island Press, $26), we may soon bid farewell to the North Atlantic right whale, New Zealand sea lion, Kemp's ridley sea turtle and broadbill swordfish. Ellis' carefully researched narrative, supplemented by his own fine-grained drawings, shows us just how easily these seemingly hardy species can disappear. "Something lives in almost every cubic inch of the ocean," Ellis reminds us. A reader finishes this book wondering if that will always be the case.
-Louis Bayard
