No Turning Back
InNo Turning Back, Richard Ellis makes a survey of animals that  have disappeared through anthropogenic or other means. "Everybody knows  what extinction is," he writes, but theories of why it happens are  hampered by "the inability of biologists and paleontologists to agree on  exactly what a species is." Still, Ellis manages to pick perfect examples to show how extinctions  happen in the natural world, and how humans unnecessarily contribute to  some of them. It's hard to look at the careful illustrations of  long-gone animals such as the Irish elk, Steller's sea cow, quagga, or  even the dodo, without feeling that the world would be better with some  of them around. Ellis also introduces little-known species currently  close to extinction, such as the spot-tailed quoll, the bilby, and the  saiga, to add to the list of well-known threatened animals such as the  white rhinocerous or the orangutan. Ending on an optimistic note, Ellis  tells how some animals have been brought back from the brink of  extinction through hard work, careful conservation, and lots of money. A master of the shocking ecological fact, and a thoroughly accessible  and engaging narrator of the natural world, Ellis has succeeded in  explaining extinction and its causes by showing readers what there was  to love about creatures long gone.--Therese Littleton--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.