A snapping turtle at Higgins Lake

My aunt gave me VOYAGE OF THE TURTLE, by Carl Safina. One of the blurbs said: “Carl Safina is a rare breed of writer who doesn’t just do research to get the story, but enters the story and lives it [awesome so far!]… The result is a fascinating narrative that will appeal to a reading public beyond mere turtle huggers.”

mere turtle huggers

Why not just say the book will appeal to a wide audience; to readers unfamiliar with turtles?

 

I am a turtle and lizard and snake and tree and people hugger. Why do we shove animals and nature aside? “People first,” we say.

The clock is ticking on wildlife and biodiversity. I wonder how we will continue the everlasting fight for human rights, justice, peace, and ending world hunger on a planet that’s devoid of wildlife.

What about the Rights of Nature?

Here’s Birdfoot’s Grandpa by Joseph Bruchac:

The old man

must have stopped our car

two dozen times to climb out

and gather into his hands

the small toads blinded

by our lights and leaping

like live drops of rain.

The rain was falling,

a mist around his white hair,

and I kept saying,

“You can’t save them all,

accept it, get in,

we’ve got places to go.”

But, leathery hands full

of wet brown life,

knee deep in the summer roadside grass,

he just smiled and said,

“They have places to go too.”