Rat Island

Rat Island
Author: William Stolzenburg
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2011-06-28
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1608191036

Chronicles the highly controversial practice of rescuing endangered island species by killing their predators, explaining how rats and other animals introduced to the Bering Sea midway by shipwrecks have decimated native bird populations.

Rat Island

Rat Island
Author: William Stolzenburg
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2011-06-21
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1608193314

Rat Island rises from the icy gray waters of the Bering Sea, a mass of volcanic rock covered with tundra, midway between Alaska and Siberia. Once a remote sanctuary for enormous flocks of seabirds, the island gained a new name when shipwrecked rats colonized, savaging the nesting birds by the thousands. Now, on this and hundreds of other remote islands around the world, a massive-and massively controversial-wildlife rescue mission is under way. Islands, making up just 3 percent of Earth's landmass, harbor more than half of its endangered species. These fragile ecosystems, home to unique species that evolved in peaceful isolation, have been catastrophically disrupted by mainland predators-rats, cats, goats, and pigs ferried by humans to islands around the globe. To save these endangered islanders, academic ecologists have teamed up with professional hunters and semiretired poachers in a radical act of conservation now bent on annihilating the invaders. Sharpshooters are sniping at goat herds from helicopters. Biological SWAT teams are blanketing mountainous isles with rat poison. Rat Island reveals a little-known and much-debated side of today's conservation movement, founded on a cruel-to-be-kind philosophy. Touring exotic locales with a ragtag group of environmental fighters, William Stolzenburg delivers both perilous adventure and intimate portraits of human, beast, hero, and villain. And amid manifold threats to life on Earth, he reveals a new reason to hope.

The Great Rat Island Adventure

The Great Rat Island Adventure
Author: Charlene Joy Talbot
Publisher: Atheneum Books
Total Pages: 180
Release: 1977
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780689305962

A young boy accompanies his preoccupied ornithologist father on a summer expedition to study terns on an island sanctuary and finds himself involved in a dangerous adventure when a hurricane strikes.

When the Killing's Done

When the Killing's Done
Author: T.C. Boyle
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2012-03-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1408821702

The island of Anacapa, off the coast of California, is overrun with black rats which are threatening the ancient population of ground-nesting birds. Alma Boyd Takesue of the National Park Service is campaigning to exterminate them once and for all, but her systematic plan is in danger of sabotage by two notorious environmental activists, Anise Reed and Dave LaJoy. But when Alma's sights turn to the infestation of non-native pigs on the island of Santa Cruz - where Anise was brought up by her rancher mother - the stakes are raised and the debate threatens to boil over into something much more real...

Treasured Islands

Treasured Islands
Author: Peter Naldrett
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2021-06-24
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1844865940

Islands represent adventure, mystery, wilderness and escapism. Surrounded by water, they're somewhere to run away to, to be marooned on, to find a paradise... The British Isles includes some 194 inhabited islands (out of a total of over 6,000), ranging from remote lost worlds to famous and popular holiday spots. And Treasured Islands includes them all, in one enticing package. This wonderfully comprehensive and inspiring guide starts off with a Best of... section, highlighting the ten best islands for foodies, wildlife, adrenaline-junkies and pure escapism. Then, region by region, the author explores the UK's most wonderful islands, including: Shetlands, Fair Isle, Orkneys, Outer Hebrides, Inner Hebrides, Isle of Arran Lindisfarne, Isle of Man, Walney Island Anglesey, Pembrokeshire Island Foulness and Canvey Islands Isle of Sheppey, Lundy Isle of Wight, Isles of Scilly, Channel Islands, Islands of Ireland Tidal Islands (to include Burgh Island, Holy Island and St Michael's Mount) Inland Islands (to include Eel Pie, Derwent Isle and Peel Island in the Lake District) Remote Islands Illustrated with beautiful colour photography, the text ensures you won't miss out on must-see attractions, wildlife and natural features, local food specialties, sporting activities, best places to stay and eat, and all-important transport links to and from the mainland, and other nearby islands. For some light relief, there are interesting historical and cultural anecdotes woven through, giving a fascinating insight into the way of life on these sometimes remote settlements.

Placing Names

Placing Names
Author: Merrick Lex Berman
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2016-08-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0253022568

Well before the innovation of maps, gazetteers served as the main geographic referencing system for hundreds of years. Consisting of a specialized index of place names, gazetteers traditionally linked descriptive elements with topographic features and coordinates. Placing Names is inspired by that tradition of discursive place-making and by contemporary approaches to digital data management that have revived the gazetteer and guided its development in recent decades. Adopted by researchers in the Digital Humanities and Spatial Sciences, gazetteers provide a way to model the kind of complex cultural, vernacular, and perspectival ideas of place that can be located in texts and expanded into an interconnected framework of naming history. This volume brings together leading and emergent scholars to examine the history of the gazetteer, its important role in geographic information science, and its use to further the reach and impact of spatial reasoning into the digital age.