“Magnificent… a book that makes the sea air palpable, fills the nostrils and brings us face-to-face with an ancient, tenacious animal. A joyful, hopeful book that at the same time, doesn't let us off the hook.”
— Los Angeles Times

“Thrums with fascination”
— New York Times Book Review

“Lyrical yet not oversentimental, scientific yet full of wonder.”
— Conservation in Practice

“An impassioned account... Safina's eloquent book is a battle cry in the struggle for the survival.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Sea turtles could hardly have a better advocate. Safina is a Ph.D. ecologist whose gift for clear, energetic prose makes marine science both accessible and alluring... Not an alarmist, he permits himself the buoyancy of hope. Safina's previous books, "Song for the Blue Ocean" (1997) and "Eye of the Albatross" (2002), earned him apt comparison to Rachel Carson as a talented popularizer whose science was solid and writing fluid. In his new book, precisely observed writing often rises to eloquence...

Safina is a practical man sensitive to the human dimensions of conservation practices. So he hangs out not only with scientists but also with shrimpers and swordfish harpooners, even a convicted turtle poacher. Saving turtles shouldn't mean making poor people "The idea," he writes, "is that if wildlife has value, people will keep it; otherwise, wildlife and habitat will be cleared to make room for "(Click to read the full review.)
— Dan Cryer, San Francisco Chronicle

Book Summary:
Voyage of the Turtle is a global journey on oceans and coasts in pursuit of Earth's last warm-blooded monster reptile. The Leatherback is the closest thing we have to a last-living dinosaur. It's a turtle that can weigh over a ton.

Throughout our global explorations from tropical New Guinea jungle beaches to chilly waters off Newfoundland, we come face-to-face with animals, villagers, fishermen, and researchers. We meet turtle poachers, and people who still believe the world was created by, and rests upon, a great turtle.

We learn how sea turtles migrate thousands of miles from feeding to breeding areas, use ocean currents, orient to Earth's magnetic field, and how the Leatherback, alone among reptiles, can warm its body and achieve diving depths approaching a mile, deeper than any other air-breathing animal in the world.

And in Nova Scotia we meet old-time fishermen who, refreshingly, insist there were never as many of the giant turtles as swim there today. This ancient mariner who has seen both the fall of dinosaurs and the dawn of humankind, this master-navigator now, needs us--the only creature who ever posed its species a mortal threat--to chart a path to its future.

• To read about about Carl Safina's book research in New Guinea, click here.
• To purchase Voyage of the Turtle, click here.