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The Desert Islands of Mexico’s Sea of Cortez, by Stewart Aitchison
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The desert islands in the Sea of Cortez are little known except to a few intrepid tourists, sailors, and fishermen. Though at first glance these stark islands may appear barren, they are a refuge for an astounding variety of plants and animals. While many of the species are typical of the greater Sonoran Desert region, some are endemic or unique to one or two islands. For example, Isla Santa Catalina is home to the world’s only rattlesnake that has lost its ability to grow a rattle. Other islands host nesting birds, such as Isla Rasa, a tiny, flat flow of basalt lava that attracts nearly half a million elegant and royal terns and Heermann’s gulls each spring.
The Desert Islands of Mexico’s Sea of Cortez is one of the few books devoted to the biogeography of this remarkable part of the world. The book explores the geologic origin of the gulf and its islands, presents some of the basics of island biogeography, details insular life—including residents of the intertidal zone —and provides a brief outlook for preserving this area. More than a simple guidebook, Aitchison’s writing will take both actual and armchair travelers through a gripping tale of natural history.
Like the rest of our fragile planet, the Sea of Cortez and its islands are threatened by humans. Overfishing has eliminated or greatly diminished many fish stocks, and dams on rivers that once flowed into the gulf prevent certain nutrients from reaching the sea. The tenuousness of this area makes the book’s extraordinary photographs and the firsthand descriptions by a well-known teacher, writer, and photographer all the more compelling.
- Sales Rank: #197209 in Books
- Published on: 2010-11-15
- Released on: 2010-09-03
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x .30" w x 5.50" l, .45 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 120 pages
Review
"Visiting a breathtaking place like the Sea of Cortez is always enhanced when you have a better understanding of the natural history that makes the area so unique and majestic. Stewart Aitchison's book, with its lush and informative detail showcasing the unique geology and wealth of animal and plant life, will enhance anyone's visit to this critically important ocean ecosystem." --Senator Mark Udall
"This book is more than just a fun romp through the islands of the Sea of Cortez--it is first-rate natural history writing about one of earth's most unique and special places. This book is a great read, whether you are a longtime Sea of Cortez traveler or simply wish you were." --Richard Brusca, editor of The Gulf of California: Biodiversity and Conservation
From the Inside Flap
More than a simple guidebook, Aitchison's writing will take both actual and armchair travelers through a gripping tale of natural history. The tenuousness of this area makes the book's extraordinary photographs and the firsthand descriptions by this well-known teacher, writer, and photographer all the more compelling.
About the Author
Stewart Aitchison is a zoologist and geologist by training and a naturalist and photographer by passion. He has been exploring, photographing, teaching, and writing for more than 40 years. He escorts educational excursions for the National Audubon Society, the Smithsonian, Lindblad Expeditions, National Geographic Expeditions, Exploritas (formerly Elderhostel), and other organizations across the globe. He has written more than 20 books, including Grand Canyon’s North Rim and Beyond, A Traveler’s Guide to Monument Valley, and A Guide to Southern Utah’s Hole-in-the-Rock Trail.
Most helpful customer reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
you'll be ready to go
By Don R. Lago
Stewart Aitchison has done it again. For decades Aitchison has been a reliable guide to the natural history of the Southwest. He is best known for his books about the Grand Canyon, but this book shows that he is also a good guide for a far less well-known place. But the Grand Canyon isn't so far from the Sea of Cortez, geologically speaking, for it was the opening of the Sea of Cortez that--geologists now believe--allowed the Colorado River to finally reach the sea and spurred the rapid carving of the Grand Canyon. This is only one of the unlikely facts you'll discover in this book. I first "visited" the Sea of Cortez through John Steinbeck's Log, but Aitchison's book held lots of surprises for me. His book is an enjoyable mixture of personal experiences, great photography, and natural history information--both general summaries and lots of interesting oddities. This book may have been published by a university press but it's hardly "academic," requiring only a basic familiarity with natural history.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Very good
By Amazon Customer
Stewart is an excellent writer and photographer and does a great job explaining the geography and natural history of the islands. Descriptions of the islands, their geology, and the flora and fauna are liberally spiced with personal anecdotes that make me feel as though I've been there. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the Sea of Cortez.
14 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
Five-star cover ultimately disappoints
By Gloops
Having planned to go whale-watching in the Sea of Cortez, I was searching amazon.co.uk for a copy of Steinbeck's Log when I chanced upon this book just prior to publication. Judging by its cover - the luminosity of the photo and the sheer exoticism of Desert Islands and an X and a Z (orthographically, we Brits are easily pleased) all together in the one title - I was in for a treat.
The author is a zoologist, geologist, naturalist, photographer, field biologist and teacher and has led educational expeditions in this area for over 25 years. He certainly knows his stuff. There are 922 islands and islets in the Sea, and his map lists the largest 44. His scene-setting Introduction briefly covers the climate, some desert plant characteristics and statistics, a couple of personal anecdotes and a bit about the early Spanish explorers.
The first two main chapters explain the region's geology over the last 230 million years and examine the process of repopulation by plants and animals of volcanic islands following an eruption. The facts and statistics come thick and fast and, as a layman, I soon found myself having to reach for the dictionary: subduction; orographic; dinoflagellates; areal; mesic; chemolithoautotrophic hyperthermophilic archaebacteria.....
Chapter 3 is a methodical north-to-south survey of the islands, logging the fauna and flora and making particular mention of the endemic species. There are lots of fine colour photographs and some are excellent - my favourite was an iguana caught eating a cactus flower - though many would look even better larger than the page size allows. But in the text, time and again I had the sense of Yet Another List of animals or plants (each with its Latin taxonomic name italicized in brackets), thinly disguised as a very long sentence.
Chapter 4 deals with the creatures in the Sea itself - whales, dolphins, seals, rays, squid, and more. The fifth concentrates on endangered species, on the disruptive effects of fertilizer runoff, and on the ecological imbalance and damage caused by non-native species of flora and fauna. Lastly, perhaps inevitably, Man's transgressions are catalogued: hunting, gathering, felling trees, lighting fires, introducing invasive species (sounds like ordinary folk trying to scrape a living, perhaps a contentious issue), mining, even tourism.
This is essentially an academic work ranging across several fields, densely packed with facts and statistics, and unquestionably worthy. I have absolutely no reason to doubt the accuracy of its data or the truth of what it describes. But it reads like a college textbook, uneasily leavened with a few rather tame personal anecdotes. I felt no spark of excitement or adventure and I'm sorry to say that, for me, it never really came to life.
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