by Darcy Dean
Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl was written Professor Johnathan C. Slaght and was published in 2020. This book was long-listed for the National Book Award for Nonfiction. After recently reading this book, and I decided to write a book review on it in order to encourage you to read it as well. I also interviewed Professor Slaght with questions I had from my reading.
This book follows Professor Slaght as a college student in his adventures to find and protect Blakiston's Fish Owls in Russia. He teams up with many different people in order to accomplish this four-year study that completed all kinds of research on these endangered owls. One example of testing that they performed was putting GPS trackers on owls to track their locations. By doing this, they found out where the most favored hunting spots were and where their nest trees were located. This was all done in order to protect the owls and their nests from the massive amounts of logging that has been occurring in Russia over time.
This book was remarkably interesting, intense, and informative about everything that these people were able to accomplish in just four years. The descriptions of working with and studying the Blakiston’s Fish Owls were amazing, and it felt as though you were there looking at the owls yourself. I loved reading this book and it has inspired me to be even more interested in owls and all of the different things that they do. This book opened my eyes to the entire field of wildlife biology and introduced me to the extreme measures that these scientists take in order to protect owls and their habitats every day.
I would recommend this book for any person who wants to learn more about owls and the different actions that are taken in order to ensure the protection of all kinds of different animals. The more people that know about the conservation efforts for all of these amazing animals, the better off they will be. This book is perfect for a casual read for any time that you would want to learn about adventures with owls in Russia and all of the amazing people that are involved with these protection efforts every day.
After finishing the four-year project in Russia, Professor Slaght went on to become the coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation Society in Russia and Northeast Asia. He has also written other works including writing, research, and photos that have been included in many different magazines of importance. I was incredibly impressed and interested in the work that Professor Slaght was doing so I decided to get in touch with him and ask him some more questions about the book and about his work in general.
Darcy Dean: What was a memorable experience that did not make it into the book?
Jonathan Slaght: Almost all of the 2010 field season had to be cut from the book, because the text was getting to be too long and repetitive. I had a great, colorful field assistant named Misha, who unfortunately was cut entirely. He grew up protecting his grandparents’ apiary from marauding bears and had a lot of great stories to tell.
DD: Why did you choose this species of owl over other species?
JS: This was a bird that needed a voice, and I knew that with my knowledge of Russian language, the wilderness where the owls live, and my connections with people there, that I was in a unique position to help them.
DD: Have you continued doing research with these owls since this book was published, and if so, to what extent?
JS: Yes! Every year I organize some kind of field season with “The Sergeys” (Sergey Avdeyuk and Sergey Surmach). In fact, they just this past week finished looking for fish owls in the Sikhote-Alin Reserve.
DD: Has the political state in Russia changed how much and the way in which research that you are doing with the owls is conducted?
JS: The political situation, as well as Covid-19, has drastically impacted how I can personally work in Russia. I have not been there for nearly two years at this point. However, the fish owl work continues via The Sergeys.
DD: What advice do you have for someone who is trying to get into this field [wildlife biology]?
JS: Get experience! Even in high school and especially in college—try to find some research project and volunteer or work on it. Start to build a network of professors/professionals. The combination of some basic skills as a field assistant and established professionals who will vouch for you is really important. Also—if you have any interest in what happens outside of the United States: learn a foreign language. So much work moving forward is international in nature—think about complex, trans-border issues like climate change or migratory species—so learning how to communicate with people in a language other than English I think is really important. Understanding language helps you better understand another’s culture and perspective, which is also very important.
DD: What are some common misconceptions about your field of work that most people do not understand?
JW: Fieldwork is not all fun and games: it’s just as often blisters and floods. And mosquitos and cold ground to sleep on. So, know that going in. You have to be mentally prepared for hardship.
DD: Who or what inspired you to get into this field of work?
JS: I have a number of sources of inspiration—one off the top of my head is Bernd Heinrich, a professor at the University of Vermont, and an author. After college I spent a year in Alaska as a laborer, unsure of my future, and I read Heinrich’s book “Ravens in Winter.” In it, he described his work on a research project studying raven behavior. It wasn’t until I read this book that I realized that my love of the outdoors and my interest in birds could be a career—I’d always assumed it would just be a hobby.
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