the explorers journal the climate change issue - The Explorers Club

objects and sounds some attribute
to UFOs, others to aircraft
testing. Some like New York’s
Plum Island, are toxic. Others
are depots for unknown quantities
of chemical and biological
warfare weapons. Trying to be
helpful, Helms includes maps
but they are little more than an
arrow pointing off into nowhere
along a desolate highway.
t h e S u n : T h e
Audacious Life and
Times of Denys
Finch Hatton
62
By Sara Wheeler
320 pages • New York: Random House,
2007 • ISBN-10: 1400060699, ISBN-13:
978-1400060696 • $27.95
The enigmatic Denys Finch
Hatton looms large on the
romantic landscape of bygone
Africa. Immortalized in his time
by two lovers, Karen Blixen (aka
Isak Dinesen) in Out of Africa,
and Beryl Markham in West with
the Night, Finch Hatton remains
alluring long after his untimely
death—having crashed his plane
in 1931. Now, his life has been
chronicled by Sara Wheeler in
REVIEWS
Too Close to the Sun.
Born in 1887, Denys Finch
Hatton was raised on a country
estate, learned to hunt and to
dance, was educated at Eton
then Oxford, gliding through
with an effortless style that
was the hallmark of upper
class English life. When family
fortunes declined, Denys’ elder
brother inherited the estate and
its accumulating debt, while
Denys was encouraged to make
his fortune abroad. Denys chose
Kenya, arriving there in 1911.
After a series of false starts,
Denys made himself into the
most sought-after white hunter,
taking rich clients, including
princes, into the game parks.
Wheeler’s book brings to life
the brief flame of colonial Kenya,
peopled by a dashing daredevil
elite such as Finch Hatton.
A Naturalist and Other
Beasts: Tales From a
Life in the Field
By George B. Schaller
272 pages • San Francisco: Sierra Club
Books, 2007 • ISBN-10: 1578051290,
ISBN-13: 978-1578051298 • $24.95
In his new book, A Naturalist
and Other Beasts, George
Schaller, author, field biologist,
and long-time affiliate of the
Wildlife Conservation Society in
New York, has given us a snapshot
of his experiences studying
an array of animals over the past
50 years. Schaller’s pioneering
work observing pandas, mountain
gorillas, tigers, lions, deer—
all subjects of past books such
as The Mountain Gorilla and
The Last Panda—changed often
erroneous public perceptions
about the animals, led to the
establishment of preserves and
paved the way for hundreds of
field researchers to follow in his
wake. More recently, Schaller
has been engaged in studies
of the Tibetan Plateau, an area
little understood environmentally
and whose species are
highly endangered.
Schaller’s book is divided
into geographical sections:
Americas, Africa, South Asia,
China, Mongolia, and the
Tibetan Plateau, with chapters
in each devoted to his research
subjects, including blue herons,
wildebeests, tigers, and pika
respectively. Schaller comments
during his return to the
Virungas to see the mountain
gorillas 40 years after his original
research, “I do not like to
return to places where my heart
rests, fearful that things have
changed.” While nothing can
stop the tsunami surge of human
population growth and the
subsequent worldwide environmental
destruction. it is thanks
to individuals like Schaller that
there are places and unique
species left at all.
THE EXPLORERS CLUB chapter chairs
46 east 70th street, New York, NY 10021 I 212-628-8383 I www.explorers.org
Alaska
Robert W. Taylor, M.D.
Tel: 907-452-4900
Fax: 907-457-1701
rtayl0r@alaska.net
ffjjk@uaf.edu
Atlanta
W. Hayes Wilson, M.D.
Tel: 404-351-2551
Fax: 404-351-9238
info@drwilson.org
Central Florida
G. Michael Harris
Tel: 727-584-2883
Fax: 727-585-6078
gmh@tampabay.rr.com
Chicago/Great Lakes
Mel Surdel
Contact person:
Cheryl Istvan
Tel: 312-640-0741
Fax: 312-640-0731
ec.chicago@mac.com
George Rogers Clark
Joseph E. Ricketts
Tel/Fax: 937-885-2477
jer937@aol.com
Greater Piedmont
Nena Powell Rice
Tel: 803-777-8170
Fax: 803-254-1338
nrice@sc.edu
Jupiter Florida
Rosemarie Twinam
Tel: 772-219-1970
Fax: 772-283-3497
RTwinam@aol.com
New England
Gregory Deyermenjian
Tel: 978-927-8827, ext. 128
Fax: 978-927-9182
paititi@alum.blsa.org
North Pacific Alaska
Mead Treadwell
Tel: 907-258-7764
Fax: 907-258-7768
meadwell@alaska.net
Northern California
Lee Langan
Tel: 415-931-3015
Fax: 415-398-7664
lee@langan.net
National chapter chairs
Pacific Northwest
Edwin J. Sobey, Ph.D.
Tel: 425-861-3472
Fax: 503-214-7849
sobey@gte.net
Philadelphia
Peter Hess
Tel: 302-777-1715
Hessians@aol.com
Rocky Mountain
William F. Schoeberlein
Tel: 303-526-0505
Fax: 303-526-5171
billschoeberlein@comcast.net
San Diego
William T. Everett
Tel: 760-765-3377
Fax: 760-765-3113
everett@esrc.org
Southern California
David A. Dolan, FRGS
Tel. 949-307-9182
daviddolan@aol.com
Southern Florida
Stanley L. Spielman, M.D.
Tel/Fax: 305-233-8054
chimbuart@aol.com
Southwest
Brian Hanson (Chapter Liaison)
Tel: 512-266-7851
brianphanson@sbcglobal.net
Southwest Florida
Col. Gerry W. Bass
Tel: 239-594-5224
gerrywb@embarqmail.com
St. Louis
Mabel Purkerson, M.D.
Tel: 314-362-4234
purkerm@msnotes.wustl.edu
Texas
Ted D. Lee
Tel: 210-886-9500
Fax: 210-886-9883
tedlee@gunn-lee.com
Washington DC
Dr. Lee Talbot
Tel: 703-734-8576
Fax: 703-734-8576
ltalbot@gmu.edu
interNational chapter chairs
Argentina
Hugo Castello, Ph.D.
Fax: 54 11 4 982 5243/4494
hucastel@mail.retina.ar
Australia-New Zealand
Ann McFarlane, Ph.D.
Tel: 61-2-9328-4883
Fax: 61-2-9328-4888
amcfarlane@bigpond.com
Canada
Joseph G. Frey
Tel: 416-239-8840
explorersclubcanada@hotmail.com
www.explorersclub.ca
East Asia
Dr. Michael J. Moser
mmoser@omm.com
Great Britain
Barry L. Moss
Tel: 44 020 8992 7178
barola2780@aol.com
Iceland
Haraldur Örn Ólafsson
Tel: +354 545 8551
Fax: +354 562 1289
haraldur.orn.olafsson@ivr.stjr.is
India
Avinash Kohli
amber@nda.vsnl.net.in
Norway
Hans-Erik Hansen
Home Tel: 47 22-458-205
Work Tel: 47 67-138-559
hans-e-h@online.no
Poland
Marek Kaminski
Home Tel: 48-695664000
Work Tel: 48-58-5544522
Fax: 48-58-5523315
mkaminski@gamasan.pl
m.rogozinska@rp.pl
Russia
Alexander Borodin
Tel: 7-095-973-2415
Alexanderb@sibneft.ru
Western Europe
Lorie Karnath
Tel: 49-1723-95-2051
lkarnath@yahoo.com