About this item
In The Manatee Scientists, John Reynolds does an aerial count of manatees from the Florida sky; Lucy Keith spends a weekend rescuing manatees trapped in a dam in Senegal; and Fernando Rosas takes the author on an Amazonian boat trip, looking for a young manatee he released back into the wild, with emotional results. These scientists are working hard to save manatees: docile, large sea mammals who are eaten in some parts of the world, feared in others, and adored in still others. But factors such as human encroachment, disease, environmental hazards, and being hunted are causing their numbers to decline: they are an endangered species, in need of help.
About the Author
Peter Lourie was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and grew up in Connecticut; Ontario, Canada; and New York City. He holds a BA in classics from New York University, an MA in English Literature from the University of Maine, and an MFA in nonfiction creative writing from Columbia University. He has taught writing for many years (Middlebury College, Columbia College, University of Vermont) , and now makes his living traveling, writing and photographing. He also visits schools to share his adventures with students and teachers. He traveled on a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker in the Beaufort Sea where he recorded multimedia stories for a digital project funded by the National Science Foundation. His newest book for Henry Holt, Jack London and the Klondike Gold Rush, was published in March, 2017. And he is at work on a second adventure biography, about Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen.
