Category: Naturalist Book Nook

Poseidon’s Steed: The Story of Seahorses, From Myth to Reality
by Helen Scales, PhD

Seahorses, the modern day ‘poster child’ of healthy oceans, are fascinating creatures that have captured the human imagination for millennia.  Although they are not a keystone species, the author answers the question of why they matter because they “…..offer insights into life beneath the waves…. and … because they inspire us to care about the natural world.”  She goes on to quote Sir David Attenborough about the need of protecting any species because “’the overwhelming reason is man’s imaginative health.’”  How true…the need to be inspired!

The author begins with the tale of a 1966 discovery of many gold, silver and bronze items in Usak, Turkey, that had been lying hidden in a tomb for two-and-a-half thousand years including a tiny, inch-long gold brooch sculpted in the shape of a winged seahorse believed to belong to King Croesus of ancient Lydia.  Little did the seahorse brooch know that it would be part of what would become to be known as the Lydian Hoard, 336 pieces of ancient treasure, to be smuggled across the Atlantic and sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MOMA) for one and half million dollars.  The museum was very secretive about these jewels and kept them hidden in a basement, never displaying the artifacts.  Several Turkish journalists interested in archaeology became aware of the Lydian Hoard and pursued this missing Turkish treasure.  As a result, there ended up being a multi-million dollar lawsuit against MOMA, and after admitting to the illegal purchase, all of the artifacts were returned to Turkey.  That was not the end of the story as it was brought to light that after eight years on display back in Turkey, the winged seahorse, and other artifacts, were 21st century fakes!  This was a result of an inside job of collusion and theft coordinated by the director of the Turkish state museum and staff.  Rumors say that the buyer who coordinated the theft with the museum employees and is now in possession of the brooch is a Japanese tycoon.

This is only one of many interesting stories relating the ancient awareness of seahorses to modern day events.  Scales adeptly interweaves seahorse facts, history and wonder throughout the book, e.g., their inclusion on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) protected species list, where they live, how they live, their camouflaging abilities, how they can move their eyes independently, the only fish with a neck, the male being the birth giver, etc.   When the male gives birth, there can be from three hundred and to upward of 2,000 babies.  Scales describes it as “… clouds of transparent specks like a swarm of apostrophes … ”  I thought that was a delightful description.

This small book, 197 pages, is a pleasurable read.  Grab your trident and dive along with Poseidon below the ocean waves and be mesmerized by the enigmatic seahorse!

– Penny Warren, January 2015

Untamed: The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island
by Will Harlan

Carol Ruckdeschel grew up along the Chattahoochee River in Georgia and immersed herself in nature from a very early age.  She became the ultimate extreme naturalist, learning to eat D.O.R. (dead on the road) critters, constantly exploring and searching and learning from nature, even discovering a new species of salamander, and has remained a colorful, controversial character.  She is acquaintances with Jimmy Carter, has gone canoeing with him and enlisted his help to protect a long stretch of the Chattahoochee River.  The New Yorker wrote an article on Ms. Ruckdeschel, and shortly thereafter, Mademoiselle magazine named her one of its “Women of the Year” …. a designation and attention that she did not want in the least.

Over the course of time, she ended up visiting Cumberland Island, one of the most bio-diverse barrier islands on the east coast, and they took hold of one another.  Cumberland Island (12,000 acres) was bought by the Carnegies in the 1880s. They built a handful of mansions, and it was a playground not only for the Carnegies but the Rockefellers, Coca Cola heirs, etc.  You may recall that John Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette pulled off their secret wedding on the island.

It was many years later, many life experiences later, before Ruckdeschel returned to establish herself on the island.  She was always seen as an outsider by the island descendants, but somewhat accepted to a certain point, having a close friend or two, but she became a radical, visible presence and voice for nature and protection of Cumberland.  Ultimately, she was disliked, vilified, and shunned by the entrenched islanders because of her views on how to protect the island.  It didn’t help that she shot and killed in self-defense an ex-boyfriend (a descendent of one of the elite families) who had abused her and ultimately stalked and threatened her.

Although she fought for all of nature and wilderness on the island, her main mission was to save sea turtles from the islanders, politicians, shrimp fisherman, US Navy and the National Park Service.  The turtles were her life’s work.  For 40 years, she compiled the most thorough sea turtle stranding data anywhere in the world.

Ruckdeschel has given it her all, and then some, and has accomplished much to secure wilderness area for the northern end of the island.  Unfortunately, some of her major efforts were overturned by US Congressman Jack Kingston (R-GA, 1993-present).  The National Park Service, hardly ever an ally of hers, in the end revoked her licenses to continue her turtle research.

Harlan, editor in chief of Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine, spent nearly two decades off and on with Ruckdeschel and provides not only an intriguing story but also an overview of the devastating changes in wilderness areas, the oceans … our planet.  An extremely informative and well-written book but an emotionally difficult read about species at the edge of disappearance.  Upon turning the last page, I immediately joined wildcumberland.org.

– Penny Warren, November 2014

An excerpt from Untamed of an extraordinary experience …..

“Driving back to her cabin, Carol passed the same dead armadillo in the road from a few days earlier.  A bed of leaves now surrounded the carcass.  Puzzled, Carol pulled over for a closer look.  The armadillo was wreathed by laurel leaves.  How did those get there? she wondered.  The carcass was in the middle of a pine forest, but the nearest laurel trees were a half-mile away.

She looked closer.  Within the wreath, twigs were neatly arranged in a pattern around the dead armadillo.  Then she heard a rustle.  Hiding in the palmetto, a female armadillo watched through the fronds.  She had been tending to her mate in something resembling a burial ritual.

Carol hunkered down behind a tree and observed.  Eventually, the armadillo crept over to her partner, twigs and foliage in her mouth, and continued cloaking him in a leafy shroud.  Was this armadillo mourning like her?  Carol was awestruck.  ……”