Toftoise – new book from UK, Book Review follows

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TORTOISE by Peter Young. A Book Review by Nicholas Gould, Editor of IZN Reaktion Books, London, UK, (2004) (205 pgs) (A cultural overview of the role tortoises have historically played in our lives.) Currently available in the U.S. only thru HerpDigest see how to order below Tortoise is one of the first four books (the others are Crow, Ant and Cockroach) in a new series (`Animal’) which will, in the publishers’ words, `explore the historical significance and impact on human cultures of a wide range of animals, from insects and birds to sea creatures.’ Future subjects already in preparation are wolf, bear, horse, spider, dog, snake, oyster, falcon, parrot, rat, whale and hare. On the evidence of Tortoise there seems no reason why this series should not run and run: there must be hundreds of animals whose impact on culture in the widest sense __ mythology and religion, scientific thought, food, trade, craft and industry, art, literature, everyday life __ has been sufficiently influential to provide material for one of these neat, pocket-sized volumes. Each animal will no doubt provide a different range of appropriate topics. In Tortoise, Peter Young casts his net extremely wide. In the first chapter alone, there are quotations from, among others, Livy, Pliny, Darwin, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain and Gilbert White, and illustrations which include four Tanzanian stamps featuring the pancake tortoise, beautiful (and beautifully accurate) depictions of tortoises by Edward Lear and the 17th-century artist Albert van der Eeckhout, a 1930-ish American strip cartoon, and several photos of live animals, including the best I can remember ever seeing of a saddle-backed Gal͍pagos subspecies, and one of the famous Jonathan, a Seychelles (or more probably Aldabran) giant tortoise often claimed to have been on St Helena since the time of Napoleon’s enforced residence. Regrettably, the claim is false, as Mr Young points out. However, since Jonathan may have been about 50 years old when he arrived on the island in 1882, he is a serious contender in any chelonian longevity contest. There seem to be a number of well- authenticated 150- or 160-year-olds, but as they were all wild- caught their precise ages are unknown. It may be the end of the present century before a fully-documented, zoo-hatched tortoise passes the 150-year mark. Size records are easier to verify (though even if you have suitable scales it’s not that easy manoeuvring a large Geochelone nigra onto them); the champion here is apparently Goliath, at the Life Fellowship Bird Sanctuary, Seffner, Florida, who some years ago reached an astonishing 385 kg. It would be easy to go on quoting snippets from this engaging book. Peter Young seems to have read everything, and has uncovered tortoise lore in the most unlikely places. In English literature, he ranges from Swift and Gibbon to Terry Pratchett and J.K. Rowling. Through history, the tortoise as a symbol has represented many different attributes __ not just the obvious longevity, but indestructibility, persistence, modesty, good luck, or on the other hand cowardice, obstinacy, boastfulness, cunning, bad luck. . . Tortoises, it seems, can mean whatever you want them to mean. In modern times, they have been used to advertise beer, polish, stoves, chocolate and electricity. When it comes to real, rather than symbolic, tortoises, mankind’s influence has largely been a destructive one. The ancient Greeks made their shells into lyres, the Chinese used them to foretell the future (and in the process, says Young, wiped out an entire species, though he doesn’t say which). A chapter entitled Exploitation tells the grim story. When European ships began to sail the world, from the late 15th century on, tortoises became a popular convenience food __ you could load them into the hold, and they’d stay alive and fresh until you needed them. Darwin didn’t think much of the meat, but the average sailor was less fussy. Naturally it was the large island tortoises that were hit hardest. Most of the Gal͍pagos subspecies survived __ just. So did the Aldabra tortoise, and __ most remarkably and unexpectedly __ two Seychelles species long believed extinct, as reported by Justin Gerlach in IZN 45 (1), 4__10, and mentioned briefly by Peter Young. Others were not so lucky, like the giant tortoises of Rodrigues, eaten to extinction in under two centuries from the island’s discovery. Long after Westerners had stopped eating tortoises, they were still exploiting them on a massive scale for the pet trade. Most British people of my generation will remember seeing young tortoises, mostly Testudo graeca from North Africa, displayed for sale by the hundred, and mostly doomed to a speedy death at the hands of ignorant or thoughtless owners. Young discusses the trade, now happily banned, and notes that as recently as the mid-1970s Britain was still importing more than half a million tortoises a year from Morocco __ think of that, next time you’re raging over the current holocaust of chelonians in East Asia. Peter Young is clearly a tortoise-lover, and writes knowledgeably about the growing efforts to conserve these animals, both in and ex situ. But really, his whole book does its bit towards tortoise conservation, by raising the reader’s awareness of the major part which tortoises have always played in human life. And Tortoise is not merely a fascinating and informative read __ it’s a visual delight as well, with illustrations showing the use the artists of three millennia have made of tortoises to produce images as curious, comical or beautiful as the animals themselves. (The above reviewed book “Tortoise” by Peter Young is available through HerpDigest for $20.00 USD. $4.00 for Shipping and Handling. Add $1.00 for each additional copy. See below for further details. To order you can: 1) Send us your credit card number, expiration date, shipping and billing address via email, snail mail. (see mail address below)or fax 1-718-275-3307. 2) Use HerpDigest’s Paypal account. https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=asalzberg%40herpdigest.org 3) Or write out a check for the full amount to HerpDigest and mail it to HerpDigest/ c/o Allen Salzberg/67-87 Booth Street __5B/Forest Hills, NY 11375. If ordering from outside of the United States please contact us first at asalzberg@herpdigest for further instructions. We are sorry but we can no longer accept checks or money orders from outside of the United States. Orders can only be made through PayPal, Master or Visa credit cards. If you ordering from outside the U.S. please contact us first for shipping instructions. Unless otherwise noted, all copies are sent via media mail, its cheaper, arrives in the same condition as first class just a week or so latter. And we both same money.

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