Endings
Encounters with Extinction
-
- Pre-Order
-
- Expected Sept 22, 2026
-
- $16.99
-
- Pre-Order
-
- $16.99
Publisher Description
For readers of John Vaillant, Robert Macfarlane, and Helen Macdonald, a lyrical, panoramic exploration of extinction as it occurs and reoccurs in natural history, myth, and science.
It’s no secret we live in an age of extinction: our daily newsfeeds and disappearing wildlife make that abundantly clear. But what does extinction really mean for humanity? Naturalist and poet Neil Griffin seeks to answer that question.
The result is a globe-spanning, personal history of extinction: a grand tour of the dead, the nearly dead, and—against all odds—the still living. Griffin catches crocodiles in Belize, tracks bats on the Western plains, meets jaguars in Honduras, and, in Kenya, comes face to face with the northern white rhinoceros, the rarest mammal on Earth. Along the way, he connects our current moment to Earth’s deep history, exploring how mass extinctions occur and irreversibly shape life on our planet.
Written with curiosity, compassion, and a surprising humour, Endings is an eye-opening journey through extinction—from the fossil record to the field biologist’s notebook, from myth to memory. In bearing witness to what we’ve lost, Griffin discovers something unexpected: that even in an age of endings, wonder and hope remain defiantly alive.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this lyrical exploration, poet and naturalist Griffin (Bat Planet) examines the ecological, historical, and personal dimensions of extinction. While recognizing that extinction is a natural phenomenon, Griffin asserts that current extinction rates far exceed the norm. Journeying from Canada's boreal wetlands and the jungles of Belize to Kenya's savannahs and the mountains of Rwanda, he encounters endangered species that spark discussions of humanity's relationship with the natural world. Whooping cranes, the world's tallest flying birds, have only two major breeding grounds left, as many of their wetland homes have been plowed into farmland. Mountain gorillas have also been pushed to the brink. Now protected by the Rwandan government, they are safe—as long as there is better money in taking tourists to see them than in poaching them, Griffin adds. Summarizing Earth's five major extinction events, Griffin pairs discussions of geological history with creation stories drawn from cultures around the globe. These sections offer little that will surprise readers familiar with basic paleontology or geology, but they effectively situate today's biodiversity crisis within a broader temporal and cultural framework. Ultimately, Griffin urges "presence and careful interaction with the non-human world," acknowledging that spending more time with nature won't stop civilizational collapse, but that "large practices grow from small beginnings." It's a passionate call for change amid trying times.
