Animal Diaspora
Decoding Ice Age Mysteries to Reveal the Future of Migration
Edward Struzik
In 2020, Inuit hunters of Canada’s Central Arctic made an intriguing discovery. They came across the massive frozen carcasses of eleven beached bowhead whales, killed by a new kind of predator. But the new arrival—a distinct type of orca migrating into the Arctic, capitalizing on the retreating sea ice—wasn’t new at all. The orcas hunted these same frigid waters at the end of the last Ice Age.
In Animal Diaspora, science writer and adventure traveler Edward Struzik reveals how the migrations and mass extinctions of the remote past shed light on the planetwide displacement of animals we are witnessing today—and may help scientists stave off the mass extinction to come. Animals from around the world were on the move during the last Ice Age, seeking refuge from ice sheets that spread across most of the northern hemisphere. But the disappearance of nearly two-thirds of the Earth’s large animals—from mammoths and mastodons to the saber-toothed cats and giant short-faced bears that hunted them—occurred during the wild swings of rapid warming and short-term cooling that followed the end of the last Ice Age. Now, as the world heats up just as fast, animals are again migrating in alarming numbers, this time due to widespread permafrost thaw, drought, wildfires, warming oceans, rising sea levels, and flooding, and exploiting new territories that were once uninhabitable.
Animal Diaspora provides vital perspective on this massive redistribution of animal life happening around the globe, blending vivid storytelling with the latest science and urging us to recognize the stunning complexity and dire implications of one of nature’s greatest spectacles.
Published by Island Press
Praise for Animal Diaspora
“Struzik deftly weaves old and new research findings into a vivid tapestry. . . . This is a timely and comprehensive status report.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Struzik is a born storyteller. . . . In Animal Diaspora, Struzik paints a vivid picture of [a] remote but vital region, including the innumerable species of flora and fauna that live there. Those plants and animals may be facing a bleak future. But we can make it less bleak, and our actions can and should be guided by the lessons from the past.”—Dan Falk, Literary Review of Canada
“Engaging and enlightening. Struzik reminds us that the world is dynamic and rapid climate change is making it more so, and that we humans must make it easier for animals to keep moving by maintaining and restoring travel corridors and migratory stopover sites.”—Reed F. Noss, University of Florida
“In Animal Diaspora, Struzik expertly weaves disparate threads of knowledge with riveting stories of Arctic travel to illuminate what we can learn from the Ice Age mammal extinctions, and how we can shape our changing world to help wild animals survive.”—Natalia Rybczynski, Canadian Museum of Nature and Carleton University
“Struzik deftly applies lessons from the end of the last Ice Age to the climate crisis we face today, highlighting the challenges that wildlife on the move face in a warming world. Animal Diaspora is a much-needed book that places climate change in the broader context of Earth’s history.”—Rebecca Heisman, author of Flight Paths: How a Passionate and Quirky Group of Pioneering Scientists Solved the Mystery of Bird Migration
“Animal Diaspora is a welcome personal exploration into some of the winners and losers of the West’s great animal migrants, the landscapes they have lost and gained, and the people who strive to understand and protect them. From mammoths to curiously isolated hairstreak butterflies, the Salton Sea to the High Arctic, Struzik’s immensely engaging reporting makes this a fascinating read.”—Nils Warnock, PhD, migration ecologist
