A review by corar
100 Heartbeats: A Journey to Meet Our Planet's Endangered Animals and the Heroes Working to Save Them by Jeff Corwin

4.0

100 Heartbeats Club is what conservationists call species that are so endanger of extinction that there are less than 100 individuals left in the wild. In this book, Jeff Corwin gives the reader an overview of some of the major causes of species extinction and endangerment and provides the reader with examples and case study to illustrate the challenges. Despite the title of the book, Corwin does not focus on species that are members of the 100 Heartbeats Club, although he does mention a few. I would recommend this book to someone that wants to know something about endangered species conservation who does not already know a lot about it. I studied endangered species conservation in college and graduate school, so there was nothing new or interesting for me in the book. Most of the animals (he does not discuss any plants) are those whose story I am already familiar with and the issues he addresses (climate change, pollution, habitat loss, human population growth, etc.) are those I already know a lot about. However, it is presented in a clear and interesting way that those without my background in conservation biology would get a lot out of. I did like that in each section, at least one of the stories is a tentative success story where the species population is improving. It is nice that the message isn't all doom and gloom. Overall, for me it was just OK, but others would probably learn a lot from the book.