LAST CHANCE TO SEE, written by Douglas Adams (yes, THAT Douglas Adams!) and Mark Carwardine, is about the adventures they went on around the world to locate and actually see some of the rarest animals and plants. They took these trips in the mid- to late 1980s and the book was published in 1990.
With Adams at the helm the book had to be humorous and it certainly is. Wanting to know about the current state of some of the animals and plants, I did some research and was mostly disheartened. Here is what I came up with:

There are approximately 3,000 Komodo dragons left in the world. The number is declining and they’re listed as “Vulnerable”.

Adams and Carwardine were lucky to see one of the 22 Northern White Rhinoceros alive in the 1980s. The last male died earlier this year (2018). There are only two females left. Scientists are trying to create an embryo to keep the species going. This animal is considered “Functionally Extinct”. Humans poached them for their horns.

The Kakapo, a flightless parrot who once ranged free of predators in New Zealand, had 149 known individuals in April 2018. That’s up from 40 in the late 1980s. Humans were the cause of their decline. They are “Critically Endangered” and kept on predator-free islands in an effort to save them.

Unfortunately, the Baiji Dolphin, who last lived in the filthy Yangtze River, is classified as “Functionally Extinct”. The last known dolphin, “Qi-Qi”, died in captivity in 2002. Again, humans were the cause of their disappearance by clogging the river with boat engines that chewed them up, noise that disoriented them, and poisonous chemicals.

Ramosmania Rodriguesi is a wild coffee tree thought to be extinct until 1979, when one was found on the island of Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean. The Kew Gardens successfully got a plant cutting to bear viable seeds in 2003. It is still listed as “Critically Endangered”.

I’m thankful that Adams was able to have these adventures and pass the information on. Some experiences weren’t pleasant but that’s to be expected when one does that much traveling!
I enjoyed the book and recommend it, just take into consideration that the statistics have changed.

Diversión y animales llegados de otros tiempos que parecen otros planetas. Una maravilla de reedición necesariamente urgente

I never would have realised how greatly I needed to read a book on conservation by a sort of cynical comic science fiction writer... And now that I have read it, I don't know what I would have done without it. Books on conservation have some things in common - they're sad, disconcerting, hopeless even when they're trying to be hopeful. I am still drawn to writings about wildlife in spite of the hopelessness they often fill me with. But this wasn't any old book on wildlife. Adams was able to give a new flavour to an old disconcerting conversation. And I am much the wiser for it. I couldn't put it into a coherent review if I wanted to, but this is a must read - an unexpected perspective at the very least.

Even though I am one of the five people in the world who don't really dig the so-called British 'sense of humor', finding it often hysterical and even scary —this book by Douglas Adams (also I could never quite get into his benchmark SF volume), despite the gravity of the subject, is riotously funny. Like Jerome K. Jerome except several notches funnier. And written much better. In fact written so well that you don't even notice how brilliant it is.

A tad overlong though, as towards the end an interest sags a bit... But also, yes, last chance to see or not, I did start hating those nasty Komodo dragons. It looks like they are nowadays actually thriving...unlike the loveable baiji dolphins...

One of the best books I've read!

For author Douglas Adams and World Wildlife Fund zoologist Mark Carwardine, what started as a trip to Madagascar to see the aye-aye, an endangered lemur, turned into a months longer trip to various parts of the world searching out other endangered species. After Madagascar, the trips were recorded for BBC Radio.

Going to the Indonesian island of Komodo to see, the Komodo dragon, whose saliva is so virulent it can kill a man, Douglas Adams had the following conversation:
n  “So what do we do if we get bitten by something deadly then?” I asked.
He blinked at me as if I were stupid.
“Well, what do you think you do?” he said. “You die of course. That’s what deadly means.”n

On the same trip:
n  “You’re proposing twenty hours on a boat-”
“A small boat,” added Mark.
“On violently heaving seas-”
“Probably.”
“With a three-day-old dead goat.”
“Yes.”
“I hardly know what to say.”n

I found out why the northern white rhino is called a white rhino when it is, in fact, dark grey. White is a mistranslation of the Afrikaans’s word weit, meaning “wide,” and it refers to the animal’s mouth, which is wider than that of the black rhino.

At the time of their trip to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), in 1988, there were twenty-two northern white rhinos. Today, there are two female northern white rhinos in captivity. There are no known males left. (There has been success with artificial insemination with southern white rhinos. In fact, one was just born in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Hopefully, and with time permitting, they will be able to perfect the technique enough to use the frozen semen from the last male northern white, and successfully impregnate the remaining females. Otherwise, this beautiful animal will become extinct.)

Of the many birds and animals seen on these travels, sadly, the baiji dolphin, also known as the Yangtze dolphin, is now extinct. At the time of their visit to China, in 1989-1990, there were about two hundred still alive.

This book is laugh-out-loud funny and a call to action. Even almost thirty years later, this book has enormous relevance.

n  There is one last reason for caring. And it is simply this: the world would be a poorer, darker, lonelier place without them.n

I like the theme, I like the prose - but far more visible than the extinct animals described is the extinct outlook of white man unbothered by his ignorance to other people. It's like, this book set in 1989, we get the very last glimpse of this point of view, especially for/of an Anglophone white man.

I know. Not the point of the novel, probably not any point at all. But also, it saps a lot of my enjoyment and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

I've known that this book - by one of my all-time favourite writers and inspirations - existed for many years now, and yet it has taken me this long to read it. Why? I think GR friend David hits the nail on the head with this being the last chance to read anything new by Adams, and I think I've been holding on to that idea, that there's still a book out there by a favourite writer that I hadn't yet read, for a very long time. I feel both happy and sad right now.

The book is also both funny and heartbreaking. Still alarmingly relevant. Filled with Adams' trademark humour, fantastic observational skills, wonder and humility, this book takes us around the world of the mid 1980s, in search of different species of animals that were on the brink of extinction. Some of them have since gone over the brink. Some have bounced back - no thanks to most of humanity, but with help from a few very dedicated members of our species.

It's of course very upsetting to read about all this - as it should be. But Adams' warmth and wit makes it entertaining, educational and engaging as well.

Carwardine's afterword of 20 (?) years later is perhaps particularly sobering, but incredibly important. Something everyone needs to read.

And now I wonder if it has perhaps been long enough since I read The Hitchhiker's Guide novels for me to read them again. I think so. And to that end have just purchased the Kindle edition of The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to comfort myself with. While I cherish my battered hardback version that I've had since the age of 14, it is a bit of a brick, and now Douglas can go with me everywhere, which is a reassuring thought.

In 1985 Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine set off in the hope of spotting the Madagascar aye-aye, a nocturnal lemur nearing extinction. The trip was a success and so the duo came back together a couple years later to seek out more animals that were verging on the brink with the idea that their travels and Adams' writing would shine a much needed spotlight on said brink.

Like the Madagascar aye aye, my encounter with Adams' Last Chance to See adventuring was a nocturnal one. In simplicity, I couldn't put it down. The spotlight shone in Adams' humor and intellect, both fleshing out the weight of their experience. That it mattered to him, moved him.

I could go on about Douglas-Adams-as-a-synonym-for-brilliancy but it's been done. What I will say is that I love reading Adams because he seems to have been gifted with the rare ability to see the world from a slightly removed angle than the rest and the even rarer ability to translate such a view to those of us unaware.

This is an important book; a swollen, dog-eared, in peril of a broken spine book. A pass-it-on book.

Douglas Adams went around the globe along with zoologist Mark Carwardine in search of various species of animals and birds which were on the verge of extinction in 1985 (when this book was written). My interest was piqued on the thought that if these species were considered endangered in 1985, what would be their current status as of 2012? Well I did some research (I mean I Googled it. But not in an amateurish way, I tried hard enough until I got bored, i.e. after 15 minutes!)

And one thing that I cannot understand is why even some educated people consider the extinction of various species a natural phenomenon! Just say these words in front of a well educated crowd and you almost know what answer you are going to get. Global warming? Pah. Government conspiracy. Extinction of various species? It is not a new thing. It’s just a cycle. But what if someone told you that the rate of extinction has increased exponentially in the last 50 years or so? And just because Al Gore supports the campaign against global warming doesn’t make it a conspiracy.

Anyway, let’s just look at the comparison of the species population which Adams saw in 1985 compared to the current year 2012.

Aye Aye(Madagascar) - unknown pop. (1985) – Fortunately they are more widespread than previously thought (2012)

Northern White Rhino (Zaire- Africa) – 22 nos. (1985) – Extinct (2012) (Only 7 remain in captivity)

Mountain Gorrillas (Zaire- Africa) – 280 nos. (1985) – 790 nos. (2012) (But endangered due to activities like deforestation and poaching)

Kakapo (New Zealand)– 40 nos. (1985) – 126 nos. (2012)

Yangtze River Dolphin aka Baiji (China) – 200 nos. (1985) – Extinct (2012)

The Komodo dragon (Indonesia)– 5000 nos. (350 females) (1985) – 4000-5000 nos. (2012)

Finless porpoise (Yangtze River, China)– 400 nos. (1985) – less than 400 nos. (2012)

The Rodrigues fruitbat (Mauritius) – 100 nos. (1985) – 3000 nos. and rising (2012)

Mauritius kestrel (Mauritius) - 100 nos. (1985) – 3000 nos. and rising (2012)

Echo Parakeet (Mauritius) – 15 nos. (1985) – 130 nos. (2012)

Pink pigeons (Mauritius) – 200 nos. (1985) – 350 nos. (2012)

Well, not everyone made it. And those who are faring better comparatively are still considered endangered if not critically endangered. And these are among the lucky few who were saved because of the much required publicity received from various sources including, I think, this book.

Apart from these species, Adams also saw some of the rarest species of flora. In his own words:

I knew that the palm tree was called Beverly because Wendy told me that was what she had christened it. It was a bottle palm, so called because it is shaped like a Chianti bottle, and it was one of the eight that remain on Round Island, the only eight wild ones in the world.

Or that the Hyophorbe amarfcaulis (a palm tree so rare that it doesn't have any name other than its scientific one) standing in the Curepipe Botanic Gardens in Mauritius is the only one of its kind in existence? (The tree was only discovered by chance while the ground on which it stands was being cleared in order to construct the Botanic Gardens. It was about to be cut down.)

But a skeptic would still ask that why is it only and only our (human beings') fault that earth’s ecology is crumbling? Well, Adams countered it perfectly:

The great thing about being the only species that makes a distinction between right and wrong is that we can make up the rules for ourselves as we go along.

I received this book in a book exchange, and I was excited because I had read all of Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy books. But this book was different. It was a nonfiction journey of a few men traveling to glimpse and understand rare species of endangered animals.

And honestly? I was delighted to read it.

The whole book seemed to echo one of my truest life philosophies: we should all be living our most awesome lives doing weirdly awesome things.

That's just what these guys did.

This is a fascinating, entirely true tale in which Adams and (Mark) Carwardine encounter a plethora of interesting characters, some of them human, all over the world. On the way, Adams is pummeled by insights and epiphanies about the very nature of life, evolution, and being human.

In the 29 years since this book was published, two of the seven species highlighted here have gone "functionally extinct" and others are still endangered, some of them critically. This drives home the real zinger: that the impact of humanity's ubiquitous presence is ongoing, that we're currently living in (and causing) a mass extinction event.

This is a must-read book. I am immediately donating my copy to a local book-sharing cooperative. If you happen to see a copy in a used bookstore or yard sale (it’s long been out of print), get it and read it.

(I have published a longer review on my website.)