March 13, 2002
Contact: Cori Crawford
(805) 682-4711 x348
Acclaimed nature writer David Quammen
comes to Santa Barbara
Summary Facts:
- David Quammen
- The Improbable Lion: Can Big Predators Survive in a Crowded World?
- Highly acclaimed naturalist, writer, adventurer and literary scholar
- Thursday, April 4
- 7:30 pm / Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
- General $12 / UCSB students and SBMNH members $8
- Information: Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History at 682-4711
Can lions, crocodiles and tigers survive the next 100 years on a planet so dominated by humans? If they go extinct, what will we have lost—in ecological and spiritual as well as psychological terms—with the extinction of big predators?
Highly acclaimed naturalist, writer, adventurer and literary scholar David Quammen will examine these questions in an illustrated slide lecture titled “The Improbable Lion: Can Big Predators Survive in a Crowded World?” on Thursday, April 4 at 7:30 pm at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. The event is co-presented with UCSB Arts & Lectures.
With an intriguing blend of humor and scholarly insight, “Quammen can make an academic subject fascinating,” explains James M. Glover in the Journal of Leisure Research.
In his lecture, he will consider the circumstances of four predators: the Asiatic lion on a small reserve in western India, the Brown Bears of the Carpathian Mountains in Romania, the saltwater crocodiles of northern Australia and the Siberian Tiger in Russian Far East.
Quammen wrote science essays for fifteen years in Outside magazine and is a two-time recipient of National Magazine Awards. On assignment for National Geographic magazine, Quammen participated in the Megatransect Expedition, a 1,200-mile journey on foot across the heart of Africa.
Author of nine books, his book The Song of the Dodo (Scribner, 1996) won the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing and several other awards. His other awards include a Rhodes scholarship, Guggenheim Fellowship, the BP Natural World Book Prize (Great Britain), the New York Public Library Helen Berstein Book Award, and an honorary doctorate from the Montana State University. In addition to his columns in Outside magazine, Mr. Quammen has also published in National Geographic magazine, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times Book Review.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, David Quammen now lives in Montana.