Book Review: Still Alive

 

 Still Alive: A Wild Life of Rediscovery

Forrest Galante

Hatchette, 2021, 238pp.

This is a rousing tale of adventure and discovery.  Galante hosts the TV program Extinct or Alive? and, as described here, has found some surprising answers to the title question in between dealing with storms, disease, corruption, and all the other impediments to learning whether a particular species or subspecies is still with us. Indeed, Galante comes close to being on the “extinct” side of the title himself as he chases around the world.

The book starts with his rewarding childhood of outdoor exploration in Zimbabwe, which turns to hell in a political upheaval. Relocated to California, Galante earns a degree in wildlife biology only to find it’s not a ticket to adventure. Instead, he’s employed in necessary but mind-sapping jobs pulling weeds and counting ants. His break comes when his ability to find edibles in the wild makes him king of the TV competition program Naked and Afraid, leading to his career in the media.

The meat of the books is, of course, the hunt for animals whose current existence is doubtful or dismissed. This has exciting but also humorous moments for the reader, as when Galante dives in very dangerous conditions searching for a missing African shark while his zoologist wife strolls along the beach with a photograph and finds one for sale.  The book discusses his successes, which he marvels at, noting the odds of finding something missing for decades in a two-week expedition are vanishingly small. His proudest moments are filming the Zanzibar leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) and locating a Fernandina Giant Tortoise (Chelonoidis phantasticus), a Galapagos Islands animal last seen in 1906. 

Galante writes that biologists from the Galapagos Conservancy who were working with him looking for the tortoise have publicly, and unfairly, downgraded his role. This brings up an important topic. This is Galante’s book and his account. Other writers and scientists have disputed proper credit for the tortoise and some other events, such as the rediscovery of the Rio Apaporis caiman (Caiman crocodilus apaporiensis). (An important footnote on this animal is that Galante believes samples he collected show it’s not, as thought, a subspecies, but a species in its own right.) I won’t go any deeper into that subject here. This is a review of the book itself, and the book is exciting and highly readable. Galante clings to precarious cliffs, narrowly escapes a (legally justifiable) arrest in Malaysia, has a deadly snake crawl over his back, and otherwise takes us to scary moments and plain hard work in exotic but rarely pleasant locations. He also looks for some animals, including the thylacine, which elude him.

The book has some implications for my interest in cryptozoology. While cryptozoologists celebrate his demonstrations of how “presumed extinct” can turn out to be different from “extinct extinct,” his only mention of the field is dismissive, and he has no interest in looking for Bigfoot and company.  

Galante says a couple of times he’s redefined “extinction” or changed the way it’s declared, which is a bit of an overreach given that most of the creatures involved had not been officially declared extinct.  He does enjoy proving wrong experts who tell him he has no chance of success, something we all like to do in our own fields. He uses the terms "extinct" and "species" too broadly at times. While he's writing for a general audience, he could do better here. (I suppose also that compressing everything for TV doesn't get one in the habit of explaining nuances.)  

Galante includes some adventures not involving lost animals, such as catching a human-eating crocodile (the end of that tale will startle you) and documenting “wet markets” and the brutal Faroe Islands pilot whale drive.  As a gadget lover, I enjoyed reading how he and his team jury-rigged gear or made on-the-spot changes of plan to pursue success.

The book has a good photo section, but I would have liked some maps and an index.

Galante’s closing plea for conservation recognizes that species-finding is valuable but is putting small bandages on a giant wound. His most basic recommendation to start caring about the planet: “Get outside.” So take a hike, and take this book with you for the breaks. You'll enjoy it.

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