The Wilderness Coast: Adventures of a Gulf Coast Naturalist

The author recounts his experiences exploring the Gulf Coast of Florida's panhandle, and describes the unusual plants and animals of the region.

As owner of a biological supply house, Rudloe (The Sea Holds Forth, etc.) makes his living collecting and studying marine organisms in the waters off Florida's Gulf Coast. The ocean and the wetlands of the area, largely unexplored, contain many exotic and beautiful creatures, and the author's adventures there make exciting reading. He gathers electric rays (fish that can deliver strong electric shocks), tracks baby horseshoe crabs, makes friends with octopuses, saves loggerhead turtles from the dredging operations of the Army Corps of Engineers, captures giant toadfish and monster sea roaches for the New York Aquarium, fights alligators and searches for crocodiles. A conservationist, he respects the sea and is captivated by its mysterious inhabitants. He describes in vivid detail a world that few of us will ever experience firsthand. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Jack and Anne Rudloe, his wife, who edited this book and contributed some early drafts of sections, are free-lance writers and specimen collectors on Florida's Gulf Coast and in the Caribbean. Each chapter of this book describes work they have done, or the biological supply laboratory they run, or research Ann has conducted. The Rudloes collected and studied electric eels, octopi, rare sawfish, and sea roaches from the Continental Shelf. At times fanciful, as where Jack encounters dancing forest spirits, Wilderness Coast is still entertaining and highly informative, suitable for most general collections. Beth Clewis, S.I . L.S., Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.