Evaluating the Endangered Species Act
My first book, Endangered: Biodiversity on the Brink, focuses on imperiled species in the American Southwest and uses the nation’s hottest, fastest-growing region as a case study in the Endangered Species Act’s performance.
Endangered was awarded a gold medal in the 2011 Independent Publisher Book Awards.
This book grew out of an award-winning, yearlong series on endangered species that I wrote in 2004 for the Arizona Daily Star.
As part of the book project, I was named one of eight fellows of the Alicia Patterson Foundation, sponsor of the nation’s oldest writing fellowship for journalists.
In addition to the writing, I also photographed species for the book and produced graphics explaining the issues.
Praise for Endangered
“Mitch Tobin takes us to the edge of life. Mass extinction is now our way of death and unless we heed this clear-eyed book with vivid examples from the Southwest, well, we’re going to be home alone.” – Charles Bowden, author of Down by the River and Murder City
“Little in Mitch Tobin’s deeply reported book about the landmark legislation is pat or predictable… This kind of deep, resource-intensive reporting is itself an endangered species.” – Utne Reader
“Tobin – with meticulously researched reportage and a hands-on approach – reminds readers that the American Southwest is the real ground zero in the ongoing battle to better manage and protect the nation’s precious wildlife.” – Pasatiempo
“On the surface, Endangered is a comprehensive environmental history of the American Southwest (Arizona and New Mexico, and pieces of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Texas). But this is really just the background through which Tobin cleverly weaves his tale of the ESA and the various fault lines it has created in both the political and the natural worlds.” – Tucson Weekly
“. . . the author pulls the Endangered Species Act out of the political catfight that often impedes its enforcement and sheds light on the act’s intricacies, using science and a keen human element as his great illuminators . . . His engaging portraits of the movers and shakers on both ends of the political spectrum reveal some surprising results in the biodiversity blame game . . .”-Santa Fe New Mexican
