The story of an ancient sea turtle and what its survival says about our future. The decline of sea turtles in Pacific waters and their surprising recovery in the Atlantic illuminate what can go both wrong and right from human interventions, and teach us lessons that can be applied to restore health to the world's oceans. The only surviving species of its suborder, the leatherback is an evolutionary marvel: a "reptile" whose ancestry can be traced back 125 million years, that behaves like a warm-blooded dinosaur, an ocean animal able to withstand colder water than most fishes and dive deeper than any whale. As naturalist Safina makes clear, the fate of the leatherback is in our hands. As scientists apply lessons learned in the Atlantic and Caribbean to other endangered seas, Safina follows leatherback migrations, including a journey from Monterey, California, to nesting grounds on the most remote beaches of Papua New Guinea.--From publisher description.