ABOUT
I explore our relationship with nature, and the relationship between nature and human dignity. Much of my work emphasizes the sea. My more recent work also probes how non-human animals think and feel.
As a child I grew up in Brooklyn, where my father raised canaries and I kept homing pigeons. When I was 10 my family moved to Long Island, where things were a little more wild: I encountered and interacted with a variety of creatures, from the hawks and the owls I observed in the skies to the fish I watched in the Sound and the sea. Sadly, over time I noticed nature on Long Island was becoming less wild and diverse due to development and exploitation. Watching the wild places I loved disappear turned me into a conservationist.
Over the years, my work has changed emphasis from research on the ecology and behavior of wild animals, to activism on ocean policy, to writing. I first studied seabirds and fishes and hawks, did a lot of fishing, and earned degrees in ecology. In the 1990s, I got very active in ocean conservation, helping lead campaigns to ban high-seas driftnets, rewrite U.S. federal fisheries law, work toward international conservation of tuna, sharks, and other fishes, and achieve passage of a United Nations global fisheries treaty.
So what drives my work is a devotion to conservation. And what drives that devotion is my deep love and wonder for the living world.
PRAISE FOR BEYOND WORDS
“Once in a long while, a book is published that felicitously combines lambent writing with dazzling facts, while also illuminating our knowledge….Beyond Words by Carl Safina…is one of these exemplary books.” – The Washington Post
ONE MILLION VIEWS AND COUNTING…
“What are animals thinking and feeling?” I discuss this important question in my TED Talk, which is quickly approaching the two-millionth view mark!