The Outdoor Non-Fiction Book Review: Owls of the Eastern Ice

In Owls of the Eastern Ice, wildlife biologist and author Jonathan C. Slaght chronicles the five years he spent in eastern Russia looking for and studying the Blakiston’s fish owl, the world’s largest owl species. It’s part memoir, part adventure story, and offers a glimpse into the ingenuity and perseverance required for long term fieldwork and conservation efforts.

The Blakiston’s fish owl isn’t your typical owl. It resembles a cross between a tiny bear and a creation from Dr. Seuss, with dramatically arched feathers on its head, yellow eyes and a long, curved beak. When Slaght lays eyes on one for the very first time, he describes it as “almost too big and too comical to be a real bird, as if someone had hastily glued fistfuls of feathers to a yearling bear, then propped the dazed beast in the tree.” 

The fish owl lives in forests of the region of Hokkaido in Japan, and small areas of eastern Russia and China. With a wingspan that can exceed six-and-a-half feet, it walks through icy water to catch fish, and they’re endangered, with a global population between 1,500 to 3,700.

“For me, fish owls were like a beautiful thought I couldn’t quite articulate,” Slaght writes. “They evoked the same wondrous longing as some distant place I’d always wanted to visit but didn’t really know much about.”

Slaght’s focus area is Primorye. His work involves finding the elusive fish owls—no small feat—and then trapping and tagging them. Slaght then uses GPS to follow their movements in order to better understand their habitat. His long term goal in the book is to use his findings about the fish owl’s habitat to produce a conservation plan to help protect that habitat from logging interests. 

The owl is easiest to locate in winter, because their tracks can be spotted on the riverbanks they traverse as they look for fish to pluck out of the water with their talons. This means Slaght spends months in the snowy, dense forests the owls live in, lying in wait in a holed-out tree, climbing old growth trees to locate a nest, sprinting across melting ice on a snowmobile and navigating the unique human and animal challenges of the region. 

Despite the focus on the Blakiston’s fish owl, some of the most memorable scenes are Slaght’s encounters with the locals as he carries out his research. Many of the people he comes across in the woods are recluses or those who have run away from something in the larger towns or cities they come from. There’s a man who sleeps in a wooden pyramid in order to harness its positive energy. Or the man hell-bent on killing fish owls because one attacked him when he was defecating in the forest, causing him to lose a testicle. Or the hermit Slaght and his research partner stay with who is living in the ruins of an abandoned hydroelectric station. Over breakfast, the hermit asks Slaght if gnomes tickled his feet in the night, as they sometimes did his.

Slaght also writes of the exhausting pressure to keep up with the deeply ingrained drinking culture of the area. Primorye experiences long, dark winters and its isolation means there’s little in the way of entertainment. After a long day of field work, Slaght routinely returns to a cabin he is renting only to have neighbours show up with a full bottle of vodka. All he wants to do is work on his notes from the day, but “Russian social customs typically dictate that once a bottle of vodka is on the table for guests, it is not removed until empty,” Slaght writes. One morning he has a wicked hangover, and learns the alcohol he was offered the night prior was low-grade ethanol used for cleaning. 

Owls of the Eastern Ice is effective in conveying Slaght’s complete fascination with the Blakiston’s fish owl, convincing the reader to also care about what happens to them and their habitat. It’s an adventure book and fieldwork memoir, but it’s also an example of how to communicate the importance of conservation through story, instead of stand-alone facts. 

Through Slaght’s unique and exciting narrative, the reader comes away with a sense of how important protecting this endangered species is.

This book is also notable in Slaght’s highly detailed narration. He spends so much time alone in the forest simply waiting, noticing every little thing around him, both owl-related and otherwise. This translates to the page, and his writing transports you into the state of mind you might reach after several days on a backcountry trip, when you’re well attuned to the slow and subtle developments around you. Whether Slaght is writing about why the fish owl has the face shape it does, or the lyrical content of the Russian metal songs his field assistant plays in their vehicle, he is meticulous in his inclusion of the colorful characteristics of each scene he finds himself in. 

This also extends to his recounting of his team’s ingenuity. It’s engaging to read about how they solve problems that come up in the backcountry, using their creativity to keep the project going. Whether it’s Amur tiger tracks near the owl search area, the tracking devices on the owls not working or a critical ice bridge melting early in the season, their persistence is inspiring. 

If you have a passing interest in wildlife or ornithology, like adventure stories or just relish hearing details of a true sufferfest, Owls of the Eastern Ice is for you.