Perspective

Last Chance to See teams an award-winning writer of humorous science fiction adventures and an experienced zoologist on an adventure searching for nearly-extinct animals for a BBC program. Douglas Adams wonders what he is doing there; one can perhaps assume his fame as author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the Dirk Gently novels cause him to be selected because of his established reader base. He admits to little feeling for birds and unscientifically anthropomorphizes animals' thoughts and emotions. Adams is responsible for the lion's share of Last Chance to See.

Mark Carwardine at that time serves as a Conservation Officer with the World Wildlife Fund. He mostly stays in the background, occasionally emerging as a foil for Adams' humor and providing technical information about evolution and the mechanisms of extinction. Carwardine contributes an Epilogue in which he discusses the unknowns that determine whether endangered species...