Chapter 1. An Amazing Disaster
From a viewing blind in the middle of a seal rookery on Alaska's remote Pribilof Islands, it can be hard to fathom this place once holding vastly more life than it does now.
Untold thousands of chubby brown bodies drape over boulders and sprawl across the tundra into the distance: northern fur seals. Their bleating, groaning and barking fill the cool, salty air.
