> ### 'The animals are dying. Soon we will be alone here.'

Knowing the title of the book - 'The Last Migration' - and having read this author's novel on rewilding Scotland with wolves, which I loved, I felt a little reluctant to persevere with this climate fiction novel by Charlotte McConaghy. However, the novel turned out to be a lot more than a book lamenting the mass extinctions of animals, and more of an adventure mystery with messed up protagonist who longs to be free as much as she mourns the ones she loves, and cannot stay with. 

> *“I never worked out how to be relied upon and also free.”
― Charlotte McConaghy, Migrations*


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The main narrative has the protagonist, an undegreed ornithologist, convince a boat load of fisherman to follow the migration of the arctic terns from the northern oceans along their migration route to Antarctica. There are very few fish in the sea, and the fisherman's days are numbered too as governments work together to finally ban commercial fishing altogether. There are so few birds - if any - and there are no big land mammals anymore, such as tigers or wolves, let alone birds. The only animals left are kept and caged, and in the interests of saving birds like the arctic terns, some scientists argue they should be kept in captivity. 

> “It has been decided by our leaders that economic growth is more important. That the extinction crisis is an acceptable trade for their greed.”
― Charlotte McConaghy, Migrations

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/riverflows/23wCLXVufaHZYQButanW1A4jR3RzYZVpEgnCihcpAFD6Gd9cankPgXqacXu9uyaKdN1F4.png)
[Image Source - Bob Feldman via National Geographic](https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/ends-earth/)

> [An arctic tern soars over Iceland. These small birds have one of the longest annual migrations of any animal on Earth. Every year, arctic terns migrate from the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic Circle—a round-trip journey of about 30,000 kilometers (18,641 miles).](https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/ends-earth/)

We learn quickly that our narrator has an ulterior motive - when she gets to Antarctica, she wishes to die. Why, we aren't sure - this is as part of the mystery as why she had been in jail for a violent crime, who the two people were she was said to have murdered, why she left her husband though she longs for him so much, what happened to her daughter, and the older mystery of why her mother had gone when she returned from a two day wandering as a ten year old. This story comes together in a series of flashbacks artfully told, densely weaving the story of a woman with a nature that is wild and free as the birds she loves, and bound to the people who love her. 

On the boat are an equally haunted group of people, for various reasons. They come together because they too are drawn to the ocean and the adventure it holds. Whilst it might seem that money is the captain's reason for chasing the tern, who she promises will find the fish, it is clear there is more at stake. 

> **“We’re the only planet that has oceans. In all the known universe, we’re the only one sitting in the perfect spot for them, not too hot and not too cold, and it’s the only reason we’re alive, because it’s the ocean that creates the oxygen we need to breathe.” ― Charlotte McConaghy, The Last Migration

On one level, yes, this is a climate fiction novel, exploring the death of the wilderness at the hands of men (and woman) who put profits above all else.

> **“A life's impact can be measured by what it gives and what it leaves behind, but it can also be measured by what it steals from the world.” ― Charlotte McConaghy, The Last Migration

Yet it's also a story about what is in our nature, about grief and personal tragedy, above love and the sacrifices we make for our freedoms, and about hope. 

I loved this novel and am glad I persisted. I loved 'Once Were Wolves', and it strikes me that I best find her other books to read. Note that in Australia it's titled 'The Last Migration', yet it also seems to be called 'Migrations' - both are apt titles, though the 'last' migration is a little more fatalistic and less hopeful than the book actually is. 

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# `With Love,` 


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