Jaffe, Mark 1949(?)-

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1949. Education: Studied at Harvard University, 1996-97.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Crown Publishing Group, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

CAREER:

Investigative journalist. Former science and environment writer, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia, PA.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Nieman fellowship, 1996-97.

WRITINGS:

(With Donald Drake and Susan FitzGerald) Hard Choices: Health Care at What Cost?, Andrews & McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 1993.

And No Birds Sing: The Story of an Ecological Disaster in a Tropical Paradise, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1994, published as And No Birds Sing: A True Ecological Thriller Set in a Tropical Paradise, Barricade Books (New York, NY), 1997.

The Guilded Dinosaur: The Fossil War between E.D. Cope and O.C. Marsh and the Rise of American Science, Crown (New York, NY), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS:

Mark Jaffe is a science writer and investigative journalist with interests ranging through medicine, ecology, the history of science, and paleontology. A recipient of a prestigious Nieman fellowship—one of journalism's top awards—Jaffe served as a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer through the 1990s. His books grew out of feature stories he did for that newspaper.

And No Birds Sing: The Story of an Ecological Disaster in a Tropical Paradise seeks answers for the mysterious disappearance of bird life on the tropical island of Guam. Jaffe first covered the attempts of zoos on the American mainland to initiate breeding programs for several species of birds that live only on Guam. Then he traveled to the island to learn how those birds' native populations had dwindled so rapidly. The culprit, he discovered, is an aggressive tree snake introduced to the island some time after World War II. Jaffe charts not only how the snake spread, eating birds' eggs and even adult mammals, but also how one intrepid zoologist, Julie Savidge, put her reputation on the line to detail the snake's predation before a skeptical scientific community. A Publishers Weekly critic called And No Birds Sing "a chilling environmental detective story and an involving tale of scientific fieldwork." Booklist correspondent Donna Seaman concluded that the book is "a compelling account of an insidious yet natural disaster," and Chris Goodrich in the Los Angeles Times Book Review cited the work as "an absorbing story, one that highlights the dangers inherent in man's tampering with the natural world."

In The Guilded Dinosaur: The Fossil War between E.D. Cope and O.C. Marsh and the Rise of American Science, Jaffe follows the professional career of two nineteenth-century paleontologists who became rivals to find, describe, and classify dinosaur fossils. Cope and Marsh cooperated when their fossil collecting was confined to New Jersey, where the earliest nearly complete dinosaur skeleton was found, but when new fossil deposits were discovered in the American West, they competed vigorously to mount expeditions and to dig in uncomfortable, and sometimes perilous, field stations. The saga of Cope and Marsh has been covered in other books, but most critics agreed that Jaffe's work offers a broader view of the scientific community during that era, the conditions under which the paleontologists worked, and their lasting contributions to the understanding of evolution and dinosaur physiology. A Publishers Weekly reviewer felt that the work proves "engaging as an adventure novel while providing insight into America's Gilded Age." Gloria Maxwell in Library Journal concluded that Jaffe "captures the complexity of the feud, both scientifically and personally."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Audubon, May-June, 1994, Frank Graham, Jr., review of And No Birds Sing: The Story of an Ecological Disaster in a Tropical Paradise, p. 122.

Booklist, April 1, 1994, Donna Seaman, review of And No Birds Sing, p. 1414; February 1, 2000, Gilbert Taylor, review of The Gilded Dinosaur: The Fossil War between E.D. Cope and O.C. Marsh and the Rise of American Science, p. 1001.

Library Journal, January, 2000, Gloria Maxwell, review of The Gilded Dinosaur, p. 151.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, June 26, 1994, Chris Goodrich, review of And No Birds Sing, p. 6.

Publishers Weekly, February 14, 1994, review of And No Birds Sing, p. 73; January 10, 2000, review of The Gilded Dinosaur, p. 51.

Scientific American, October, 2000, "The Editors Recommend," p. 98.

Whole Earth Review, winter, 1994, David Schneider, review of And No Birds Sing, p. 110.