Heide Island
Romp! A Journey Through the Natural History of Otters and Why They Matter
Wild Arts Festival is pleased to host Heide Island, PhD, and her book Romp! A Journey Through the Natural History of Otters and Why They Matter. In this informative and entertaining book, Heide takes readers on an odyssey through otterdom, focusing on a family, or “romp,” of river otters that live near her home in Puget Sound - delightfully following an otter nicknamed Patches and her three pups as they hunt, play, and try to survive the various dangers in their environment. Heide is a professor of biological psychology and behavioral ecology at Pacific University and a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Otter Specialist Group. Her research, including her longitudinal study of Whidbey Island’s otters, has been published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at conferences. She splits her time between Whidbey Island and McMinnville, with her husband, Tom, and their dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, and honeybees