Meet the Author: Carl Safina

On Sunday, April 14, 2024, Darien Library, along with Darien Nature Center and Barrett Bookstore, welcomed Dr. Carl Safina who talked about his latest book, the powerful and poignant story of "Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe."

When the ecologist Carl Safina took in a wounded baby screech owl, he expected that she’d be a temporary guest, just like other wild orphans he and his wife Patricia had rescued over the years. But the tiny creature—named Alfie—took a long time to heal. Carl and Patricia could never have predicted that when Alfie was finally able to live free, she would choose to maintain connection and establish her territory with their home at its center, attract a wild mate, and raise her babies right outside his studio window. Nor could they have guessed that the Covid-19 pandemic would grant the graciousness of time to form a profound bond with Alfie, while Alfie and her brood provided solace and sanity in a year upended.

In "Alfie & Me," Safina relates how, through months of lockdown, Alfie pulled them into her world as through a portal. "Alfie and Me" is a book about relationships that are possible when we blur the boundaries between humans and the rest of life on Earth. It is also an exploration into what could be gained by allowing ourselves to connect at a deeper level—as other cultures have done around the world, over millennia—and what we lose through our particular culture’s self-imposed exile from the living world.

About the Author
Carl Safina is a MacArthur “genius” Fellow who Audubon magazine named as one of its ‘100 Notable Conservationists of the 20th Century’. His best-selling books, which include portraits of ocean animals, an account of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and analyses of the cultures and feelings of wild animals, have received numerous awards. A long-time resident of Long Island, he is the Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity at the University of New York at Stony Brook (a position created especially for him) and is founding president of the Safina Center.

About the Safina Center
The Safina Center is a 501(c)3 nonprofit based on Long Island, N.Y. It was founded by MacArthur “genius fellowship" winning ecologist and author Dr. Carl Safina in 2003. Tackling climate change; conserving living things; ensuring healthy, just human communities—or creating any necessary change—is not possible, unless people value the changes needed to let the living world survive, and humanity thrive. That is the unique work of the Safina Center.

The environmental movement needs thinking that disrupts the indifference obstructing justice for wildlife, the environment, and people. Our movement needs ideas that exhilarate allies while successfully insisting that governments better protect air, climate, oceans, water, lands, wild species, and humanity, and are grounded in truth, transparency, and science. Our staff, senior fellows, and junior fellows create those ideas and spread them through high-profile work that is published or broadcast through top channels and major publishers, and applied directly in communities.

The Safina Center brings inspiring creators and connectors together. We foster a sense of community and space for potential collaborations.