1859. The Russian colony of Alaska is on the brink of collapse. Governor Hampus Furuhjelm takes solace in the quest for a unique artefact: a complete skeleton of what is now known as Steller’s Sea Cow, rumoured to have disappeared a hundred years before. Even extinct, the sea cow will continue to shape lives and destinies, from the woman charged with sketching its likeness from its bones, to the expert egg restorer who will refurbish those same bones a century later. A tribute to an iconic lost creature, and an adventure through three centuries of scientific exploration, ‘Beasts of the Sea’ charts the unseen consequences of grand human ambitions and the urge to resurrect what we, in our ignorance, have destroyed.