Islands of Hope visits ten preserves in four North American countries. At Cape May National Wildlife Refuge, Phillip Manning examines the dependence of one of nature's farthest-traveled animals—the red knot—on one of its oldest—the horseshoe crab. At El Rosario Monarch Butterfly Preserve, he tells of the impossible migration of a creature that weighs one-fiftieth of an ounce—and the equally captivating story of the human effort that tracked the eastern monarch to its wintering ground in Mexico. At the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, he describes the effort to bring back not only North America's largest land animal—the American bison—but also an entire landscape as it existed hundreds of years ago. At Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge, he tells of the pronghorn antelope and its stalker, the coyote, and the dilemma faced by those humans who would manage—or not manage—relations between the two.