The Beasts of the East: The Fall and Rise of America's Eastern Wilderness

by Andrew Moore

A celebration of the extraordinary lost natural wonder of the eastern U.S.—once the center of American wildness before its despoliation—and a lively tour through recent efforts to return elk, bison, wolves, and other creatures to their verdant native landscapes.

Before skyscrapers and smokestacks rose across the eastern U.S., elk, bison, wolves, and cougars roamed. Typically imagined as icons of the West, these large mammals are in fact native to what was once a kind of Eden—towering forests in the Northeast, rolling prairies in the Midwest, and cypress swamps in the Deep South. But, in mere decades, industrialization and unregulated hunting brought these emblems of the East to the precipice of extinction; by the 1950s, squirrels were one of the few wild mammals an easterner was likely to encounter.

Now, even as the climate and biodiversity crises loom, eastern wildlife are staging an unlikely comeback. Herds of bison graze on Illinois prairies, red wolves lurk in North Carolina’s coastal marshes, and abandoned coal mines in Kentucky are now home to thousands of elk. Such rewilding promises to restore balance to eastern ecosystems and return one of the most biodiverse regions in the world to its former luster—but not without controversy.

In Beasts in the East, we follow environmental writer and James Beard Award finalist Andrew Moore as he meets conservationists, hunters, biologists, and nature lovers as they confront herculean How can we enable wildlife migration in the midst of suburban sprawl? Are these success stories viable in the long-term? When humans and wildlife come in close contact, how do we define wilderness?

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Animals, History, Natural History, Environment, Science Nature

432 pages, Hardcover

First published June 2, 2026

About the author

Librarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Beasts of the East explores the history of the lost natural wonders of the Eastern United States, focusing primarily on the animals that once roamed the region in abundance - and in some cases, are now gone entirely or fighting for survival. From elk and bison to wolves, cougars, and numerous bird species, Andrew Moore examines both the destruction and restoration of America's eastern wilderness.

Overall, I thought this was incredibly well done. Moore takes a balanced approach to conservation history, exploring both the successes and failures of past and present efforts. He doesn't shy away from humanity's worst decisions, but he also highlights the dedicated people who have worked tirelessly to protect and restore species and ecosystems. I learned a lot while reading this book.

Some of the conservation success stories were genuinely surprising. I had no idea that bison had been successfully reintroduced to Illinois and are now thriving, nor was I aware of the recovery efforts for elk populations in Kentucky. These stories provided much-needed moments of hope amid what can often be a frustrating and heartbreaking subject.

Part Three, which focuses on red wolves, was especially compelling. Moore dives into the ongoing battle surrounding their survival, a fight that remains today. Despite decades of conservation work, red wolves continue to face opposition from people who would rather see them eliminated than share the landscape with them, while habitat loss remains a constant obstacle to their recovery.

At times, this was an upsetting read. The history of what humans have done, and continue to do, to wildlife and natural habitats can be difficult to process. The repeated pattern of pushing species to the brink of extinction and then scrambling to save them is both frustrating and heartbreaking. Yet that reality is also what makes books like this important.

My only real criticism is that the book can feel a bit dry in places. The writing is informative and thorough, but it leans more academic than narrative. Because of that, I think it would be an especially valuable read for environmental science and policy students, as well as anyone interested in the history of wildlife conservation efforts.

If you're interested in wildlife conservation, environmental science, US history, or the complex relationship between humans and the natural world, this is definitely worth picking up.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the eARC. All thoughts are my own.

[Cass · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a free e-arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion.

This book is advertised as a natural history of America's eastern wildlife, however it is not. Instead it's a history of conservation and the people around it. I did not sign up for a human-focused history book, so I was quite a bit disappointed in that.

Moore definitely did his research for this book. It's well informed, with a lot of primary sources that he holds in conversation with each other. When he actually does write about the environment and the focus animals, it is very interesting and detailed and kept me reading.

However, he somehow found a downside to being so well researched as well. There is an overabundance of quotes, for example. A few here and there would have been fine, but there are quotes where there don't need to be any. Moore appears to forget he is allowed to interpret his sources without any importance being lost. He also goes very off topic on occasion. While this leads to plenty of background for each project, I don't think a detailed history of strip mining or the near destruction of pocosins was truly as necessary as he believes.

Moore also repeated himself throughout the entire book. Each chapter, especially towards the end it felt, is very long. They could have likely have been cut in half if he only said each thought once. Instead he had to say every point over and over again until the concept was killed by overuse.

If you want a book that's more about the people and history behind conservation, this will be great for you (if you don't mind the other problems I had with it). If you're like me and hoping for a book that's about the actual wilderness and the animals living in it, keep looking for another book.

[Torie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a well-researched book, I'm just the wrong audience. Tl;dr- contents don't match the title, and I wanted something more investigative- not just a detached historical overview.

Moore follows three species of charismatic megafauna(elk, bison, and wolves) and the degrading state of America's eastern 'wilderness' over the last couple hundred years as colonizers invent new tools and techniques to manifest destiny. The sections he covers are each well-researched and include a variety of quotes, but tend to be fairly repetitive. Moore's focus with this book comes across more as a very timid prodding at the anti-environmentalist American cultural mindset(developers, developers, developers) and his historical overview mostly skates by the era of abundance and gives basic statistics on historical exploitation...but mainly stays in the 1920-2010 era of developing wildlife management.

And it only spotlights the charismatic megafauna that hunters care about. Consistently, the book sums up the entirety of an ecosystem by repetitively listing that there were also "x may kinds of birds, x many kinds of fish, x endangered species" present on the study sites. I wanted a comprehensive overview of american wilderness and left disappointed by a book that really just wants to talk about game management. There's nothing wrong with that, and I'm interested in reading that book! But it's not what was advertised.

Wildlife management is people management- and the execution of the final section following red wolf conservation was the most interesting to me. Throughout the first two sections the feelings and reactions of communities surrounding the study sites is superficially explored, but without delving more deeply into why these communities might hold these beliefs, and without ever addressing the burden put on rural communities to bear the brunt of "wilderness". The red wolf section covers more of the community reaction, positive and negative, as the project develops and wolves are returned to the land. It's also the only section where I started to believe Moore cares either way about preserving the species he's talking about. But still...Moore's writing style is very detached and leans towards wikipedia style factual overview, which isn't to my personal taste. I think it skews this book's audience away from the wildlife management crowd. I would only recommend this book to someone taking a wildlife management 101 class, or the kind of finance/business bro who hasn't taken time to think about the finite nature of wilderness as a resource

[Kelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was excited to get an ARC of this book, and it didn't disappoint! I am from the southeastern USA and so I was fascinated to learn about the huge effort it has taken to get even small populations of native elk, bison, and red wolves introduced back into the wild all across the east. I almost can't believe I had no idea that all of these animals are native to the entire eastern region, down to Florida and all the way to the Atlantic. It is sad that I never knew that even buffalo once lived all over my home region, and all those names (Elk River, Buffalo Creek, etc.) are because these animals really used to live here, but are now ghosts.

My favorite part of the book was the beginning actually, when the author takes time to describe what the eastern North American landscape once looked and felt like, citing Native American and early French explorer descriptions alike. The absolute decimation (of people, flora, and fauna together) that occurred in just a couple hundred years was depressing to revisit, but the bulk of the book the author spends teaching you how a few groups of people have championed the reintroduction of these once-native animals to various reserves in the east since the 1900s up to today.

I would say if you liked Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet then this would also be one for you, because the frustration and interruption of the urban landscape was a major focal point of this book as it was such a hindrance to recovery efforts.

On the other hand, however, from the book's description I anticipated there would be much more content on the state of the landscape pre-colonization or at least a wider range of focus in terms of the restoration, as opposed to the three major species of large animals mentioned above. I kept wishing for a bigger picture. Coincidentally, I was given the ARC of another book that comes out on the same day as this one that dives into exactly this, from a fictional point of view: What Came West: A Novel, and I have to also recommend this here. Reading these side by side was a nice surprise, as that novel describes in haunting detail the scale and depth of the loss (for Native American people, fauna, and flora) that occurred due to colonization, with rich descriptions of the landscape that made me think about this nonfiction text and vice versa.

There are so many quotes I want to share from this book here- our collective ideology on who/what gets to exist in a given landscape is in desperate need of change. Reading some of the reactions of local people to the reintroduction of red wolves in rural North Carolina was especially disheartening. Overall I would definitely recommend to anyone interested in wildlife conservation or ecology, particularly those living in eastern North America.

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Real Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: A celebration of the extraordinary lost natural wonder of the eastern U.S.—once the center of American wildness before its despoliation—and a lively tour through recent efforts to return elk, bison, wolves, and other creatures to their verdant native landscapes.

Before skyscrapers and smokestacks rose across the eastern U.S., elk, bison, wolves, and cougars roamed. Typically imagined as icons of the West, these large mammals are in fact native to what was once a kind of Eden—towering forests in the Northeast, rolling prairies in the Midwest, and cypress swamps in the Deep South. But, in mere decades, industrialization and unregulated hunting brought these emblems of the East to the precipice of extinction; by the 1950s, squirrels were one of the few wild mammals an easterner was likely to encounter.

Now, even as the climate and biodiversity crises loom, eastern wildlife are staging an unlikely comeback. Herds of bison graze on Illinois prairies, red wolves lurk in North Carolina’s coastal marshes, and abandoned coal mines in Kentucky are now home to thousands of elk. Such rewilding promises to restore balance to eastern ecosystems and return one of the most biodiverse regions in the world to its former luster—but not without controversy.

In Beasts in the East, we follow environmental writer and James Beard Award finalist Andrew Moore as he meets conservationists, hunters, biologists, and nature lovers as they confront herculean How can we enable wildlife migration in the midst of suburban sprawl? Are these success stories viable in the long-term? When humans and wildlife come in close contact, how do we define wilderness?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: As Fathers' Day looms, the eternal conundrum of what to get Dad or father-figure that is nit some wearable or technological frippery he'll forget he owns is pressing. If your Dad's like me, he reads or watches news and frets about you, your kids, or the world going directly to hell in his lifetime.

He/we ain't all the way wrong.

BUT! There is hope to be found. It's true we've screwed up the planet pretty hard and done too little to fix it. Some people have done more than most to ameliorate some of the worst, stupidest damage our (well my anyway) generation, the Boomers, have done. Their successes are underdiscussed generally, and likely do not reach far enough into awareness to combat the gloom that's so paralyzing.

Author Moore, whose delightful book Pawpaw: In Search of America’s Forgotten Fruit was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award in 2016, writes capably and informatively about the successes and the failures of the US scientific and govermental bodies charged with mitigating disasters their predecessors either caused or failed to prevent. It's a chonky boi, weighing in at almost 450 pages, but that's how much room is needed to really do justice to the good and the bad news.

I don't know about the men in your gifting circle but I don't trust the happy-clappy "this is fine" dawgs who tell us good things and chirp relentlessly cheery stuff from their high perches. I guess they see different landscapes from up there, whereas I see and smell sewage while they're making noise meant to distract me. I trust Author Moore's presentation of the significant environmental gains all over the highly urbanized Eastern US *because* the failures aren't ignored or hurried past; they're not lingered over, either, which is the other untrustworthy pole: sticking into gloom and doom.

There are copious notes, sources that held up everywhere I stress-tested them, and a tone of honest and truthful pleasure in the impressive successes won. The battles going well, eg red wolves rewilded in North Carolina, truly heartened me. I was astonished to learn there were populations of bison as far East as Pennsylvania! Imagine looking out of your sod hut in Pittsburgh and seeing a six-foot tall bison wandering the streets! Less surprising was the story of the reclaimed tall-grass prairies of Illinois that now sustain smallish herds of bison, but keep expanding.

The many people Author Moore consulted in preparing the book all come across as guardedly optimistic...I've mentioned the absence of chirpiness...which, given their various fields of knowledge and work, makes me believe we're not Doomed!...Doooomed!...just yet.

Given how little celebratory noise I hear daily and how assiduously I seek it out, I think a book like this is a good gift idea for Dad, Uncle, father-figure who also gets tired of treading sewage not water, and still can't believe or trust the sunshine enema people to be fully truthful. It's evidently expertise-laden author does an admirable tightrope walk with his tone of delivery. Including so many sources is helpful too.

It's good to offer a counter-narrative to doom and gloom that's grounded in facts and data. A very good gift for anxious science nerds of every gender.

[Tim Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thorough and engaging current (2026) assessment of the return of three essentially extirpated large mammals to the eastern United States, the elk or wapiti (Cervus canadensis), bison, and red wolf (Canis rufus). Though a few other successful returns are discussed (sandhill and whooping cranes, whitetail deer, as well as the sad tale of the ivory-billed woodpecker), the focus is how these three animals have returned to at least some of their range and the saga of expanding their numbers and range or even keeping them alive at all (in the case of the red wolf). 

Though time is spent on how these animals were wiped out, most of the book is how, why, and where these animals were brought back and how they are doing today. Additionally, each animal's return was discussed largely in relation to a specific place, be it reclaimed coal mines in southeastern Kentucky for the elk, the Nachusa Grasslands preserve in northern Illinois for bison, or Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in coastal North Carolina for the red wolf, with the book as much the story of the preservation and restoration of these lands (and other fauna as well as flora) as much as the three stars of the book. 

I appreciated the analysis of the different reasons behind the returns; elk in Kentucky were largely brought back as game animals in replanted mines and to help the local economy, bison were returned to Illinois to provide ecological services in maintaining a healthy prairie to the benefit of rare grassland plants and birds (with nice discussions of organisms like eastern prairie white-fringed orchid and the upland sandpiper), and the red wolf was seen to have the best chance for survival in North Carolina under the requirements of the Endangered Species Act. 

Lots of profiles of specific individuals, on the ground reporting (with photos) from the three main places, and thorough notes. 

I recommend _Another Country: Journeying toward the Cherokee Mountains_ by Christopher Camuto if you want a lot more on the attempted reintroduction of the red wolf to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but as it is published in 1997, the book came out before the reintroduction was terminated and the wolves were recaptured and relocated.

[Adele White · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. One of the book’s greatest strengths is its ability to combine historical research with contemporary conservation stories. Moore travels across the eastern United States, examining rewilding efforts in places such as Kentucky, Illinois, bad time simulator, and North Carolina. Through these case studies, he shows both the successes and challenges of restoring wildlife to landscapes now shaped by agriculture, suburban development, and human activity. A notable theme throughout the book is cautious optimism. While Moore celebrates remarkable recoveries, such as the return of elk to Kentucky and bison to Midwestern prairies, he does not ignore ongoing conflicts over predators, land use, and wildlife management.

[Christine Craft · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an informative and interesting read about eastern wildlife. It’s well-researched and an intriguing examination of East Coast animals, land, and their history. My favorite part of the book was learning about red wolves, as wolves are my favorite animal, and I haven’t read much about them compared to other wolf species. I also enjoyed the conversations with professionals as they were thought-provoking.

Unfortunately, the writing was often dry which is the reason for my rating.

Overall, if you’re curious about Eastern wildlife I’d still recommend this book.

Thank you NetGalley and Mariner Books for the ARC(advanced reader copy) in return for an honest review

[Andrea Wenger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once home to bison, elk, wolves, and cougars, the eastern United States lost much of its wildlife to industrialization and overhunting. Today, many of these species are making a remarkable return—yet the growing movement to rewild the East raises difficult questions about conservation, land use, and coexistence.

This wonderful book is interesting, informative, and enjoyable. Before reading this, I had no idea that elk and bison once roamed as far east as Pennsylvania. The conservation stories are heartwarming and inspiring.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

[Ashley Tovar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a truly interesting & important subject matter & clearly well researched. I appreciate the depth of information. I will say I think I would have benefited from enjoying this book as an audiobook more than as an ebook due to it being a bit dry but overall worth picking up in any format.

Big thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for allowing me to enjoy this.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️….great environmental science book…should be required reading for anyone studying or interested in ecological issues in the eastern US. It is slightly technical in nature, but is necessary to convey the stories of the elk, prairie/buffalo, and the red wolf. As a biology teacher, I learned material that I can incorporate into my classroom. Great read!!!

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. Trying to imagine all kinds of wildlife throughout the United States. Thinking about the different landscape and climate. If you enjoy this type of history, give this book a try.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very informative.

[NonFiction 24/7 · Rating 3 out of 5]

It got just to long and it was hard to keep my interest.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting History Marred By Substandard Bibliography. This text essentially takes Cat Tale by Craig Pittman and does for elk, buffalo, and red wolves what Pittman did for the Florida panther - explain the historic ecology of the animal, how humans nearly wiped it out, and what humans are doing to try to restore it. And yes, even without directly naming Pittman in the text, the story of the Florida panther is at least briefly mentioned here, specifically as it relates to similar issues and interventions with the red wolves.

Along the way, we're going to meet a *lot* of humans and see their roles in the fall and rise of these species, and we're going to get a *lot* of discussion of both plant and animal ecology... and how the two different types of scientists and activists are often at odds, or at bare minimum rarely talk in the same "languages". We're going to see historic figures both known and not, including some in both areas who have had significant impacts on these creatures in various ways.

All of this is done in a professional journalist tone, but with a clear (if relatively mild) bent to a particular worldview common among professional journalists and scientists. Which will be annoying to some readers, but should only rise to the level of seeking the nearest window for defenestration purposes among the most extremely against this view. Point being, this isn't a book where the author is going to inject humor or levity really at all - this simply doesn't appear to be this author's style, and the style he chooses to use here ultimately works to be informative without being sleep inducing, which can be a very fine line to toe at times.

Really the only actual fault here was the dearth of a bibliography, listing a "selected" bibliography of just 10% of the Advance Review Copy version of the book I read a week before publication (despite having it for several weeks before that), when a bare minimum of 15% - and more typically, particularly for books of this type, 20-30% - documentation is more standard.

Ultimately, the fate of this book will actually have a lot in common with the animals it details: Getting people to actually care about these animals will ultimately determine both their fate and the fate of this book, and indeed one would expect that both sides would help each other in common marketing here. But as a general guide from someone outside of that particular group, I would say that if you're interested in the history of ecology and the natural North American biome, both in what it was and in how humans have been shaping it these last few hundred years in particular, this is absolutely going to be a book you'll find interesting. If you're looking to learn about these issues at all, this will be a solid overview of everything that has transpired through late 2024 or so. And if you're just looking for a decent doorstop, well, at 400+ pages, eh, this could work in a pinch there too. ;)

Very much recommended.

[Mars · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley, Mariner Books, and Andrew Moore for the opportunity to read this ARC!

This book was so incredibly informative! As someone who lives on the east coast, there is so much in here that I didn’t know about the land, its history, and the life and trials that the animals who roam have experienced here. Moore writes really well, my attention was held the whole time and the life and character he brought to the history was super intriguing.