What do you think?
Rate this book
Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators
A provocative look at how the disappearance of the world's great predators has upset the delicate balance of the environment, and what their disappearance portends for the future, by an acclaimed science journalist.
It wasn't so long ago that wolves and great cats, monstrous fish and flying raptors ruled the peak of nature's food pyramid. Not so anymore. All but exterminated, these predators of the not-too-distant past have been reduced to minor players of the modern era. And what of it? Wildlife journalist William Stolzenburg follows in the wake of nature's topmost carnivores, and finds chaos in their absence.
From the brazen mobs of deer and marauding raccoons of backyard America to streamsides of Yellowstone National Park crushed by massive herds of elk; from urchin-scoured reefs in the North Pacific to ant-devoured islands in Venezuela, Stolzenburg leads a startling tour through bizarre, impoverished landscapes of pest and plague. For anyone who has seldom given thought to the meat-eating beasts so recently missing from the web of life, here is a world of reason to think again.
It wasn't so long ago that wolves and great cats, monstrous fish and flying raptors ruled the peak of nature's food pyramid. Not so anymore. All but exterminated, these predators of the not-too-distant past have been reduced to minor players of the modern era. And what of it? Wildlife journalist William Stolzenburg follows in the wake of nature's topmost carnivores, and finds chaos in their absence.
From the brazen mobs of deer and marauding raccoons of backyard America to streamsides of Yellowstone National Park crushed by massive herds of elk; from urchin-scoured reefs in the North Pacific to ant-devoured islands in Venezuela, Stolzenburg leads a startling tour through bizarre, impoverished landscapes of pest and plague. For anyone who has seldom given thought to the meat-eating beasts so recently missing from the web of life, here is a world of reason to think again.
291 pages, Hardcover
First published July 8, 2008
75 people are currently reading
7640 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 188 reviews
January 31, 2021
“I write about animals, for three reasons: Because I find them wondrous, and good for the soul. Because it haunts me to know how badly we treat so many of them. And because they deserve every voice, every compassionate ally we can muster on their behalf.” William Stolzenburg
Stolzenburg is an engaging storyteller who imparts science along with fascinating facts and lively personalities. I found myself interested in all the details of discovery as field scientists from all over the world added their important voices to the science of ecology. Robert T. Paine’s classic experiment identifying 'keystone species' in the 1960s was built upon the work of another scientist, Charles Sutherland Elton. Elton made important discoveries about the pyramid nature of the food cycle. Elton wrote, “Food is the burning question in animal society, and the whole structure and activities of the community are dependent upon questions of food supply.” Throughout the book, Stolzenbury follows these thoughts and engages in discussions on the wolves in Yellowstone, deer take-overs in Maryland, the Great Smoky Mountains, and the Rocky Mountain National Park In Colorado, to the disappearances of songbirds. It’s an intricate and complex interrelated world in which animals are often dependent on other species in unique and unforeseen ways. Sometimes the interrelated dependencies aren’t even known until well into a tragedy of extinction.
Reaching way back in time, Stolzenburg reveals ancient predators. “There were predacious fish the size of buses: Dinichthys was thirty feet long, with a tail like an eel and a bony, jagged-toothed skull suggesting a jack-o’lantern carved from a wrecking ball. By the golden years of the dinosaurs, not long before their meteoric demise 65 million years ago, reptilian evolution had populated land and sea with dragons. There forty-foot sea lizards called mosasaurs, and the shores housed a fifty-foot crocodile called Deinosuchus, which probably preyed on dinosaurs. Sharks appeared soon after, and in time would produce Carcharodon megalodon.” Megalodons are thought to have been three times larger than the great white sharks, but we only know of them through their fossilized teeth, 18 centimeters in length. Anyone wanting to find fodder for a science fiction tale need look no further than our own ancient history. Large predatory animals dominated the land and the sea.
This book reaffirmed my belief that apex predators are necessary for healthy environments. Recently black bears were introduced into forests near my son’s inheritance property. At first, I was upset, but I’ve come to realize that I’m the interloper. Coyotes are prevalent and nearby cattle farmers keep donkeys in the fields with their cattle as protectors. This seems a good solution. Just reading about what Stolzenburg describes as a habitat where things are in balance makes me realize I’ve probably never seen such a place. He writes about how deer raze plant life, destroying unique lady’s slippers and other plants that are endangered. It makes me want to walk through the forest with open eyes, appreciating everything that is laid out before me.
Stolzenburg is an engaging storyteller who imparts science along with fascinating facts and lively personalities. I found myself interested in all the details of discovery as field scientists from all over the world added their important voices to the science of ecology. Robert T. Paine’s classic experiment identifying 'keystone species' in the 1960s was built upon the work of another scientist, Charles Sutherland Elton. Elton made important discoveries about the pyramid nature of the food cycle. Elton wrote, “Food is the burning question in animal society, and the whole structure and activities of the community are dependent upon questions of food supply.” Throughout the book, Stolzenbury follows these thoughts and engages in discussions on the wolves in Yellowstone, deer take-overs in Maryland, the Great Smoky Mountains, and the Rocky Mountain National Park In Colorado, to the disappearances of songbirds. It’s an intricate and complex interrelated world in which animals are often dependent on other species in unique and unforeseen ways. Sometimes the interrelated dependencies aren’t even known until well into a tragedy of extinction.
Reaching way back in time, Stolzenburg reveals ancient predators. “There were predacious fish the size of buses: Dinichthys was thirty feet long, with a tail like an eel and a bony, jagged-toothed skull suggesting a jack-o’lantern carved from a wrecking ball. By the golden years of the dinosaurs, not long before their meteoric demise 65 million years ago, reptilian evolution had populated land and sea with dragons. There forty-foot sea lizards called mosasaurs, and the shores housed a fifty-foot crocodile called Deinosuchus, which probably preyed on dinosaurs. Sharks appeared soon after, and in time would produce Carcharodon megalodon.” Megalodons are thought to have been three times larger than the great white sharks, but we only know of them through their fossilized teeth, 18 centimeters in length. Anyone wanting to find fodder for a science fiction tale need look no further than our own ancient history. Large predatory animals dominated the land and the sea.
This book reaffirmed my belief that apex predators are necessary for healthy environments. Recently black bears were introduced into forests near my son’s inheritance property. At first, I was upset, but I’ve come to realize that I’m the interloper. Coyotes are prevalent and nearby cattle farmers keep donkeys in the fields with their cattle as protectors. This seems a good solution. Just reading about what Stolzenburg describes as a habitat where things are in balance makes me realize I’ve probably never seen such a place. He writes about how deer raze plant life, destroying unique lady’s slippers and other plants that are endangered. It makes me want to walk through the forest with open eyes, appreciating everything that is laid out before me.
March 30, 2008
Okay, MAYBE I'm a bit biased because, well, my husband did write this book BUT I just finished the advance reading copy
and it's fabulous.
I'm not a non-fiction sort of reader (and this is non-fiction) but--as his editor at Bloomsbury mentioned--he has managed to build characters and plot into this story of the world we live in which is missing many (most) of its big predators.
And who'd have thought that there might be a connection between serious issues such as missing pollinators, lyme disease, streambed erosion and dysfunctional animal behavior??
and it's fabulous.
I'm not a non-fiction sort of reader (and this is non-fiction) but--as his editor at Bloomsbury mentioned--he has managed to build characters and plot into this story of the world we live in which is missing many (most) of its big predators.
And who'd have thought that there might be a connection between serious issues such as missing pollinators, lyme disease, streambed erosion and dysfunctional animal behavior??
October 16, 2020
Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators by William Stolzenburg
This book expands on a passage from another of William Stolzenburg's books, Heart of a Lion: A Lone Cat's Walk Across America which reads:
"The murmur had been gathering from field sites and conference halls, formally surfacing in academic journals and publicized in mainstream media. Researchers from around the world were returning with disquieting reports of forests dying, coral reefs collapsing, pests and plagues irrupting. Beyond the bulldozers and the polluters and the usual cast of suspects, a more insidious factor had entered the equation. It was becoming ever more apparent that the extermination of the earth’s apex predators— the lions and wolves of the land, the great sharks and big fish of the sea, all so vehemently swept aside in humanity’s global swarming— had triggered a cascade of ecological consequences. Where the predators no longer hunted, their prey had run amok, amassing at freakish densities, crowding out competing species, denuding landscapes and seascapes as they went."
What this thorough, sound, and articulate book convincingly conveys to me with its extensive hard science is:
The food web that sustains physical life can be seen as a pyramid. This pyramid "is a narrowing progression in this community of life, founded on a broad, numerous base of plants and photosynthetic plankton—harvesters of the sun’s energy, primary producers of food. From there it steps up to a substantially more narrow layer of herbivorous animals cropping their share from below, and so on up to yet a smaller tier of carnivores feeding on the plant-eaters. Perched loftily at the apex are the biggest, rarest, topmost predators, those capable of eating all, and typically eaten by none."** A tenet of ecology, the fragile balances among the diversity of life forms are the adaptive niches each evolved in, with natural restraints such as trophic levels, habitat, and reproduction rates, with keystone species/predators being the glue. As the author succinctly put it, "the finely and tenuously balanced skills of predator and prey, teetering so delicately on environmental fulcrums."**
The term 'keystone' species originated from ecological studies that "Pisaster had proved that certain predators, by their mere presence, could bolster the diversity of life. But just as easily, once removed, that benevolent hand could be replaced by a phantom fist, knocking species off the planetary rock, as it were, overhauling the living landscape to simpler, cruder states."**
In the detail of this book you will hopefully gain a better understanding of the extent of the current human effect in trophic cascades. In our progress to becoming a figurative alpha being, decimating keystone species/predators, our species is destabilizing the tenuously balanced biodiversity of the natural world web of life. In constructing a food web to our narrow-minded convenience and liking, not taking into account the necessary abundance of biodiversity and keystone species/predators of the natural world we evolved with, we are accelerating ecosystem collapses and in turn evolutionary adaptive processes to our peril. In thus we are inadvertently promoting populations of ecosystem crippling, disease spreading vermin by decimating the trophic levels of predators that kept them in check, and are setting the stage for our own diminishment. Reading this book can help you understand how and how quickly we are altering the environment essential to our being. We've fallen into one of the natural world traps that deals with the excesses of weedy species.
"The most dangerous experiment is already underway. The future most to be feared is the one now dictated by the status quo. In vanquishing our most fearsome beasts from the modern world, we have released worse monsters from the compound. They come in disarmingly meek and insidious forms, in chewing plagues of hoofed beasts and sweeping hordes of rats and cats and second-order predators. They come in the form of denuded seascapes and barren forests, ruled by jellyfish and urchins, killer deer and sociopathic monkeys. They come as haunting demons of the human mind. In conquering the fearsome beasts, the conquerors had unwittingly orphaned themselves." **
Sadly, what comes to mind is Aldo Leopold's oft quoted remark, "An ecologist is the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise." Yet, with our evolved genetic makeup and subjective umwelt, how can we on the whole be any wiser than our cousins?
Like humans, "A bird never doubts its place at the center of the universe."***
** Quoted from the book "Where the Wild Things Were"
*** Quoted from the book "Prodigal Summer"
This book expands on a passage from another of William Stolzenburg's books, Heart of a Lion: A Lone Cat's Walk Across America which reads:
"The murmur had been gathering from field sites and conference halls, formally surfacing in academic journals and publicized in mainstream media. Researchers from around the world were returning with disquieting reports of forests dying, coral reefs collapsing, pests and plagues irrupting. Beyond the bulldozers and the polluters and the usual cast of suspects, a more insidious factor had entered the equation. It was becoming ever more apparent that the extermination of the earth’s apex predators— the lions and wolves of the land, the great sharks and big fish of the sea, all so vehemently swept aside in humanity’s global swarming— had triggered a cascade of ecological consequences. Where the predators no longer hunted, their prey had run amok, amassing at freakish densities, crowding out competing species, denuding landscapes and seascapes as they went."
What this thorough, sound, and articulate book convincingly conveys to me with its extensive hard science is:
The food web that sustains physical life can be seen as a pyramid. This pyramid "is a narrowing progression in this community of life, founded on a broad, numerous base of plants and photosynthetic plankton—harvesters of the sun’s energy, primary producers of food. From there it steps up to a substantially more narrow layer of herbivorous animals cropping their share from below, and so on up to yet a smaller tier of carnivores feeding on the plant-eaters. Perched loftily at the apex are the biggest, rarest, topmost predators, those capable of eating all, and typically eaten by none."** A tenet of ecology, the fragile balances among the diversity of life forms are the adaptive niches each evolved in, with natural restraints such as trophic levels, habitat, and reproduction rates, with keystone species/predators being the glue. As the author succinctly put it, "the finely and tenuously balanced skills of predator and prey, teetering so delicately on environmental fulcrums."**
The term 'keystone' species originated from ecological studies that "Pisaster had proved that certain predators, by their mere presence, could bolster the diversity of life. But just as easily, once removed, that benevolent hand could be replaced by a phantom fist, knocking species off the planetary rock, as it were, overhauling the living landscape to simpler, cruder states."**
In the detail of this book you will hopefully gain a better understanding of the extent of the current human effect in trophic cascades. In our progress to becoming a figurative alpha being, decimating keystone species/predators, our species is destabilizing the tenuously balanced biodiversity of the natural world web of life. In constructing a food web to our narrow-minded convenience and liking, not taking into account the necessary abundance of biodiversity and keystone species/predators of the natural world we evolved with, we are accelerating ecosystem collapses and in turn evolutionary adaptive processes to our peril. In thus we are inadvertently promoting populations of ecosystem crippling, disease spreading vermin by decimating the trophic levels of predators that kept them in check, and are setting the stage for our own diminishment. Reading this book can help you understand how and how quickly we are altering the environment essential to our being. We've fallen into one of the natural world traps that deals with the excesses of weedy species.
"The most dangerous experiment is already underway. The future most to be feared is the one now dictated by the status quo. In vanquishing our most fearsome beasts from the modern world, we have released worse monsters from the compound. They come in disarmingly meek and insidious forms, in chewing plagues of hoofed beasts and sweeping hordes of rats and cats and second-order predators. They come in the form of denuded seascapes and barren forests, ruled by jellyfish and urchins, killer deer and sociopathic monkeys. They come as haunting demons of the human mind. In conquering the fearsome beasts, the conquerors had unwittingly orphaned themselves." **
Sadly, what comes to mind is Aldo Leopold's oft quoted remark, "An ecologist is the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise." Yet, with our evolved genetic makeup and subjective umwelt, how can we on the whole be any wiser than our cousins?
Like humans, "A bird never doubts its place at the center of the universe."***
** Quoted from the book "Where the Wild Things Were"
*** Quoted from the book "Prodigal Summer"
March 15, 2018
Five stars! Where the Wild Things Were is a must read book on species conservation. It is a very well written and researched book. Stolzenberg’s reporting and history on numerous vanishing apex predators and resulting overpopulation of prey is balanced and measured.
This is the first “science for the masses” book that I have read that, in detail, covers the effect of over abundant prey fauna (due to lack of predators) and the devastating effect on flora.
There is an intriguing chapter on overabundant deer (white tail and black tail) populations and the correlated precipitous drop in flora species and birds in American forests. The deer eat virtually anything including saplings allowing noxious weeds to propagate and crowd themselves into forests. An effort to transform forests away from deer game reserves (by introducing apex predators or eliminating deer herds) is often met with swift resistance. Deer hunting enthusiasts don’t seem to understand that deer population densities of 100 deer per square mile (populations found in many forests in the midwest and northeastern US) is 5x to 10x the maximum deer density than can support healthy species diverse forests.
There is a balanced chapter on Orcas, a mammal several tons in size, that eat 20% of their body weight each day. They are one of the most efficient predators on the planet and their presence in an area can have significant temporary effects on seal and sea otter populations. A part of the natural cycle, the prey are briefly eliminated from an area. I suspect because the marine eco system is not closed off, the seal and sea otter populations rebound quickly after the orcas leave for other food sources. This is often not the case when man disturbs the natural order of things.
There is a chapter, a bit tongue in cheek, on introducing lions and elephants to the American southwest to parallel the the mega fauna species that roamed 10,000 to 15,000 years ago before man’s arrival. The author merely reports on this effort but does not necessarily espouse it.
And of course there are several chapters on man’s impact on mega fauna from the Clovis period in the US and man’s ability to run down antelope in Africa. Interestingly it has not been so easy for man to rise above the predators. There is a discussion of the large eagle species in today’s Africa where half their diet can be monkeys. This evidence led anthropologists to connect the dots on early human remains of man that had been killed by some kind of animal. So man (most often children) for hundreds of thousands of years were often prey and regular food sources for big cats and large raptors.
In summary this book is not a doomsday diatribe on species eradication, although I think these books should be read. Instead I found the message and facts here to be very compelling and in an odd way satisfying. This reporting on lack of forest and species diversity reinforced my own gut level experiences from my own travels and endless wilderness romps. This is one reason that remote backpacking deep in the wilderness is so compelling and that the lack of diversity in the forests especially near populated areas is noticeable.
Stolzenberg is a very good writer who has a real knack for understanding a reader’s attention span. A+
This is the first “science for the masses” book that I have read that, in detail, covers the effect of over abundant prey fauna (due to lack of predators) and the devastating effect on flora.
There is an intriguing chapter on overabundant deer (white tail and black tail) populations and the correlated precipitous drop in flora species and birds in American forests. The deer eat virtually anything including saplings allowing noxious weeds to propagate and crowd themselves into forests. An effort to transform forests away from deer game reserves (by introducing apex predators or eliminating deer herds) is often met with swift resistance. Deer hunting enthusiasts don’t seem to understand that deer population densities of 100 deer per square mile (populations found in many forests in the midwest and northeastern US) is 5x to 10x the maximum deer density than can support healthy species diverse forests.
There is a balanced chapter on Orcas, a mammal several tons in size, that eat 20% of their body weight each day. They are one of the most efficient predators on the planet and their presence in an area can have significant temporary effects on seal and sea otter populations. A part of the natural cycle, the prey are briefly eliminated from an area. I suspect because the marine eco system is not closed off, the seal and sea otter populations rebound quickly after the orcas leave for other food sources. This is often not the case when man disturbs the natural order of things.
There is a chapter, a bit tongue in cheek, on introducing lions and elephants to the American southwest to parallel the the mega fauna species that roamed 10,000 to 15,000 years ago before man’s arrival. The author merely reports on this effort but does not necessarily espouse it.
And of course there are several chapters on man’s impact on mega fauna from the Clovis period in the US and man’s ability to run down antelope in Africa. Interestingly it has not been so easy for man to rise above the predators. There is a discussion of the large eagle species in today’s Africa where half their diet can be monkeys. This evidence led anthropologists to connect the dots on early human remains of man that had been killed by some kind of animal. So man (most often children) for hundreds of thousands of years were often prey and regular food sources for big cats and large raptors.
In summary this book is not a doomsday diatribe on species eradication, although I think these books should be read. Instead I found the message and facts here to be very compelling and in an odd way satisfying. This reporting on lack of forest and species diversity reinforced my own gut level experiences from my own travels and endless wilderness romps. This is one reason that remote backpacking deep in the wilderness is so compelling and that the lack of diversity in the forests especially near populated areas is noticeable.
Stolzenberg is a very good writer who has a real knack for understanding a reader’s attention span. A+
February 17, 2016
The authors' style really resonated with me. He describes large earth-shattering revelations with such eloquence. Starting with the thesis that the death/extinction of predators and "super"predators are to blame for many ecological/environmental, he delves into numerous case studies and ongoing research of many leading biologists. The first chapters discussion of the kelp forests along the Pacific rim was particularly interesting, and made a real case for the rest of the book: ecosystems MUST be looked at from the top-down, rather than the reverse. The scientists that Stolzenburg profiles methodically and systematically demonstrate how the top predators directly relate to such things as river ecology, plant/seed distribution, and seemingly unrelated things like Lyme disease.
While so many points in this book stood out, I particularly enjoyed the one time humans got it "right": the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone Park in Wyoming in the mid-1990s. It was a success story, and I presume that it remains so this day, over ten years later.
Simply put, this book was amazingly written and infinitely informative. If you care about nature, biodiversity, and the future of our planet and the creatures living on it, reading this book will help you gain insight on how setting life back into the natural balance will remedy many (unfortunately not all) of the ills we face.
While so many points in this book stood out, I particularly enjoyed the one time humans got it "right": the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone Park in Wyoming in the mid-1990s. It was a success story, and I presume that it remains so this day, over ten years later.
Simply put, this book was amazingly written and infinitely informative. If you care about nature, biodiversity, and the future of our planet and the creatures living on it, reading this book will help you gain insight on how setting life back into the natural balance will remedy many (unfortunately not all) of the ills we face.
October 27, 2020
Stolzenburg captures the high adventure behind our unfolding understanding of predators. Some of the innovative studies he covers reveal the cascades of habitat destruction that follow eliminations of top predators. Other studies document the surprising recovery of ecosystems, once the wolves, bears, big cats, otters, or eagles return. Stolzenburg writes like a first-hand witness to his heroes' trials in the field, the storms of controversy surrounding their work, and their moments of Darwin-like, consensus-changing insight. This is a powerfully written book that conveys the beauty and power of supposedly enemy creatures, while scientifically demonstrating how crucial they are for the planet's health.
August 27, 2009
I am overjoyed that I was able to snag this through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program. Now that I've finished reading it, I am not a bit less pleased.
Frankly, my good feelings about this book really got started the moment I received it in the mail, where it surprised me by arriving less than two weeks after I was notified of winning a copy. When I tore open the package and spilled the book out in my hands, I was struck at just how pretty it was. Judging by its cover, perhaps? Maybe. But I tell you it would have been warranted. The imagefile listed here doesn't do the cover justice.
But, oh, the content did not disappoint at all either. Where the Wild Things Were is a fantastically interesting book, and it's written in such an engaging manner that I was pulled straight through the whole thing in a matter of days. Try not to let the descriptive chapter headings seduce you into sampling the chapters out of turn with each other, though. As excellent as the individual chapters like "Bambie's Revenge" and "The Lions of Zion" are, the information contained within the chapters builds in a very structured manner, and I really encourage that the book be read right through. Best of all, the last quarter of the book is filled with fabulous reference information, from detailed chapter notes to a healthy-sized index. The bibliography alone is gold; I cannot wait to explore some of the books listed.
If I really had to drum up some sort of quibble, I might complain that the coverstock of my trade paperback copy is a little light in weight and already showing a tendency to curl, or that the interior paper could stand to be a touch better in quality, or even that the delicate black curlicues, which decorate the green strips of cover at the top and bottom edges of the book and that you cannot see at all in the imagefile, have been mildly obscured by the placement of the author's name (a slightly lower placement would have been perfect). But as quibbles, those are hardreaching and of very little merit. Contentwise, I cannot complain at all. This book is highly recommended.
Also of interest is Stolzenburg's article in Conservation Magazine.
Because in truth your eyes will be focused, your ears will be tuned, your nose will be testing the air. Your back will be straighter, your steps will be lighter. One never sleepwalks through grizzlyland, dreaming of other places to be. (p. 217, 1596916429)
Frankly, my good feelings about this book really got started the moment I received it in the mail, where it surprised me by arriving less than two weeks after I was notified of winning a copy. When I tore open the package and spilled the book out in my hands, I was struck at just how pretty it was. Judging by its cover, perhaps? Maybe. But I tell you it would have been warranted. The imagefile listed here doesn't do the cover justice.
But, oh, the content did not disappoint at all either. Where the Wild Things Were is a fantastically interesting book, and it's written in such an engaging manner that I was pulled straight through the whole thing in a matter of days. Try not to let the descriptive chapter headings seduce you into sampling the chapters out of turn with each other, though. As excellent as the individual chapters like "Bambie's Revenge" and "The Lions of Zion" are, the information contained within the chapters builds in a very structured manner, and I really encourage that the book be read right through. Best of all, the last quarter of the book is filled with fabulous reference information, from detailed chapter notes to a healthy-sized index. The bibliography alone is gold; I cannot wait to explore some of the books listed.
If I really had to drum up some sort of quibble, I might complain that the coverstock of my trade paperback copy is a little light in weight and already showing a tendency to curl, or that the interior paper could stand to be a touch better in quality, or even that the delicate black curlicues, which decorate the green strips of cover at the top and bottom edges of the book and that you cannot see at all in the imagefile, have been mildly obscured by the placement of the author's name (a slightly lower placement would have been perfect). But as quibbles, those are hardreaching and of very little merit. Contentwise, I cannot complain at all. This book is highly recommended.
Also of interest is Stolzenburg's article in Conservation Magazine.
Because in truth your eyes will be focused, your ears will be tuned, your nose will be testing the air. Your back will be straighter, your steps will be lighter. One never sleepwalks through grizzlyland, dreaming of other places to be. (p. 217, 1596916429)
December 19, 2013
Summary
When we look at the extinction of a species, there is an innate curiosity of our human minds to ask why. This book is a compilation of research and thoughts that have accumulated for quite a while regarding the role of predators in ecology. While Stolzenburg writes with a powerful prose, the subject matter is no-nonsense. What is the role of predators... including that of the human predator?
Stolzenburg starts the story at his beginning to explain his motivation for searching this topic more in depth, then transfers seamlessly to the 1960s when the idea of predators having a key role in maintaining the balance of habitats as question that researchers were just beginning to take on. Stolzenburg covers key research pieces of the topic which he arranges in a sordid story of political plays, ego competitions, and retries by concerned conservation ecologists. Stolzenburg does not sugar coat the truth about the way that scientists and fellow policy makers can act when their dogma that they have adhered their reputation to is at stake.
Thoughts
This book is easy to follow for the non-ecologist, but rich enough in resources and data for any hardcore academic to use as a reference book. I particularly liked the flow from one event to another and the way Stolzenburg brought the stories alive by placing them in context of what the researchers in the book had experienced. It shows that science is not in a bubble, and everything is in context as well as changing depending on what that context is.
I also appreciated the way that Stolzenburg did not shy away from the truth of things. He noted that research hangs somewhere in the balance of politics and ego. Good research was shunned from the likes of Science because someone that reviewed it did like it. Others attacked the researchers personally saying they were stupid for having a different idea. Still, the battle continues on even today.
Stolzenburg also didn't shy away from outlining how bad science and research changed the textbooks, which in turn brainwashed an entire generation into believing that ecology can somehow stay balanced without the balance -- despite mountains of evidence. This, perhaps, is one of the more intriguing lessons that Stolzenburg and the predator debate had because while conservation ecologists were making headway to right all the wrongs that misguided humans had, one person doing bad science started a cascade that would halt -- and reverse -- any progress they had made toward restoring a delicate balance.
I'm not an ecologist, but I'm a geoarchaeologist with a strong interest in habitat loss and landscape evolution. I had not really considered animals in my story up until now, but this book has opened my eyes to the domino effect that upsetting the balance can have on the environment. It's more complex than anyone ever realises, and even the most feared predators and humans play a vital role in maintaining the delicate balance of our habitat.
When we look at the extinction of a species, there is an innate curiosity of our human minds to ask why. This book is a compilation of research and thoughts that have accumulated for quite a while regarding the role of predators in ecology. While Stolzenburg writes with a powerful prose, the subject matter is no-nonsense. What is the role of predators... including that of the human predator?
Stolzenburg starts the story at his beginning to explain his motivation for searching this topic more in depth, then transfers seamlessly to the 1960s when the idea of predators having a key role in maintaining the balance of habitats as question that researchers were just beginning to take on. Stolzenburg covers key research pieces of the topic which he arranges in a sordid story of political plays, ego competitions, and retries by concerned conservation ecologists. Stolzenburg does not sugar coat the truth about the way that scientists and fellow policy makers can act when their dogma that they have adhered their reputation to is at stake.
Thoughts
This book is easy to follow for the non-ecologist, but rich enough in resources and data for any hardcore academic to use as a reference book. I particularly liked the flow from one event to another and the way Stolzenburg brought the stories alive by placing them in context of what the researchers in the book had experienced. It shows that science is not in a bubble, and everything is in context as well as changing depending on what that context is.
I also appreciated the way that Stolzenburg did not shy away from the truth of things. He noted that research hangs somewhere in the balance of politics and ego. Good research was shunned from the likes of Science because someone that reviewed it did like it. Others attacked the researchers personally saying they were stupid for having a different idea. Still, the battle continues on even today.
Stolzenburg also didn't shy away from outlining how bad science and research changed the textbooks, which in turn brainwashed an entire generation into believing that ecology can somehow stay balanced without the balance -- despite mountains of evidence. This, perhaps, is one of the more intriguing lessons that Stolzenburg and the predator debate had because while conservation ecologists were making headway to right all the wrongs that misguided humans had, one person doing bad science started a cascade that would halt -- and reverse -- any progress they had made toward restoring a delicate balance.
I'm not an ecologist, but I'm a geoarchaeologist with a strong interest in habitat loss and landscape evolution. I had not really considered animals in my story up until now, but this book has opened my eyes to the domino effect that upsetting the balance can have on the environment. It's more complex than anyone ever realises, and even the most feared predators and humans play a vital role in maintaining the delicate balance of our habitat.
January 24, 2009
This was an enjoyable book. However, for a book that was supposed to present ecology to the masses, it cited a lot of papers and scientists without applying much of the science to everyday life. The author oversimplified in an effort to appeal to everyone. For example, Stolzenberg discusses the eradication of feral cats to restore bird habitats and how it worked flawlessly. Then, while I was reading this book, scientists revealed that their attempts to eradicate feral cats on Macquerie Island in Australia had backfired because they had neglected to eradicate non-native species of rabbits at the same time.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090113/a...
In turn, the rabbits, left without any natural predators, have devastated the fragile vegetation that the native birds depend on. This scenario demonstrates how complicated predator-prey interactions can be. Stolzenberg did not capture these complications. I also disagreed with his subtle attempt to advocate the reintroduction of megafauna from the Pleistocene era such as lions into North America without in-depth discussion of why this could also be a bad idea. I love elephants and lions, but I'm not sure they should be reintroduced just because they were here 10,000 years ago. In essence, for ecology students and professionals, this book will be an interesting read because they will be able to expand on the ideas that he presents. For people without a background in ecology, I fear this book will be a choppy introduction to megafaunal succession theory. It's worth reading, but just know that you're scratching the surface as becomes apparent.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090113/a...
In turn, the rabbits, left without any natural predators, have devastated the fragile vegetation that the native birds depend on. This scenario demonstrates how complicated predator-prey interactions can be. Stolzenberg did not capture these complications. I also disagreed with his subtle attempt to advocate the reintroduction of megafauna from the Pleistocene era such as lions into North America without in-depth discussion of why this could also be a bad idea. I love elephants and lions, but I'm not sure they should be reintroduced just because they were here 10,000 years ago. In essence, for ecology students and professionals, this book will be an interesting read because they will be able to expand on the ideas that he presents. For people without a background in ecology, I fear this book will be a choppy introduction to megafaunal succession theory. It's worth reading, but just know that you're scratching the surface as becomes apparent.
September 17, 2009
Fascinating synopsis of the recent research into the importance of predators -- especially the large predators -- in ecosystems. Very little was understood about this subject until very recently. Most of the research described in this book was done in just the past 20 years. The return of wolves to Yellowstone and central Idaho is currently demonstrating what significant, amazing, and often unexpected differences healthy packs of large predators can have on the overall health of an ecosystem. A very good book -- well written, interesting, and easily readable. A book that could, and should, benefit everyone.
March 26, 2015
For the first billion years of life on Earth, all of our ancestors were single celled. One day, we aren’t sure why, a hungry organism ate a delicious bystander, and became the first predator. Predation inspired evolution to become very creative. Some organisms became mobile by developing cilia or tails. Others shape shifted into multi-celled life forms. Critters developed scales, spikes, shells, fangs, and many other clever defenses. Thus, one group survived by dining on the unlucky, and the bigger group survived by evolving every imaginable trick for cancelling lunch dates with predators.
When predators became too powerful, they would wipe out their food supply, blush with embarrassment, and starve. Prey that managed to survive evolved stronger defensive capabilities. But if they got too good at this, their population would explode, deplete the available nutrients, and the vast mob would perish in an undignified manner.
Thus, evolution is an elegant balancing act. If the prey gets one percent faster, the predator gets one percent faster, not two. This balancing act is the subject of William Stolzenburg’s book, Where the Wild Things Were. More specifically, the book focuses on how humankind uses its brilliant technological innovations to bypass the limits of our current state of evolution, upset healthy balancing acts, and devastate ecosystems, often unintentionally.
In the early 1970s, zoologist James Estes travelled to the Aleutian Islands of Alaska to do research on sea otters. Sea otters can grow up to four feet long (1.2 m), and they have incredibly soft fur. Stylish women with too much money loved wearing fur coats, and for 150 years, from Alaska to Baja, otter hunting was a serious business, and very profitable. Somewhere between 500,000 and 900,000 otters lost their hides to the fashionable dames of high society.
The island of Amchitka had a healthy population of otters, and this is where Estes began his study, scuba diving in frigid water. Beneath the waves were thriving jungles of kelp, a popular hangout for a number of aquatic herbivores. Kelp can grow up to 200 feet tall (61 m). Urchins enjoy dining on kelp, and sea otters enjoy dining on urchins. What Estes observed was a healthy balance between the kelp, urchins, and otters.
Later, he spent some time on the island of Shemya, where the great extermination had wiped out the otters. Only a few had since recolonized there. The ecosystem here was stunningly different from Amchitka. In the absence of otters, the urchins exploded in numbers, and many were huge in size. The sea floor was wall-to-wall urchins, and there was no kelp at all.
So, when the keystone predators (otters) live in peace, the ecosystem is healthy and balanced. When they are eliminated, the ecosystem becomes a train wreck — a chain reaction known as a trophic cascade. Predators are essential.
A similar scenario occurred when Zion National Park was established in Utah. To make the park safe for tourists, the cougars (mountain lions) were exterminated. In their absence, the population of mule deer exploded, and the land was stripped of vegetation. The forests were dying, because young seedlings were devoured by deer. Meanwhile, over the hill in North Creek Canyon, the cougars had been left alone, and the land was remarkably alive and healthy.
The Kaibab Plateau in Arizona became a game preserve in 1906. Deer hunters were kept out, and 6,000 large carnivores were deleted. The deer population skyrocketed from 4,000 to 100,000, and the vegetation was promptly vacuumed up. In the winters of 1924 and 1925, 80,000 deer starved to death. Ecosystems pay an enormous price for the stunning ecological ignorance of literate, educated people, who spend years in miserable classrooms carefully absorbing spooky illusions.
Wolves and grizzlies had been absent in the Tetons for quite a while. Then, a few began drifting in from Yellowstone. At first, the moose and elk had no fear of them. Wolves calmly strolled into the herd and snatched their young. Before long, they learned that fearing predators was beneficial. Something similar to this innocent fearlessness likely existed in every ecosystem when humans first arrived with their state-of-the-art killing technology.
In the 1950s, Paul Martin connected some archaeological dots. The megafauna of the world, that had survived almost two million years of ice ages, suddenly blinked out whenever armed humans arrived in a new region.* This realization gave birth to his Pleistocene Overkill hypothesis, “that man, and man alone, was responsible for the unique wave of Late Pleistocene extinction.” Despite many loud objections, it has generally been accepted, but it fails to explain the large numbers of mammoths and rhinos found in Siberia and Alaska. It also causes those who worship at the crumbling Temple of Human Omnipotence to become moody and irritable.
Whatever your opinion on this controversy, it’s easy to argue that during the long era of warm weather (since 9600 B.C.), the pristine state of America was the Pleistocene, not 1492. In 2005, a group of biologists published a paper on rewilding in the journal Nature. It recommended the reintroduction of missing species like cheetahs, camels, lions, and elephants. The mainstream crowd soiled their britches and howled hysterically.
It was, like, totally groovy to reintroduce pretty butterflies, but the huge backlash boiled down to “no lions in my backyard!” This was the lively kickoff for what will be a long and bumpy process of attitude evolution — or a fierce backlash from those who have yet to free themselves from the tiny cage of anthropocentric hallucinations.
I wonder if the systematic extermination of millions of predators over the years is associated in any way with the current explosion in the human population. (Duh!) When climate change forced our ancestors onto the savannah, evolution had not prepared us for living amidst fast, powerful, heavyweight predators. We developed a highly unusual dependence on technology in order to survive, thereby knocking over the evolutionary balancing act. “They would eventually wield the power to level mountains, to dam the biggest rivers, to coat entire continents in concrete and crops, to alter the climate as it had once altered them.” The chapter on how we morphed into apex predators is fascinating.
Today, we almost never encounter man-eating predators running lose. We no longer have to pay careful attention to reality, ready to react at any moment, fully present and alive. The world has become safe for pudgy cell phone zombies — an empty, dull, and lonely place. This is seen as normal. I disagree.
* Megafauna survived in Africa because they evolved together with hominids, but there’s more to the story. Lars Werdelin, a specialist in African carnivores, has learned that there used to be far more large carnivores. Between 2 and 1.5 million years ago, many large carnivores went extinct. This is about the time that tool-using, meat-eating Homo erectus appeared. (Werdelin, Lars, “King of Beasts,” Scientific American, November 2013, pp. 34-39.)
When predators became too powerful, they would wipe out their food supply, blush with embarrassment, and starve. Prey that managed to survive evolved stronger defensive capabilities. But if they got too good at this, their population would explode, deplete the available nutrients, and the vast mob would perish in an undignified manner.
Thus, evolution is an elegant balancing act. If the prey gets one percent faster, the predator gets one percent faster, not two. This balancing act is the subject of William Stolzenburg’s book, Where the Wild Things Were. More specifically, the book focuses on how humankind uses its brilliant technological innovations to bypass the limits of our current state of evolution, upset healthy balancing acts, and devastate ecosystems, often unintentionally.
In the early 1970s, zoologist James Estes travelled to the Aleutian Islands of Alaska to do research on sea otters. Sea otters can grow up to four feet long (1.2 m), and they have incredibly soft fur. Stylish women with too much money loved wearing fur coats, and for 150 years, from Alaska to Baja, otter hunting was a serious business, and very profitable. Somewhere between 500,000 and 900,000 otters lost their hides to the fashionable dames of high society.
The island of Amchitka had a healthy population of otters, and this is where Estes began his study, scuba diving in frigid water. Beneath the waves were thriving jungles of kelp, a popular hangout for a number of aquatic herbivores. Kelp can grow up to 200 feet tall (61 m). Urchins enjoy dining on kelp, and sea otters enjoy dining on urchins. What Estes observed was a healthy balance between the kelp, urchins, and otters.
Later, he spent some time on the island of Shemya, where the great extermination had wiped out the otters. Only a few had since recolonized there. The ecosystem here was stunningly different from Amchitka. In the absence of otters, the urchins exploded in numbers, and many were huge in size. The sea floor was wall-to-wall urchins, and there was no kelp at all.
So, when the keystone predators (otters) live in peace, the ecosystem is healthy and balanced. When they are eliminated, the ecosystem becomes a train wreck — a chain reaction known as a trophic cascade. Predators are essential.
A similar scenario occurred when Zion National Park was established in Utah. To make the park safe for tourists, the cougars (mountain lions) were exterminated. In their absence, the population of mule deer exploded, and the land was stripped of vegetation. The forests were dying, because young seedlings were devoured by deer. Meanwhile, over the hill in North Creek Canyon, the cougars had been left alone, and the land was remarkably alive and healthy.
The Kaibab Plateau in Arizona became a game preserve in 1906. Deer hunters were kept out, and 6,000 large carnivores were deleted. The deer population skyrocketed from 4,000 to 100,000, and the vegetation was promptly vacuumed up. In the winters of 1924 and 1925, 80,000 deer starved to death. Ecosystems pay an enormous price for the stunning ecological ignorance of literate, educated people, who spend years in miserable classrooms carefully absorbing spooky illusions.
Wolves and grizzlies had been absent in the Tetons for quite a while. Then, a few began drifting in from Yellowstone. At first, the moose and elk had no fear of them. Wolves calmly strolled into the herd and snatched their young. Before long, they learned that fearing predators was beneficial. Something similar to this innocent fearlessness likely existed in every ecosystem when humans first arrived with their state-of-the-art killing technology.
In the 1950s, Paul Martin connected some archaeological dots. The megafauna of the world, that had survived almost two million years of ice ages, suddenly blinked out whenever armed humans arrived in a new region.* This realization gave birth to his Pleistocene Overkill hypothesis, “that man, and man alone, was responsible for the unique wave of Late Pleistocene extinction.” Despite many loud objections, it has generally been accepted, but it fails to explain the large numbers of mammoths and rhinos found in Siberia and Alaska. It also causes those who worship at the crumbling Temple of Human Omnipotence to become moody and irritable.
Whatever your opinion on this controversy, it’s easy to argue that during the long era of warm weather (since 9600 B.C.), the pristine state of America was the Pleistocene, not 1492. In 2005, a group of biologists published a paper on rewilding in the journal Nature. It recommended the reintroduction of missing species like cheetahs, camels, lions, and elephants. The mainstream crowd soiled their britches and howled hysterically.
It was, like, totally groovy to reintroduce pretty butterflies, but the huge backlash boiled down to “no lions in my backyard!” This was the lively kickoff for what will be a long and bumpy process of attitude evolution — or a fierce backlash from those who have yet to free themselves from the tiny cage of anthropocentric hallucinations.
I wonder if the systematic extermination of millions of predators over the years is associated in any way with the current explosion in the human population. (Duh!) When climate change forced our ancestors onto the savannah, evolution had not prepared us for living amidst fast, powerful, heavyweight predators. We developed a highly unusual dependence on technology in order to survive, thereby knocking over the evolutionary balancing act. “They would eventually wield the power to level mountains, to dam the biggest rivers, to coat entire continents in concrete and crops, to alter the climate as it had once altered them.” The chapter on how we morphed into apex predators is fascinating.
Today, we almost never encounter man-eating predators running lose. We no longer have to pay careful attention to reality, ready to react at any moment, fully present and alive. The world has become safe for pudgy cell phone zombies — an empty, dull, and lonely place. This is seen as normal. I disagree.
* Megafauna survived in Africa because they evolved together with hominids, but there’s more to the story. Lars Werdelin, a specialist in African carnivores, has learned that there used to be far more large carnivores. Between 2 and 1.5 million years ago, many large carnivores went extinct. This is about the time that tool-using, meat-eating Homo erectus appeared. (Werdelin, Lars, “King of Beasts,” Scientific American, November 2013, pp. 34-39.)
January 4, 2024
I don't have any background in ecology, but I found this very accessible. The author does a fantastic job weaving decades of research into a cohesive narrative. The case studies Stolzenburg chooses to highlight are simple enough to be accessible while still illustrating the complex roles predators play in ecosystems, and the diverse examples highlight how broadly applicable the top-down keystone species concept is across different biomes.
I have two main criticisms:
1) I would have liked to see more nuanced discussion of the pros and cons of megafauna rewilding. Stolzenburg does not explore the supporting science in any detail and chooses instead to focus on painting detractors as ignorant and reactionary. This is a complex issue and deserves a more complete treatment, with discussion of the ecological basis and logistical challenges.
2) Stolzenburg outlines the endurance runner hypothesis as established scientific consensus and describes the evolution of all human traits as driven by pursuit predation - including the origin of language! Even as a layperson, I know that this is a vast oversimplification and glosses over some of the most contested research topics in biology.
Read critically and watch out for bias, but do read this book.
I have two main criticisms:
1) I would have liked to see more nuanced discussion of the pros and cons of megafauna rewilding. Stolzenburg does not explore the supporting science in any detail and chooses instead to focus on painting detractors as ignorant and reactionary. This is a complex issue and deserves a more complete treatment, with discussion of the ecological basis and logistical challenges.
2) Stolzenburg outlines the endurance runner hypothesis as established scientific consensus and describes the evolution of all human traits as driven by pursuit predation - including the origin of language! Even as a layperson, I know that this is a vast oversimplification and glosses over some of the most contested research topics in biology.
Read critically and watch out for bias, but do read this book.
November 14, 2012
This is now one of my favorite ecology books ever! It is incredibly engaging and has vitally important information. What is the role of top predators in an ecosystem? What happens when they are removed? I've heard of classic stories-such as the sea otters, sea urchins and kelp forest example, or the missing wolves, too many deer, death by disease and starvation example. And these are two of the many studies that come up-however they were presented with such depth that I felt like I was learning about them for the first time as new perspectives were brought to light. These studies and many more slowly built a picture of the world without our apex predators. It took the individual trees I'd been looking at and built a forest. I won't ever see the world in the same way again.
Also, I think this would be a great companion book with David Quammen's Song of the Dodo.
Notes:
pg. 190- "In a race with the furred and four-legged, the naked ape also ran cooler and more consistently than the competition. The running hominid vented heat not only through the panting mouth but also through the evaporative cooling from the sweatiest skin on the savanna. Running erect heightened the thermal advantage, exposing a minimum of bodily surface area to the sun.
These were just a few of the examined traits that padded the Homo sapiens racing pedigree...Homo sapiens was born to run...
The Bushmen's hunt would take place during the hottest times of the day, which in the Kalahari reached 108 degrees Fahrenheit."
pg. 198- "Capable of traveling at bursts exceeding sixty miles per hour, the pronghorn is the second-fastest land animal on the planet-or the fastest depending on how far the race is run. Its sprint is slightly slower than that of the African cheetah's, but its pace over the mile is unmatched by any wild creature on legs. Its feats of footspeed are both legendary and true. Many who have spent any appreciable time driving through pronghorn country come back with a nuanced version of the same ensuing spectacle.
It begins in the driver's seat of a pick up truck on a dusty road, far upon some open stretch of the American steppe, when out of the corner of the eye appears a band of pronghorn on the run-stick-legs a blur, white rumps shining, muscled necks craning forward. Over the sagebrush badlands tey fly, a squadron of hovercraft fluidly absorbing the terrain, hurtling forward at a frightening clip. The speedometer confirms what the eye struggles to fathom: forty-five miles per hour. The pronghorn are keeping pace, unveering, unflagging. One minute, two minutes-they are still going. They are racing the machine...
Behind such outrageous displays of velocity are fearsome invisible forces. To see them, one must think back at least thirteen thousand years ago, before their disappearance. Before then the plains of North America were stampeded by an unprecedented cast of quick and deadly predators: a lion larger than its contemporary African subspecies; wolves of several varieties; a bear designed like a racehourse; a hyena with the legs of a coursing hound; and a cheetah with the legs of, well, a cheetah. Miracinonyx trumani was lithe yet larger than the modern African cheetah, and likely at least as fast. It was this sprinting cat, and the formidable packs of hyenas and the like, that made the American steppe a very lively place to grow up. They were the crucible in which the ultimate demon of speed, the American pronghorn was forged."
pg. 207 "Are humans now functionally equivalent to large mammalian carnivores?...Sports hunters tend to go heavily for trophies, selecting the biggest, handsomest, fittest bulls and bucks-skimming the cream of the genetic crop. working carnivores, on the other paw, tend to take the young, the old, the lame, the weak, with efficiency of effort and immediate survival foremost in mind. Sport hunters tend to concentrate their kill in a few weeks of the regulated season, which means an elk in wolfless Colorado has ten or eleven months between hunting seasons to make a clear-cut or wallow of whatever streamside grove they care to lounge in. It means that scavengers like grizzlies-if there were any left in Colorado-would be more hard-pressed to feed their young in spring if the only carcasses were to be found in the wake of rifle hunters in the fall.
Wolves, it has also been found, do not build roads into wilderness areas, chase animals to exhaustion on ATVs, howl at ninety decibels for hours on end, compact and erode soils, cave in stream banks, tear up meadows, crush plants, or foul the air with water and hydrocarbons."
BTW, for some shameless self-promotion, if you like reading about animals, check out my blog on wildlife at http://backyardzoologist.wordpress.com/
Also, I think this would be a great companion book with David Quammen's Song of the Dodo.
Notes:
pg. 190- "In a race with the furred and four-legged, the naked ape also ran cooler and more consistently than the competition. The running hominid vented heat not only through the panting mouth but also through the evaporative cooling from the sweatiest skin on the savanna. Running erect heightened the thermal advantage, exposing a minimum of bodily surface area to the sun.
These were just a few of the examined traits that padded the Homo sapiens racing pedigree...Homo sapiens was born to run...
The Bushmen's hunt would take place during the hottest times of the day, which in the Kalahari reached 108 degrees Fahrenheit."
pg. 198- "Capable of traveling at bursts exceeding sixty miles per hour, the pronghorn is the second-fastest land animal on the planet-or the fastest depending on how far the race is run. Its sprint is slightly slower than that of the African cheetah's, but its pace over the mile is unmatched by any wild creature on legs. Its feats of footspeed are both legendary and true. Many who have spent any appreciable time driving through pronghorn country come back with a nuanced version of the same ensuing spectacle.
It begins in the driver's seat of a pick up truck on a dusty road, far upon some open stretch of the American steppe, when out of the corner of the eye appears a band of pronghorn on the run-stick-legs a blur, white rumps shining, muscled necks craning forward. Over the sagebrush badlands tey fly, a squadron of hovercraft fluidly absorbing the terrain, hurtling forward at a frightening clip. The speedometer confirms what the eye struggles to fathom: forty-five miles per hour. The pronghorn are keeping pace, unveering, unflagging. One minute, two minutes-they are still going. They are racing the machine...
Behind such outrageous displays of velocity are fearsome invisible forces. To see them, one must think back at least thirteen thousand years ago, before their disappearance. Before then the plains of North America were stampeded by an unprecedented cast of quick and deadly predators: a lion larger than its contemporary African subspecies; wolves of several varieties; a bear designed like a racehourse; a hyena with the legs of a coursing hound; and a cheetah with the legs of, well, a cheetah. Miracinonyx trumani was lithe yet larger than the modern African cheetah, and likely at least as fast. It was this sprinting cat, and the formidable packs of hyenas and the like, that made the American steppe a very lively place to grow up. They were the crucible in which the ultimate demon of speed, the American pronghorn was forged."
pg. 207 "Are humans now functionally equivalent to large mammalian carnivores?...Sports hunters tend to go heavily for trophies, selecting the biggest, handsomest, fittest bulls and bucks-skimming the cream of the genetic crop. working carnivores, on the other paw, tend to take the young, the old, the lame, the weak, with efficiency of effort and immediate survival foremost in mind. Sport hunters tend to concentrate their kill in a few weeks of the regulated season, which means an elk in wolfless Colorado has ten or eleven months between hunting seasons to make a clear-cut or wallow of whatever streamside grove they care to lounge in. It means that scavengers like grizzlies-if there were any left in Colorado-would be more hard-pressed to feed their young in spring if the only carcasses were to be found in the wake of rifle hunters in the fall.
Wolves, it has also been found, do not build roads into wilderness areas, chase animals to exhaustion on ATVs, howl at ninety decibels for hours on end, compact and erode soils, cave in stream banks, tear up meadows, crush plants, or foul the air with water and hydrocarbons."
BTW, for some shameless self-promotion, if you like reading about animals, check out my blog on wildlife at http://backyardzoologist.wordpress.com/
May 5, 2023
Really educational book. Only fault is the no recognition of indigenous knowledge and history. The book makes it seem like the researchers were the first to discover these ecological patterns and processes, however they were just the first people to publish it in the science world. But I do understand that the point of the book is to explain how researchers came up with these theories, hypotheses, etc.
October 7, 2008
“Where the Wild Ones Were” makes the argument that large carnivores have a significant affect on the health of ecosystems and that their systematic eradication has contributed to environmental degradation. Examples provided include:
1) Otter hunting led to a proliferation of anemones which led to the collapse of oceanic kelp forests.
2) Eradication of wolves and mountain lions led to explosions in deer populations which subsequently degraded forests through overgrazing.
In each case, degradation of the ecosystem led to larger loss of biodiversity – fewer birds, small mammals, insects, and plantlife.
Evidence of the corollaries to this theory were also discussed:
1) When wolves were re-introduced to Yellowstone, deer and elk populations declined and Aspen groves once again began to thrive.
2) When otter hunts were eliminated, kelp forests returned.
The author then goes on to discuss a controversial solution ... “re-wilding”. They argue that ecosystems began their degradation when humans first arrived in North America during the Pleistocene and exterminated megafauna such as the saber toothed cat, dire wolve, short-faced bear, cheetah, etc. Since these animals are now extinct, some biologiests propose introducing these animals closest existing relatives to restore balance. These reintroductions would include Bactrian camels, elephants, wolves, African lions, and cheetahs. Obviously public perception would need to undergo a considerable (and unlikely) transformation before such a concept could be implemented.
The book ends on a rather depressing note, indicating that it may be too late to implement policies that would initiate a return to ecosystem health and that we are the poorer for it.
As Edward Abbey said “The essence of wilderness is big animals that can eat you”. For the most part, that essence has been lost.
1) Otter hunting led to a proliferation of anemones which led to the collapse of oceanic kelp forests.
2) Eradication of wolves and mountain lions led to explosions in deer populations which subsequently degraded forests through overgrazing.
In each case, degradation of the ecosystem led to larger loss of biodiversity – fewer birds, small mammals, insects, and plantlife.
Evidence of the corollaries to this theory were also discussed:
1) When wolves were re-introduced to Yellowstone, deer and elk populations declined and Aspen groves once again began to thrive.
2) When otter hunts were eliminated, kelp forests returned.
The author then goes on to discuss a controversial solution ... “re-wilding”. They argue that ecosystems began their degradation when humans first arrived in North America during the Pleistocene and exterminated megafauna such as the saber toothed cat, dire wolve, short-faced bear, cheetah, etc. Since these animals are now extinct, some biologiests propose introducing these animals closest existing relatives to restore balance. These reintroductions would include Bactrian camels, elephants, wolves, African lions, and cheetahs. Obviously public perception would need to undergo a considerable (and unlikely) transformation before such a concept could be implemented.
The book ends on a rather depressing note, indicating that it may be too late to implement policies that would initiate a return to ecosystem health and that we are the poorer for it.
As Edward Abbey said “The essence of wilderness is big animals that can eat you”. For the most part, that essence has been lost.
January 26, 2020
This is a fantastic book.
Each chapter is a vignette, telling the story of a particular group of predators, and the scientists who did the work of deciphering those predators' keystone role in an ecosystem. These chapters weave together to form a tapestry of the history of predator ecology. Each chapter stands alone as a compelling narrative, and the whole presents a unifying and compelling thesis on predator conservation and restoration.
If you don't already know concepts like green world hypothesis, trophic cascades, top-down ecological control, mesopredator release, ecological meltdown scenarios, rewilding, and shifting baselines, you will find a wealth of important ideas here. If you do already understand these things, you will find that this book beautifully explores the development of these concepts as parts of a single larger story.
This book avoids the pitfalls that afflict some non-fiction science and nature writing. It is neither overly lyrical, nor so dense with data as to become an informative slog. It is a compelling read that, once started, was difficult to put down. Also the kind of book that led me to frequently interrupt my wife to read passages from. I highly recommend it.
Incidentally, some of the studies and the scientists that feature prominently in Where the Wild Things Were are also the subject of the PBS Nature episode, "The Serengeti Rules" (https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/seren...). It makes a great video accompaniment to the book.
Each chapter is a vignette, telling the story of a particular group of predators, and the scientists who did the work of deciphering those predators' keystone role in an ecosystem. These chapters weave together to form a tapestry of the history of predator ecology. Each chapter stands alone as a compelling narrative, and the whole presents a unifying and compelling thesis on predator conservation and restoration.
If you don't already know concepts like green world hypothesis, trophic cascades, top-down ecological control, mesopredator release, ecological meltdown scenarios, rewilding, and shifting baselines, you will find a wealth of important ideas here. If you do already understand these things, you will find that this book beautifully explores the development of these concepts as parts of a single larger story.
This book avoids the pitfalls that afflict some non-fiction science and nature writing. It is neither overly lyrical, nor so dense with data as to become an informative slog. It is a compelling read that, once started, was difficult to put down. Also the kind of book that led me to frequently interrupt my wife to read passages from. I highly recommend it.
Incidentally, some of the studies and the scientists that feature prominently in Where the Wild Things Were are also the subject of the PBS Nature episode, "The Serengeti Rules" (https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/seren...). It makes a great video accompaniment to the book.
February 13, 2020
Where the Wild Things Were is a non fiction book giving a satisfyingly comprehensive view on predator ecology. Starting from the development of basic ecological concepts such as trophic cascades and key species and continuing to more specified research on the importance of predators, William Stolzenburg doesn't shy away from exploring the likely implications of our impoverished landscapes.
However, this does not read like research, not in the least. Stolzenburg has gathered an impressive amount of studies but laid them out as a captivating story – bringing the scientists and their objects of study alive on the pages. The titles of the chapters such as Bambi’s Revenge, Little Monsters’ Ball and Dead Creatures Walking give a taste of the nearly poetic nature of the writing. The structure feels incoherent at times, but following scientific discoveries is not easy as the development of different theories overlap. It’s also not simple to decide how to balance the science, the descriptions and the storylines, and it doesn’t always work quite as well as it could.
I certainly hope that a part of my biology study materials would come in such a form as Where the Wild Things Were instead of the endless scientific papers. At least I can revise through books like this and having studied a lot of this stuff before, I didn’t notice anything deviating significantly from what I’ve learned in university. But I do wish is that effects of predator free communities were highlighted more in ecology modules, especially as wolves in Finland are such a current topic.
However, this does not read like research, not in the least. Stolzenburg has gathered an impressive amount of studies but laid them out as a captivating story – bringing the scientists and their objects of study alive on the pages. The titles of the chapters such as Bambi’s Revenge, Little Monsters’ Ball and Dead Creatures Walking give a taste of the nearly poetic nature of the writing. The structure feels incoherent at times, but following scientific discoveries is not easy as the development of different theories overlap. It’s also not simple to decide how to balance the science, the descriptions and the storylines, and it doesn’t always work quite as well as it could.
I certainly hope that a part of my biology study materials would come in such a form as Where the Wild Things Were instead of the endless scientific papers. At least I can revise through books like this and having studied a lot of this stuff before, I didn’t notice anything deviating significantly from what I’ve learned in university. But I do wish is that effects of predator free communities were highlighted more in ecology modules, especially as wolves in Finland are such a current topic.
January 2, 2018
There's one thing I've noticed that seems to run amok in nature-based books, and that's that they all seem to read like one giant scientific article. No matter how interesting the subject, it can make it difficult to wade through. William Stolzenburg does not have this problem. As the second book of his I have read, I was excited to start this one, and I was not left disappointed. Among the various tales of experiments and public critiques to management plans is the artistic skill of writing that so often is forgotten. It makes reading through the book not only a breeze, but entirely enjoyable as well. A perfect way to start the new year and a fundamental addition to any library for those who wish to know the truth of the importance of predators.
July 17, 2014
This was great book filled with interesting facts about predators. The section on Killer Whales is awesome and amazing - I read parts aloud to my room mate because I could not believe what I was reading and had to share how awesome these animals are.
The book is about predators and their importance in the ecosystem. It has a chapter about Yellowstone National Park and the reintroduction of wolves which was a great read. Stolzenburg is a wildlife journalist and he has a very good narration making it easy to understand the different studies and experiments about predators.
A great book that I highly recommend.
The book is about predators and their importance in the ecosystem. It has a chapter about Yellowstone National Park and the reintroduction of wolves which was a great read. Stolzenburg is a wildlife journalist and he has a very good narration making it easy to understand the different studies and experiments about predators.
A great book that I highly recommend.
October 28, 2008
I am about half way through and this book is stirring up all my long held naturalist tendencies and secret desire to be a biologist when i grow up. Loving it. I have a feeling this has opened a can of worms, out of which will parade a host of other to-read nature/science books.
This book was excellent. I am all about reading more like it very soon.
This book was excellent. I am all about reading more like it very soon.
May 19, 2010
this book is really, really, really... good.
January 8, 2013
Second favourite natural history book ever!
March 10, 2014
Simply essential for all sentient homo sapiens
January 20, 2021
An excellent ecological read! An illuminating look at the bioshphere and the food web through the lens of predators, specifically apex predators. What has the superpredator human beings done to them? In clearly written accounts, Stolzenburg takes the reader into varying landscapes around the world looking for these predators and trying to scientifically account for their impacts on nature. What if what we think are predators today really are steps lower on the food chain? What if we wiped out the predators that should be on the higher steps and we cannot tell because we are used to not seeing them? What if we brought them back? While the author has several examples, the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone is a main one. Using this example, he explains how wolves take out the weakest of exploding numbers of elk and deer, how just their presence alone changes their behavior, which leads to less grazing especially by water sources, which leads to bringing back insects, rodents, and plants. A trophic cascade. It is fantastic insight into how all things are connected and depend on each other for life and death. And it just may be the predator that is the saving grace. Since humans have basically exterminated them and created a sanitized natural world, this book is also a calling to rewilding and protecting our natural world.
August 5, 2017
This book got better once I had adjusted to the writing style. There was a lot of flourishment where I don't think it was needed, but that's a personal preference for me.
I learned a lot from this book about the vital role predators play in our ecosystems and how humans have thrown the many delicate balances of nature out of wack. No surprises there.
Not a book for everyone but, if you are interested in the topic and pick it up, my recommendation is to stick with it.
I learned a lot from this book about the vital role predators play in our ecosystems and how humans have thrown the many delicate balances of nature out of wack. No surprises there.
Not a book for everyone but, if you are interested in the topic and pick it up, my recommendation is to stick with it.
May 6, 2021
This was a fascinating look at the value of predation within the natural world and how important large predators are to our world. I loved how detailed the explanations were and how things were set up within the historical context of different scientists explorations and changing perspectives. It's amazing how much damage we've done to the natural world. I love seeing how Yellowstone has started to bounce back because of the work that's been done there and I wish we could get more of the general populace to understand the importance of these sorts of concepts for betterment of our future.
November 13, 2025
Eens je je over de krabben en slakken kan zetten een heel goed boek. Over hoe herten en orcas veel kapot maken. En de mens natuurlijk, die is er ook mee gemoeid.
December 21, 2017
I put off buying this book for a while, because of the title. There is a certain kind of science book which I am really tired of, and the title made it look like it was this kind of book. That kind, is the sort wherein you are told with every paragraph, for a few hundred pages, that We Are All Doomed.
I don't even necessarily disagree (all that much) with the premise. I just don't see a reason to read a book about it. Despite much posturing to the contrary, it is not within the power of an individual to make us non-doomed, and despite the apparent belief of half of the internet or more, getting really, really, really mad (or sad, or loud) about something doesn't really impact its likelihood of occurring. So, I prefer to read books which tell me things I don't know. "We Are All Doomed" is something I already know.
Fortunately, at some point I actually picked up this book and looked through it, and made the very pleasant discovery that, aside from the obligatory last chapter (wherein it is explained that We Are All Doomed), the rest of the book, the vast vast majority, is about telling you science that you probably don't know.
I had heard, generally speaking, that the return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park had turned out to be a good thing. I had also heard the phrase "keystone species", often the apex predator of an ecosystem, whose loss is even more devastating to that ecosystem than other species. But I had not read all of the science (and science history) about how this works.
Why, for example, is it important for wolves to hunt moose in Yellowstone, rather than just having some human hunters go thin the herd from time to time? Why is it that having wolves in Yellowstone, is good for aspen trees? Why is the abundance of deer in much of North America a disaster for wildflowers? Why is the loss of big cats and wolves bad for the songbird population?
Much of it comes down to that old phrase, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", but not everything. For example, the kind of deer (or moose, or whatever) that a human hunter picks out for a spot on their wall, or the place where they decide to hunt for it, are different than if it's an apex predator doing the hunting.
There is also some fascinating discussion of the uncomfortable (to those on the political left, especially) fact that extinction in North America started long before 1492. It is odd to think of North America, just a few thousand years ago, with mammoths (thirteen feet at the shoulder), wild horses, giant bison, giant camels, a beaver as big as a bear, the saber-tooth cat, the dire wolf, a native American cheetah, and a bear with the shoulder-height of a moose. They all lived in North America, and within a few thousand years of the coming of humans, they were all gone. Coincidence?
It is not just fascinating imagery like this that makes the book a good read, though. There was a whole generation-long struggle within the scientific community over whether or not to accept the fact that nature, really, is a strict hierarchy, and it's the ones at the top that matter the most in many ways. It is no secret that scientists are, on the whole, considerably left of center, and it is hard to think of a concept more ill-suited to easy acceptance.
But, to their credit, scientists did (eventually) allow themselves to be swayed by the evidence, and this is a great book to help explain how it happened. Then, in the final (and shortest) chapter, you can also read how We Are All Doomed. Or, like me, you can kind of skim that part. It's a good book nonetheless.
I don't even necessarily disagree (all that much) with the premise. I just don't see a reason to read a book about it. Despite much posturing to the contrary, it is not within the power of an individual to make us non-doomed, and despite the apparent belief of half of the internet or more, getting really, really, really mad (or sad, or loud) about something doesn't really impact its likelihood of occurring. So, I prefer to read books which tell me things I don't know. "We Are All Doomed" is something I already know.
Fortunately, at some point I actually picked up this book and looked through it, and made the very pleasant discovery that, aside from the obligatory last chapter (wherein it is explained that We Are All Doomed), the rest of the book, the vast vast majority, is about telling you science that you probably don't know.
I had heard, generally speaking, that the return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park had turned out to be a good thing. I had also heard the phrase "keystone species", often the apex predator of an ecosystem, whose loss is even more devastating to that ecosystem than other species. But I had not read all of the science (and science history) about how this works.
Why, for example, is it important for wolves to hunt moose in Yellowstone, rather than just having some human hunters go thin the herd from time to time? Why is it that having wolves in Yellowstone, is good for aspen trees? Why is the abundance of deer in much of North America a disaster for wildflowers? Why is the loss of big cats and wolves bad for the songbird population?
Much of it comes down to that old phrase, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", but not everything. For example, the kind of deer (or moose, or whatever) that a human hunter picks out for a spot on their wall, or the place where they decide to hunt for it, are different than if it's an apex predator doing the hunting.
There is also some fascinating discussion of the uncomfortable (to those on the political left, especially) fact that extinction in North America started long before 1492. It is odd to think of North America, just a few thousand years ago, with mammoths (thirteen feet at the shoulder), wild horses, giant bison, giant camels, a beaver as big as a bear, the saber-tooth cat, the dire wolf, a native American cheetah, and a bear with the shoulder-height of a moose. They all lived in North America, and within a few thousand years of the coming of humans, they were all gone. Coincidence?
It is not just fascinating imagery like this that makes the book a good read, though. There was a whole generation-long struggle within the scientific community over whether or not to accept the fact that nature, really, is a strict hierarchy, and it's the ones at the top that matter the most in many ways. It is no secret that scientists are, on the whole, considerably left of center, and it is hard to think of a concept more ill-suited to easy acceptance.
But, to their credit, scientists did (eventually) allow themselves to be swayed by the evidence, and this is a great book to help explain how it happened. Then, in the final (and shortest) chapter, you can also read how We Are All Doomed. Or, like me, you can kind of skim that part. It's a good book nonetheless.
December 28, 2020
In the nonfiction novel, Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators, published in the year 2008, William Stolzenburg explains about how the lack of big predators like wolves and grizzly bears affects all ecosystems in a shocking way. The beginning half of the novel covers the history of how scientists from all walks of life compiled their knowledge together to prove that predators are paramount for the survival of ecosystems and, in the long run, humans. Stolzenburg also includes the difficulties that these scientists faced to prove their theories true not only to the public, but to their fellow scientists, who were the biggest obstacle. The second half of the novel talks about what scientists and their allies have done to help decrease the impacts of the problem, from reintroducing predators to forming groups like The Defenders of Wildlife that pay money for the protection of predators. To convey these points clearly, Stolzenburg writes about various experiments in detail, such as the experiment done by Robert T. Paine, where Paine throws starfish into the sea to see how the organism’s primary prey, mussels, react. This was one of the first experiments that confirmed how necessary predators are to an ecosystem because without the starfish praying on the mussels, the mussels took over the small ecosystem, evicting other organisms that also lived there. This leads to the fact that the more society kills predators that we classify as dangerous, the more likely that the ecosystems that once stood today will not survive in the coming future.
I strongly recommend this novel to high school students because they are the next generation that has a chance of making a difference for the predators that currently reside on our planet. William Stolzenburg does a wonderful job informing the public about the scientists that figured out this mystery and what is at stake when people kill predators without regard. He does though use many scientific names to refer to some of the organisms, which may be confusing to readers. Reading the book, I learned about the horrible things humans have done due to fear of predatory animals and the need for resources. It also amazes me how the public refuses to admit to the truth unless it satisfies their own agenda. For example, when James A. Estes, a scientist, wrote a paper about how the sea otters were disappearing due to killer whales, the public saw it as a potential excuse to kill killer whales. Sadly, this kind of misinterpretation happens far too often in our growing society, as it is easier to accept what benefits us rather than what doesn’t. Despite the good parts of the novel, there is one thing that could be improved upon. The fact that Stolzenburg refers to the organisms by their scientific names most of the time can be a bit intimidating for anyone not familiar with the names. This can be quite distracting for a reader, especially when they don’t remember what a scientific name refers to, which in turn ruins the flow of the text. Even though I strongly recommend this book for high school students, adults can still benefit from reading this novel because every adult’s decision can affect the life of a young predator coming into the world in the future.
I strongly recommend this novel to high school students because they are the next generation that has a chance of making a difference for the predators that currently reside on our planet. William Stolzenburg does a wonderful job informing the public about the scientists that figured out this mystery and what is at stake when people kill predators without regard. He does though use many scientific names to refer to some of the organisms, which may be confusing to readers. Reading the book, I learned about the horrible things humans have done due to fear of predatory animals and the need for resources. It also amazes me how the public refuses to admit to the truth unless it satisfies their own agenda. For example, when James A. Estes, a scientist, wrote a paper about how the sea otters were disappearing due to killer whales, the public saw it as a potential excuse to kill killer whales. Sadly, this kind of misinterpretation happens far too often in our growing society, as it is easier to accept what benefits us rather than what doesn’t. Despite the good parts of the novel, there is one thing that could be improved upon. The fact that Stolzenburg refers to the organisms by their scientific names most of the time can be a bit intimidating for anyone not familiar with the names. This can be quite distracting for a reader, especially when they don’t remember what a scientific name refers to, which in turn ruins the flow of the text. Even though I strongly recommend this book for high school students, adults can still benefit from reading this novel because every adult’s decision can affect the life of a young predator coming into the world in the future.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 2, 2017
3.5 stars. The first part of this book was a little rough for me – it just felt a little unorganized and tedious. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was invested by the middle of the book. The chapters became laid out quite well, each one illustrating the significance of a particular predator. The wolves at Yellowstone was definitely one of the “sexier” stories, but I also enjoyed about reading the coyotes in CA, mountain lions at Zion, and the otters and the kelp forests. They were all well-written and compelling.
Overall, the book left me with a sad feeling. There can be such a case made for the return of large predators – the stories laid out in the book are romantic and inspiring. But I think humans in general are fearful, and have the “not in my backyard” mindset. Big predators are scary and we don’t want to think about them being in our immediate areas … we long to see predators, but we are also relieved that they are secured. The stories of people living in mega-predator country are inspiring though – there may be no simple solutions, but they are making it work.
Other stray thoughts: shifting baseline syndrome is an interesting and sad phenomenon. Good science is important. I was surprised that the author used some inflammatory labels for some predators (“killers”, “murderers”, etc). This book also did a good job illustrating the importance of good storytelling (whether it meant to or not).
Overall, good read. It certainly ended up being a good book club book – lots to talk and think about.
Overall, the book left me with a sad feeling. There can be such a case made for the return of large predators – the stories laid out in the book are romantic and inspiring. But I think humans in general are fearful, and have the “not in my backyard” mindset. Big predators are scary and we don’t want to think about them being in our immediate areas … we long to see predators, but we are also relieved that they are secured. The stories of people living in mega-predator country are inspiring though – there may be no simple solutions, but they are making it work.
Other stray thoughts: shifting baseline syndrome is an interesting and sad phenomenon. Good science is important. I was surprised that the author used some inflammatory labels for some predators (“killers”, “murderers”, etc). This book also did a good job illustrating the importance of good storytelling (whether it meant to or not).
Overall, good read. It certainly ended up being a good book club book – lots to talk and think about.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 188 reviews