2017 Reading Challenge discussion

Until I took on the 2015 Reading Challenge, I almost never read anything except for non-fiction, so I wanted to select a really good read for this category.

Jon Mooallem's book qualifies. This seems to be his only book book to date, although there's another one about a hippopotamus that seems to be available only as an audiobook. It might induce me to "read' my first audiobook.

As the title suggests, the work is more about people's dawning realization, mostly in the last 100 years or so, that wild animals are not forever than it is about the animals themselves. We meet Thomas Jefferson wearing a different hat, that of a mammoth-extinction denier, people who disguise themselves as generic large fowl to prevent endangered whooping cranes from imprinting on humans, and Humphrey the Humpback (whale) whose rescue and attendant well-wishers devastated the habitat of a less sexy endangered species.

Entertaining, educational and thought-provoking, and a very easy read.

I was surprised by the passion with which some others reviewed the book. This is apparently a love-it / hate-it read for conservationists, some of whom believe the fact that Mooallem is not a biologist detracts from the gravitas of his discussions.

Enlightening to me was the idea that "wildness is a matter of individual opinion", and that if we succeed in bringing back species we'll agonize over the choice between confining them to artificially restored habitats or allowing them to adapt to the rough and tumble world of strip malls and power lines that have replaced their original homes.