Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators
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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. Publishers Weekly In this impassioned debut, wildlife journalist Stolzenburg examines predation's crucial role in the preservation of ecological diversity, painting nightmarish pictures of what happens when top carnivores are exterminated from ecosystems. Without sea otters to keep ravenous sea urchins in check, some ocean floors in the North Pacific have been stripped of kelp. In Yellowstone National Park, the eradication of wolves has resulted in a glut of elk that have trampled river banks and chewed down young trees. White-tailed deer have denuded the undergrowth in the forests of the eastern United States, because wolves and cougar have disappeared. Without large meat eaters, mid-size predators-raccoons, blue jays, crows, squirrels, opossums-have proliferated, to the detriment of songbird populations. In dazzling descriptions, Stolzenburg demonstrates how the delicate balance between predator and prey is so essential, and his book, rich in dramatic accounts of life and death in the wild, is powerful and compelling. (July)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Prologue: The Grizzly in the Room 11 Arms of the Starfish 62 Planet Predator 273 Forest of the Sea Otter 514 The Whale Killer 645 Ecological Meltdown 846 Bambi's Revenge 1007 Little Monsters' Ball 1208 Valley of Fear 1349 The Lions of Zion 15610 Dead Creatures Walking 16811 The Loneliest Predator 184Epilogue: Alone on the Hill 202Acknowledgments 219Notes 223Bibliography 231Index 279
