ujoe's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.25
lit_chick's review against another edition
5.0
What a great book! I couldn't put it down. I picked it up because I recently read Max Brooks' "Devolution" and he mentioned that this was one of his influences. You can see the themes from "A Beast in the Garden" deftly woven in to "Devolution." I also like the narrative flow of the book, it read like a novel.
twozsinapod's review against another edition
3.0
This was okay. I didn't dislike it, but it isn't something I'd normally pick up and read on my own. It does do a decent job of being educational while still telling a story, which places it a step above other books I've had to read for classes.
halliesimon's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
medium-paced
5.0
pleasereadittome's review against another edition
5.0
[4.5 stars] David Baron’s nonfiction account of how mountain lions descended the Rocky Mountain foothills into Boulder, Colo., neighborhoods is the best environmental nonfiction book I’ve read, and, quite frankly, one of the finest nonfiction books I’ve read – and that’s a genre I frequent.
Seemingly unfazed by humans, the mountain lions’ natural hunting instincts shifted from deer to domestic animals, and over the course of two years residents would witness an ever-escalating ecological calamity that would come to a head on a running trail.
Baron presents the events as a tense, slowly unfolding disaster complete with disagreeing citizens, unconcerned politicians and a few people determined to raise the alarm. If you replaced the great white shark in “Jaws” with a group of mountain lions, the plot of that movie (I haven’t read the original) and this book would be eerily similar.
Unlike Timothy C. Winegard’s “The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator” and Dan Egan’s “The Death and Life of the Great Lakes,” that often lacked focus and bogged the reader down with minutiae, Baron keeps the narrative tight and focused.
While some chapters might contain a few pages about the United States’ history with mountain lions, or President Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy of conservation that influenced modern approaches to human and wildlife symbiosis, the focus stays on Boulder in the late-1980s and early-1990s, and the political and environmental situation that led to the proliferation of urban mountain lions.
While Baron does have a few writing flourishes that seemed a bit extra – for example, he starts one chapter with “Two days after the old year yielded to the new…” – the narrative is well-researched, accessibly written, and frankly, terrifying. Oftentimes while reading about the mountain lion encounters my pulse raced.
This is a nonfiction book that on the surface appears to be about one, rather niche micro-history, but it speaks to a bigger discussion – how humans are impacting wild animals from the ice caps to our backyards.
As someone that’s lived in densely populated areas my entire life, the assorted rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, birds – both of song and prey – and the occasional deer, opossum or raccoon don’t raise many alarms. But the decisions we make about our “land” can have devastating consequences to our local ecosystem. Reading this raised my “think global, act local” consciousness.
Seemingly unfazed by humans, the mountain lions’ natural hunting instincts shifted from deer to domestic animals, and over the course of two years residents would witness an ever-escalating ecological calamity that would come to a head on a running trail.
Baron presents the events as a tense, slowly unfolding disaster complete with disagreeing citizens, unconcerned politicians and a few people determined to raise the alarm. If you replaced the great white shark in “Jaws” with a group of mountain lions, the plot of that movie (I haven’t read the original) and this book would be eerily similar.
Unlike Timothy C. Winegard’s “The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator” and Dan Egan’s “The Death and Life of the Great Lakes,” that often lacked focus and bogged the reader down with minutiae, Baron keeps the narrative tight and focused.
While some chapters might contain a few pages about the United States’ history with mountain lions, or President Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy of conservation that influenced modern approaches to human and wildlife symbiosis, the focus stays on Boulder in the late-1980s and early-1990s, and the political and environmental situation that led to the proliferation of urban mountain lions.
While Baron does have a few writing flourishes that seemed a bit extra – for example, he starts one chapter with “Two days after the old year yielded to the new…” – the narrative is well-researched, accessibly written, and frankly, terrifying. Oftentimes while reading about the mountain lion encounters my pulse raced.
This is a nonfiction book that on the surface appears to be about one, rather niche micro-history, but it speaks to a bigger discussion – how humans are impacting wild animals from the ice caps to our backyards.
As someone that’s lived in densely populated areas my entire life, the assorted rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, birds – both of song and prey – and the occasional deer, opossum or raccoon don’t raise many alarms. But the decisions we make about our “land” can have devastating consequences to our local ecosystem. Reading this raised my “think global, act local” consciousness.
pseud0bread's review against another edition
4.0
Baron does a very good job of making a story of a single incident read like a thriller. The amount of research necessary to do something this comprehensive is impressive, and it is woven together in a way that is equal parts accessible and suspenseful. Even though the incident in question is a tragedy, his book serves as an insight into the world that we are constantly moving towards, whether on purpose or not.
susanbevans's review against another edition
4.0
An extremly well written account of the driving forces behind the return of large predators to suburbia.
m_chisholm's review against another edition
5.0
I assigned this book for my advisees to read for summer reading at the school I work at (yes I know I ended this sentence on a preposition, get over it). Given that my school is all boys I figured a narrative about marauding cats would at least stand a chance against Pokemon GO for attention. I have yet to figure out how they have responded, but I have been overwhelmed at the quality of this book both from a research and craft standpoint. To be honest, I read some of this when I lived near Boulder in 2010-11 after seeing my first (and only) mountain lion jump across my car in the winter in Boulder Canyon while driving back to Nederland. The cat continued downriver on a snow and ice covered Boulder Creek padding softly away from me in the snow.
Baron's thoroughly researched monograph on the resurgence of cats in "suburban wilderness" is actually a small story with a broader comment on the field of environmental history (the subtopic of my Master's degree), specifically how wilderness relates to today's world of suburban sprawl. He cites William Cronon as an appropriate prophet foretelling the creation of wilderness in areas we least expect to find it, like the backyards of Boulder's modern monster mansions. He also criticizes (passively) the myth that untamed nature can live in seamless harmony with consumer driven human culture; both are forces at odds with each other butting heads in the foothills of the Front Range.
I've always quietly cheered when I heard somewhere in the news that an animal had attacked or eaten an otherwise unsuspecting or interfering homo sapiens. I suppose that I felt that these animals could be vindicated for a few human snacks after over a century of wholesale and mostly meaningless slaughter (66,665 puma deaths vs. 15 human ones in the last century (239)). I've even told others that I wouldn't mind "going that way" (being devoured by a wild animal, of course in the wild). That perspective has been tempered somewhat as I've gotten older, which is evident from the fact that I've come to agree with David Baron that nature needs to be managed in order to leave it alone (238). As a new father, I certainly don't want my daughter being devoured on a hike when she's five, but I also don't think the answer is to open up bounties on mountain lions anymore. Baron takes a middle road, and though I haven't done any recent research, his suggestions seem the wisest for harmony between the two species going forward.
Baron's thoroughly researched monograph on the resurgence of cats in "suburban wilderness" is actually a small story with a broader comment on the field of environmental history (the subtopic of my Master's degree), specifically how wilderness relates to today's world of suburban sprawl. He cites William Cronon as an appropriate prophet foretelling the creation of wilderness in areas we least expect to find it, like the backyards of Boulder's modern monster mansions. He also criticizes (passively) the myth that untamed nature can live in seamless harmony with consumer driven human culture; both are forces at odds with each other butting heads in the foothills of the Front Range.
I've always quietly cheered when I heard somewhere in the news that an animal had attacked or eaten an otherwise unsuspecting or interfering homo sapiens. I suppose that I felt that these animals could be vindicated for a few human snacks after over a century of wholesale and mostly meaningless slaughter (66,665 puma deaths vs. 15 human ones in the last century (239)). I've even told others that I wouldn't mind "going that way" (being devoured by a wild animal, of course in the wild). That perspective has been tempered somewhat as I've gotten older, which is evident from the fact that I've come to agree with David Baron that nature needs to be managed in order to leave it alone (238). As a new father, I certainly don't want my daughter being devoured on a hike when she's five, but I also don't think the answer is to open up bounties on mountain lions anymore. Baron takes a middle road, and though I haven't done any recent research, his suggestions seem the wisest for harmony between the two species going forward.