Fuzz: When nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach 336 pages
Mary Roach is one of my favorite authors willing to go above and beyond to get the facts for her books. This was another exceptional read as only Mary Roach can tell it. She goes into actual cases from over the last few hundred years of animals being charged through the legal system for their alledged crimes against humanity to today's scientific solutions where scientists, animal behaviorists, and unfortunately for the animals in some cases and some countries the law. Back in the day, Ex-pats who moved to Austrailia and New Zealand missed going rabbit hunting (Sounds innocent enough) so the bright idea was to bring rabbits to the area. However, rabbits are an invasive species when there aren't enough predators to keep their numbers in check, not to mention plenty of the correct food growing naturally. The cute little buggers came in and ate up the grass the sheep in New Zealand had been feeding on, proliferated with phenomenal alacrity and ended up hitting the sheep industry with the wallop of Thor. Millions of grassland acres were virtually swallowed up and lost due to Bugs and his buddies. The govt. was pissed and fought back bringing in Norway Rats and Skotes. O.K. this made a big dent in the the rabbit population but it also made a big dent in the local native bird population. And these species populated the area uncannily fast and furiously, too! Things got way worse. They were wiping out birds and local small creatures faster than they could even land on the endangered list, they were GONE. Next big idea - bring in cats - worked for a while then this, too, became such an issue that now cute little cats have posted bounties on them. Electric fences are put up in the outback areas to electrify cats, rabbits and all other vermin and of course Aborigine people are more than welcome to eat as many as they can. There are groups squalling for no one to be able to own a cat or rabbit as a pet without earning jail time and huge fines. And that is just down under. The Americas have their own issues with moose, bears, wild cats/pumas/mountain lions, and world over there are squabbles with monkeys of varying species, rats, Eurasia and Africa with elephants having road rage issues with their right to passage on their centuries instinctual homelands, along with leopards, etc. eeking out their own existence in the shrinking land available to them as humans encroach more and more on what was once wilderness free of human intervenion. Mary Roach tells it all and tells it well. I recommend this and all her books to highschoolers on up.
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