Post by Travis on Apr 19, 2022 17:52:39 GMT -8
Heart of a Lion, William Stolzenburg
A Lone Cat's Walk Across America (*See footnote.)
I'd rate this one of the best books available about mountain lions. It is not only a documented account of the longest journey from its birthplace of any big cat — though it is that.
The book also covers natural history of big cats, history of treatment of mountain lions in the Americas, causes of extirpation from the East, biographies of lone persecutors like Ben Lilly, failures of conservationists like Teddy Roosevelt and the early Aldo Leopold, disastrous effects of overwhelming deer herds, management policies masquerading as science in the United States and Canada, the example of California's refusal to allow hunting, dispersal trends from places like the Black Hills, and the hysteria and false hopes that followed this cat across the country.
All this information is woven readably and articulately into the zig-zagging genetic trail of a big cat whose journey approached 10,000 miles between the Black Hills and Connecticut. During that long journey, the nameless feline athlete crossed countless pastures, backyards, cities, highways, and rivers. And in the nearly two years of its long journey, it took no pets or livestock, approached no playground children, and threatened no person — some of whom had evidently stood merely feet from it while in hiding.
Were this cat human, his story might be a great romance of the solitary individual "looking for love." But instead, the journey is marked by sensationalist news accounts, armed law enforcement, locked-down schools, determined vigilantes, and even some well-meaning people with a blind hope that the Eastern cougar population has not really been decimated, contrary to all evidence.
But the story ends on one fateful night with the lion's death on a Connecticut freeway. And mismanagement continues over what one authority called, one of the safest wild neighbors a community could have.
A Lone Cat's Walk Across America (*See footnote.)
I'd rate this one of the best books available about mountain lions. It is not only a documented account of the longest journey from its birthplace of any big cat — though it is that.
The book also covers natural history of big cats, history of treatment of mountain lions in the Americas, causes of extirpation from the East, biographies of lone persecutors like Ben Lilly, failures of conservationists like Teddy Roosevelt and the early Aldo Leopold, disastrous effects of overwhelming deer herds, management policies masquerading as science in the United States and Canada, the example of California's refusal to allow hunting, dispersal trends from places like the Black Hills, and the hysteria and false hopes that followed this cat across the country.
All this information is woven readably and articulately into the zig-zagging genetic trail of a big cat whose journey approached 10,000 miles between the Black Hills and Connecticut. During that long journey, the nameless feline athlete crossed countless pastures, backyards, cities, highways, and rivers. And in the nearly two years of its long journey, it took no pets or livestock, approached no playground children, and threatened no person — some of whom had evidently stood merely feet from it while in hiding.
Were this cat human, his story might be a great romance of the solitary individual "looking for love." But instead, the journey is marked by sensationalist news accounts, armed law enforcement, locked-down schools, determined vigilantes, and even some well-meaning people with a blind hope that the Eastern cougar population has not really been decimated, contrary to all evidence.
But the story ends on one fateful night with the lion's death on a Connecticut freeway. And mismanagement continues over what one authority called, one of the safest wild neighbors a community could have.
