Customer Reviews

Bobcat: Master of Survival

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

From the vivid introduction through to the 34-page bibliography, this is a well-constructed story about our crepuscular neighbors the bobcat and Canada lynx. Hansen brings years of field experience, moral sense, and an academic knowledge of bobcats. He outlines research needs and awakens a sense of the increasing dangers to these creatures.

Based on observations by others, tracks in the snow, and scat in the trail, I've been aware that wildcats were nearby. This book, with fine photographs, makes them substantial.

Okay, I confess I'm a big fan of bobcats, so I may be a bit biased, but if you have any interest in these animals, this is a must-have resource. It has up-to-date information on bobcat behavior, biology, habitat, and conservation. The material is well-organized and has a good bit of detail without being unduly technical. The book also has a center section with a few photos. However, don't buy this book if you simply want glossy wild cat pictures (there are better books for that). This is a book for people who like to keep reference books on their favorite animals (yes, I'm one of those).

This is a good book for bobcat enthusiasts, or those who really like wild cats. It contains all rounded, non-technical coverage on bobcat lineage, appearance, anatomy, behavior, life cycle, ecology, hunting, management and conservation issues. You may like it if you are interested in wild animals and conservation generally.

There are several pages of glossy color photographs in the middle of the book. For a book on bobcats, I would say the more photographs, the better. Photographs help attract young readers, gently easing them into the world of wildlife and conservation. Photographs also attract readers who like wild cats generally but who may not otherwise slog through 200 pages of narratives.

Instilling a love for wild animals is the best strategy for promoting their conservation.

This book is 50% economics and management of bobcats as a resource (I found this hard to read and useless for most people buying this book) and 50% information I enjoyed about ecology and behavior.

I am an avid reader of outdoor and nature books. I rated this book as a 3 because for the average reader of nature books this is not a "pleasure" read. It is more like a textbook for a graduate wildlife biology course.

The author is an expert in the field. Unfortunately he writes in a technical manner- more like a report. He begins a paragraph with a statement and then proceeds to validate it using quotes and references to several other researchers. This makes for tedious reading.

if you are even REMOTELY curious/interested in bobcats, this book is for you! it's packed with the very latest research info and facts that are brought together in a very interesting and readable way. it's a book that is hard to put down.

.....enjoy!!!!!!!!

barb

This is an exhausted treatment of what is known about bobcats. The author has put together both his own investigations and the literature of bobcat natural history. I am impressed. But it is not a book for the general public although the book ends with a plea for public participation in protecting the bobcat. As in his book on cougars, Hansen wasn't able to make up his mind what kind of book he wanted to write and the editors of Oxford who should have been riding herd on him were negligent. As with many popular books on nature he begins each chapter with a personal story. The is a useful literary artifice but then the chapter should not have been bedecked with references to almost ever sentence. We general readers don't care. And the experts are not interested in the author's touching anecdotes. So I made my way through the book, suffering the introduction of technical words that were not often used in other contexts. The book badly needs a glossary. And I learned a lot, almost too much. Bobcats have such varied behaviors that is seems hard to figure out where to find them and or boil down their behavior into simple generalizations. I guess that contributes to their survival. I like that trappers get a lot more males, but Hansen never connects that to his mention that females are more cautious than males. And survive they seem to be doing despite the intense hunting pressure. If Hansen wants to get the Animal Liberation Front and PETA on the band wagon he would reiterate over and over again that almost 100,000 bobcats are harvested each year. Bambi lovers what are you going to do about this slaughter? And much of it is using dogs. And dogs in many states are allowed to tree bobcats off season for training. Talk about cruelty. We lash out at birders who use their IPhone bird call app to entice birds out of the bush, which if the 42 million birders in this country would do similarly would kill the birds as the Chinese under Mao did to starlings by millions of Chinese clapping every time they saw a starling. The birds died by the hundreds of thousands of exhaustion (leading to an outbreak of insects).

That cars kill as many mule deer as hunters was dropped in passing by Hansen. If deer are indeed corn rats as Nelson Heart and Blood: Living with Deer in America says, then why not rejoice except for the risk to the driver. Black-tail deer are a plague in my yard eating every native I plant and laughing at my thrown missiles, slingshot and air pistol. I guess we could eliminate bobcats, but maybe only in the north of their range. I like that they are more powerful than Lynx because the latter look more viscous, and, at least, up north where I hang out Lynx smack of wolverine. But we are all wrong. They are pussycats. There are so many facts in Hansen's book that I can't summarize them even for myself. So have garnered only a few simple rules to aid in my understanding bobcats which I see from time to time where I live. Bobcats like ridges? Or more realistically the ledges which are so abundant in the glacial till of New England. My friend Bob T. used to track them there. I did coyotes. If I ever see him I need to ask about this. Here in CA I mostly find bobcats on the edges of fields. One used to sit longingly staring at the cows which I assume it could not take down. I like that bobcats kill differently than mt. lions. They go for the jugular rather than the cervical vertebrae. It is interesting that I never see bobcats in the woods, but in the coastal scrub. Once my buddy Steve and I tried to follow a bobcat which popped up near us in the scrub at Abbott's Lagoon in the Pt. Reyes National Seashore. It vanished in the brush as we tried to surround it. After a few minutes I looked up at Steve and said, it probably sitting invisible a few feet away thinking what dummies the two big fella's are clumping around blindly. But in clumping we found a little clearing where the hawks landed with the ducks they would swoop in and pick off the ponds. Amidst the feathers was a tag from a coot born a few month before in central Alberta.

I wish I could remember more from Hansen's book. I should own it as a reference book, although I am not sure how much it would help me with the bobcats where I live. Besides the many experts he mentions that I can track down for references, the hero that emerges from the book is Susan Morse. Her work in her neighborhood of Vermont and her teaching people through her organization, Keeping Track, is, as Hansen so rightfully points out, the way to go. While not rejecting the "fat man" biology of gps, laser cameras, etc, we need more people observing nature in their back yard. Especially with an animal of such varied and local behaviors as the bobcat. Susan's pictures in the Cougar book are exquisite. I wish Hansen had used more of them in "Bobcat." If I bought books rather than using libraries, I would have this book on my shelf for reference and reverence. Kevin Hansen you have done naturalists and the bobcat a great service. Thank you.

Charlie Fisher author of Dismantling Discontent: Buddha's Way Through Darwin's World

Pretty much everything you wanted to know about bobcats, and how that relates to wild life management.