Customer Reviews

Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia: Mammals

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I own Grzimek's Mammal Encyclopedia, I-IV and find it an excellent and comprehensive reference work. The drawings and photographs are good as are the behavioral discriptions and geographical mapping. The mammalian orders are logically broken down to the species and sometimes subspecies level.

The text is readable and nontechnical, oftentimes referring to eyewitness accounts and opinions. There is discussion of species frequency and extinction dangers but, at least, this isn't overdone. There is little inclination, as I see in some texts and at some zoos, to declare most species 'endangered' and the endangerment is hunting.

To be certain, the environmental movement has moved from the point in which hunting [a practice that can be easily observed] is blamed as the culprit for animal rarity and extinction. Most workers now recognize that environmental degradation and loss are, by far, the greatest dangers to the welfare of most species.

Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Conquest of Mexico