Customer Reviews

Lost Wild America: The Story of Our Extinct and Vanishing Wildlife

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Pros: If you wanted to know how many American species were discovered, how they are tracked, how they live, and how some of them are no more, this is a concise guide that offers that information. The chapters are divided by family and there is a good index. There are also illustrations of some species that cannot be seen anymore, or for which there are so few members that there is likely going to be no further generations. There are details about how still others are being saved and repopulated, with the details about how.

Cons: The quantitative data can get somewhat repetitive at times, but numbers are sometimes the the only information, in terms of pelts or bodies, that are available. It takes a strange positive tone near the end after recounting the many ways that human influence has directly destroyed entire populations and continues to do so. It delivers a single, somewhat conflicted solution, and I can't help thinking i would have been more effective if it let the reader come to their own conclusions about how to solve the problem of dwindling biodiversity and diminishing resources.

Conclusion: This book is a comprehensive history and catalog of species extinct or endangered in North America, although a lot of species migrate to other parts of the world. It describes how species dwindle, how some died off, and how others were restored. The case is well established about the value of some of them, which is really the most important information available from this text.