Watching Wildlife: Central America (Lonely Planet) [Paperback]

Luke Hunter (Author), David Andrew (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2002

Aimed at experts and beginners, this guide covers the wildlife of Belize, Costa Rica and Panama. The colour photographs highlight the region's variety of mammals, birds and reptiles.

Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: Lonely Planet Publications; 1St Edition edition (September 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1864500344
• ISBN-13: 978-1864500349
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #759,619 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #24 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Animals > Birds & Birdwatching > Excursion Guides

More About the Author

Dr. Luke Hunter is an Australian biologist and is the President of Panthera (www.panthera.org), a New York-based conservation nonprofit he helped to create in 2006, which is dedicated to the range-wide conservation of the world's wild cat species. Before joining Panthera, Hunter headed the Wildlife Conservation Society's Great Cats Program and taught wildlife ecology at several universities in Australia and South Africa.

Hunter has worked on the ecology and conservation of carnivores since 1992. His doctorate and post-doctoral research developed methods to re-establish populations of large cats in areas where they had been extirpated from Southern Africa. His current projects include developing conservation strategies for lions across their African range, assessing the effects of sport hunting on leopards and lions, working with teams in the Brazilian Pantanal to reduce the conflict between ranchers and jaguars, and the first intensive study of Persian leopards and the last surviving Asiatic cheetahs in Iran. Hunter supervises graduate students working on carnivores around the world including the first comprehensive studies on some little-known species such as African golden cats and Sunda clouded leopards.

Luke Hunter has contributed to over 100 scientific papers and popular articles, and has published six books that are available on Amazon, including Cats of Africa: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation, Cheetah, Watching Wildlife: Southern Africa, Cheetahs, and Watching Wildlife: Central America. His sixth and current book, A Field Guide to Carnivores of the World, was released in 2011. He lives in New York state with his wife Sophie and a menagerie of rescued domestic carnivores.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great guide for wildlife watchers., March 1, 2007

By 

Sarah "wildmttrail" (Davis, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Watching Wildlife: Central America (Lonely Planet) (Paperback)

I brought this book along with me to Central America and am glad that I did. It's a great little book, with detailed information on different species of wildlife found in Central America, where they are most likely to be seen, and so on. There is also detailed information on different parks to visit and what you may see there.

I used this book along with Central America on a Shoestring by Lonely Planet. You might just buy the book to help plan your trip, or to bring along with you as well. I found that the Watching Wildlife guidebook had a lot of extra information on parks and wildlife not included in the Shoestring guide, so was glad I had it with me. You might find more detailed information on parks in other guidebooks, so I would consider my interests and a guidebook's coverage of parks and wildlife in deciding whether to bring this book in addition to another general guidebook. The book is a tad bit heavier than you might expect, perhaps because of lots of glossy photos. On the other hand, this book can help you identify many animals you may see, and because it includes natural history information on different species, it can serve as a travel guide and natural history guide in one.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very helpful, March 29, 2007

By 

C. P. Lincoln (Cleveland, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Watching Wildlife: Central America (Lonely Planet) (Paperback)

We just returned from Panama and Costa Rica and this was the best of all the books I got. Far from complete; but none of the resources are, it was the closest to complete. I really appreciated the layout, the amount of information packed into it, the features on each animal such as where you were most likely to see it, the area it covers (all of Central America which is hard to find) and the size being small enough to carry along on a hike. Good purchase and I will keep it!