Literature Review for "The Beast in the Garden"

"Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail.  Without it, nothing can succeed."
-Abraham Lincoln


An absolutely phenomenal book. This text takes the approach of a crime solver novel. We start out with an unfortunate scene in which a young man is attacked and partially consumed by a mountain lion. Then, we go back to several years to when the problem first started as innocent mistakes by ignorant people. The community of Boulder, Colorado had chosen to allow deer populations to grow uncontrolled. During this time, cougars had yet to return to the area since they had been extirpated in the early 1900's by miners and settlers. Deer, being a favorite food of cougars, attracted cougars to the area, and led to burgeoning lion populations by the early 1990's.

In areas where humans and wildlife interact there is sure to be conflict, Colorado is no exception. I don't want to ruin the book so I won't summarize the plot any further. However, I must note that it is exceptionally easy to get sucked into this book.

The relevance of this book to our class arose from the human dimension of the problem. The author does an exceptional job of voicing how public opinion has shaped policy along Colorado's Front Range.

The book also chronicles the life of a wildlife biologist who foresaw the looming disaster, and tried to persuade the government and the people into taking healthy, science based preventative measures. This individual faces an uphill battle the entire way, which I find to be quite representative of our field. Regardless of how much evidence he has to back up his position, he cannot sway the voters, at least not until a human life is lost.

The final chapter provides an exceptional summary of the issue, recommendations for the future, and an educated guess as to what the future holds. Most notably is a prediction that cougars will one day spread east until they reach the Atlantic Coast. Their journey will potentially bring balance to deer populations of the east, but will also bring about a new age of human wildlife conflict: an age in which people must learn to live with animals that could consume them.

Without going further in-depth, I have a quote the gave me pause for thought: "Time does not run backward. We can bring the lions and wolves and bears back to America, and there are many good reasons to do so--ecological reasons, spiritual reasons--but these great animals will not restore a mythic past, cannot erase the need for human intervention."