We’re kicking off a new monthly book club for anyone who loves a good story, curious creatures, and the wild places that make the Georgia coast special. Each month, we’ll highlight a fun, thought-provoking book about wildlife, nature, conservation, or the environment that one of our staff have read or is currently reading. Plus we’ll add in a few questions and ideas to help you take the conversation outside!
August — Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law
By Mary Roach
What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology. Combining little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and trespassing squirrels, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature’s lawbreakers. When it comes to “problem” wildlife, she finds, humans are more often the problem… and the solution. Fascinating, witty, and humane, Fuzz offers hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat.
Questions to think about:
- Where should we draw the line between protecting wildlife and protecting people/property?
- Which human-wildlife conflict in the book do you think had the most reasonable solution?
- What would you do if a wild animal repeatedly showed up in your yard?
- How much of human-wildlife conflict is actually caused by the animals and how much is caused by us changing their habitat?
