Cull of the Wild
Killing in the Name of Conservation
by Hugh Warwick
I am defenseless against a good pun — so when I saw the title “Cull of the Wild” I could not resist the urge to check it out. And just reading the preface convinced me that I had just met an author of my favorite type: inquisitive, with a dry wit and an open mind.
Killing animals in the name of conservation is a very controversial subject, usually raised in the heat of one-sided attacks on people or organizations that do it. But things are more complicated than that. I have been interested in this issue for many years, and it troubles me as much as it troubles the author — so I appreciate his approach. As he writes, “The basis of this book is the collision between heart and head”.
Even if we can accept the fact that sometimes killing one animal for the sake of another is justified, there are still so many questions: How do we decide which species are worth saving and which should be decimated? Is there an ecologically perfect state that our actions should restore? Which animals are invasive, and which can be treated as native?
Hugh Wawick asks these questions and many more, visiting places and talking to experts, bringing back so many fascinating examples and admitting that there are no easy answers here. But I agree with him that “the arguments about letting nature take her course are redundant as we have already intervened, considerably”.
Highly recommended for anyone who loves nature and cares about its preservation.
Thanks to the publisher, Bloomsbury Wildlife, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.
