Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach

Mary Roach is known for her humorous approach to scientific questions, whether it's an exploration of the human digestive system in Gulp or the death industry in Stiff. In Fuzz, she examines the curious state of human-wildlife conflict and what should be done when the needs of non-human animals come in conflict with modern society?

Since I started reading this book, I feel like I've been bombarded with news stories about this human-wildlife conflict including orcas attacking boats and a sea otter stealing surfboards, so I think it's an interesting question that Roach is looking at here. As usual, she goes to interesting places and interviews interesting people and is occasionally funny in her phrasing and approach to discussing sometimes really difficult topics, including what is a humane way to kill wildlife. 

This is a very complicated conundrum because animals are adapting to things humans are doing that change their environments. Most of the time complete eradication of a pest animal is impossible because for every one animal you kill, there are dozens you don't even see. This book covers all attempts to do this, from guns to traps to poison to birth control. And that doesn't even touch the surface of the ethical question behind these strategies. Yes, I do admit that we set mousetraps in our basement and garage to keep mice out and lemme tell you about the ant bait we have in our downstairs bathroom.  But do humans have the right to do that? I mean, apex predators generally get to do whatever they want, but does that make it right?

Good book. If you like Roach's style, you'll like this!

4/5 stars

Lines of note:

When I was an undergrad it was all about, How do we bring these populations back? How do we count them, manage them? Now it’s all about human-wildlife interactions. How do we manage this? We’re seeing wildlife biologists going …” Breck mimes banging his head against the table. “The game has changed.” (page 51)

It's interesting to think about how thing have changed with climate change and human migration even in the course of my lifetime.

There are more bears, more wolves and coyotes, and ever more humans moving into their ranges. And no cultural consensus on what should be done when one of those animals ransacks a kitchen or kills some sheep or nips a steakhouse owner’s backside. We have human-wildlife conflict and human-human conflict. We have ranchers and farmers and animal lovers hating on each other in a cultural clash that can feel as dug-in as the politics in this country. Kill them all! Don’t harm a single one! (page 51) 

The divisions over how to treat wildlife threats are probably just as huge as the divide between Republicans and Democrats.

Here in Uttarakhand’s Pauri Garhwal district, leopards stalk humans as prey. Every year, in an area smaller than Delaware, leopards typically kill three or four humans. Between 2000 and 2016, Naha reports, leopards attacked humans 159 times. (page 78)

This is just one of the stats in the book that shows that interactions between humans and wildlife are getting more frequent and, at least occasionally, more deadly.

Things I looked up:

Karelian bear dog (page 38) - Finnish dog breed. SUPER CUTE. It's a hunting dog that hunts large animals including moose, bear, and wild boar.

Fraczek.marcin, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Go look them [yellow-eyed penguins] up. The candy red beak, the pink go-go boots, the yellow mask angling back from the eyes. They’re the Flash, they’re 1970s Bowie! I don’t mean to imply that adorable, showy species are of more value or somehow deserving of more concern. It’s just … damn. (page 253)

Mentions of the word hat:

In return, the military asked only for the feathers of the fallen, to be used as a flourish on the hats of the nation’s light-horsemen. (page 176) - Basically, emus were destroying wheat fields in Western Australia and the military was called in to kill the birds with machine guns. 

A series describing the same man using his hat as his main feature:

His cowboy hat is white felt, and the rest is mostly denim. (page 286)

We follow the hat into the interior of Roger’s grain elevator. (page 287)

He removes his hat with one hand and with the other, wipes away sweat. His face is tanned up to where the hat begins, then not. (page 287)

The man in the big white hat gives me hope. (page 288)