The Carnivore Way: Coexisting with and Conserving North America's Predators

by Cristina Eisenberg

What would it be like to live in a world with no predators roaming our landscapes? Would their elimination, which humans have sought with ever greater urgency in recent times, bring about a pastoral, peaceful human civilization? Or in fact is their existence critical to our own, and do we need to be doing more to assure their health and the health of the landscapes they need to thrive?
 
In The Carnivore Way, Cristina Eisenberg argues compellingly for the necessity of top predators in large, undisturbed landscapes, and how a continental-long corridor—a “carnivore way”—provides the room they need to roam and connected landscapes that allow them to disperse. Eisenberg follows the footsteps of six large carnivores—wolves, grizzly bears, lynx, jaguars, wolverines, and cougars—on a 7,500-mile wildlife corridor from Alaska to Mexico along the Rocky Mountains. Backed by robust science, she shows how their well-being is a critical factor in sustaining healthy landscapes and how it is possible for humans and large carnivores to coexist peacefully and even to thrive.

University students in natural resource science programs, resource managers, conservation organizations, and anyone curious about carnivore ecology and management in a changing world will find a thoughtful guide to large carnivore conservation that dispels long-held myths about their ecology and contributions to healthy, resilient landscapes.

Genres: Nonfiction, Animals, Science, Environment, Wildlife

308 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2014

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eisenberg makes the case for maintaining populations of the big carnivores: bears, wolves, cougars, wolverines, bobcats, and jaguars. The most important point is about the need for corridors to connect fragmented populations. Most interestingly, she relates her experiences with the predators, as she discusses the problems that these animals face in surviving as well as possible solutions to save them.

[Nola · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the writing, you get the feeling that the author is a real person. She has advanced degrees, her grammar is impeccable, and she doesn’t reveal intimate details of her life, but she still conveys the sense of being a human much like her readers. She is one of those writers that gracefully gives the impression that anyone could do what she has done, showing instead of how difficult and how much work was involved, how and why she was inspired to study carnivores. And she has studied carnivores extensively! She can write about the history of these animals in the American West, the attitudes toward them, and the legal statuses that came about because of those attitudes, and the carnivores themselves. She has aligned her personal life and her work around her interest in western American carnivores, and, from that, this book takes both breadth and depth of knowledge. I won’t be able to remember everything I read here. There is too much information for that. It would make an excellent textbook, but this is not to imply that it is a boring collection of facts. It is much more readable than that. The only difficulty I had was trying to keep track of the many people in the book. My mind boggled at learning so many people’s names and professions in the short time required to read the book. The author had the advantage of meeting these people in person, sometimes knowing them over a long period of time, working and spending time with them. I didn’t, and after the first part of the book, I gave up to an extent. This did mean less comprehension, since I wasn’t always tracking with whether the person being quoted was a ranger from a certain national park or someone who ran a wildlife study in another area, but it was much more relaxing not to have my brain cells constantly overheating. The first part of the book talks about the ecology of carnivores in western America and how they are shaped by and how they shape western America. The review of the Banff Wildlife Crossings Project and where other wildlife crossings might be needed is particularly interesting. The second part of the book is chapters on each of the carnivores. Each chapter is loosely formatted to contain similar information, not necessarily exactly in the same place, but close enough to be easy to adapt to and to get a good comparative picture of these carnivores. The differences in the chapters are organically driven by differences in the animals. They have different natural and legal histories, which come out in different stories. Each chapter has a map showing the distribution of that chapter’s carnivore. It would be nice if the maps had more shading contrast. The animal distribution is shown with white dots, and the map background is basically dark, but it has light swirls that diminish its contrast with the dots. The last chapter in the second part of the book is about coexistence with carnivores and its possibility in the modern world. One oddity is that ”Wolf” is not found in the index, although other carnivores are.

[Mathieu · Rating 4 out of 5]

The carnivore way is the range of mountains from Mexico north through Washington, BC, and into Alaska. This complete region is home to several large carnivores which need this large area for the species to survive.

Eisenberg begins this book describing this region and the ecology of carnivores and corridors. Readers find out about tropic cascade and the importance top predators have on the ecosystem, on every ecosystem. This is a good education on environmental systems that span the continent.

Part two of the book is devoted to more details about specific carnivores: grizzly bear, wolf, wolverine, lynx, cougar, and jaguar. About each we learn of Eisenberg's personal experience with the species, where the species name came from, natural history, conservation history, ecological effects, and coexisting.

The final chapter, Earth Household, is powerful. Eisenberg presents us with a grand overview of why we need to preserve wildness and carnivores. She presents a short history of environmentalism in Canada, U.S., and Mexico; what worked and what did not; what must change. Again, her personal experiences drive the message home about the need to protect wildness: “where bears and humans can just be, means that eventually we'll get this right.” (p. 256)

“For we're all threads in the same cloth of creation, and we dwell in this Earth household together.” — p. 256, from Gary Snyder, Earth House Hold

[Kaitlyn Jacobs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really important message and VERY interesting; just a bit repetitive for me, already familiar with a lot of the topics.

[Michelle Padilla · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to read this for a college class. I found the writing quite dry. I tried several times to finish this book but only got half way through.

[Leslie Patten · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Christina Eisenberg's first book The Wolf's Tooth. That book took time and commitment as it was mostly like reading a scientific treatise with some personal stories thrown in. It was a good book that was unsure of who its audience was--lay person or scientist? Eisenberg's intent with The Wolf's Tooth was to show how top predators, and in particular wolves, have changed the landscape.

The "Landscape of Fear" idea is questionable and the full science is not in. [See Yellowstone Wildlife in Transition] Recent studies have shown otherwise--or you might say it is quite complex like everything in nature. Top-down, bottom-up is more true than simply wolves changing the landscape from more willows to more beavers, to elk behavior changing.

That being said, Eisenberg's second book, The Carnivore Way, seems like it was easily thrown together, still operating on her premise of wolves changing landscapes. What is great about this book is her advocating for top carnivores. Part One discusses wildlife corridors--along with some of Eisenberg's personal experiences. Those who already know about Y2Y or The Spine of the Continent will find this a review of the history of its conception and why it is necessary.

Part Two has 6 individual chapters, each one on a different top predator--cougar, grizzly bear, wolverine, wolf, lynx, jaguar. Nothing new here. Eisenberg breaks down each section into various headings "Are Grizzly Bears dangerous?", "Wolf Conservation History" etc.

This book has more of an idea of who its audience might be: Readers interested in wildlife but not familiar with the role of predators nor how we could co-exist with them. This is a book that reads fast, but if you are already familiar with the basic science of predators, you can skip this read.

[Kenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

The history and current state of large carnivore prospects in the "Carnivore Way", extending from Mexico through the northern Rockies then into Canada and the Yukon. Eisenberg is an extraordinary ecological scientist. Her multiple graduate level degrees in forest ecology, and her ability to write to interested laymen like myself, made this book readable, fascinating, and factual. Highly recommended if you have interest in the large ecological matrix of the Rocky Mountains.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This technically gets 2.5 stars. I did enjoy the observational prose that was not overly romantic, and appreciated that Eisenberg touched on most viewpoints in the discussion of the myriad issues facing such charismatic species as North American carnivores, the tendency to give the Latin name of a species the first time it was mentioned in a chapter interrupted the flow. I also felt it could've benefited from a moderately more in-depth discussion on conservation.

[Elisabetta · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...but ultimately, coexistence has to do with our human hearts." For anyone interested in large carnivore/omnivore land mammals of North America, this explains their history, current status, the intricacies of politics and nature, their effects etc in a way anyone can understand. Loved reading this.

[Foggygirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating read.

[Letters To Egypt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent book for people who don't already know a lot about carnivores. If you do I recommend you skip this book.

[Kira · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent intro to large carnivore conservation issues in North America .