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Questions Raised by Quolls: Fatherhood and Conservation in an Uncertain World
‘They came at dusk, drawn to our camp site by the smell of food. We were cleaning up after dinner in the gathering dark, the pots and pans scraped empty but with traces of our meal still lingering, when we heard the noise of them: yapping calls, one to the other,
or just to themselves in their excitement.’
When Harry Saddler first encountered a quoll while camping with his father, he was struck by the beauty of the rare creature who had emerged from
the bush, sniffing for dinner. As Harry frantically snapped a photo, the fast-moving mammal disappeared back into the undergrowth.
Many years later that blurry photo remains a memory, as fleeting as the animal it captured. After two centuries of habitat destruction, quolls are now on the brink of extinction and Harry, contemplating fatherhood, aches for the absence of all the species lost to children born today.
Questions Raised by Quolls is an eloquent examination of extinction and conservation set against the backdrop of global climate change. From his own family lineage, Harry reveals how humanity’s ever-accelerating modern way of life runs parallel with the destruction of the natural world. Evocative and challenging, this eulogy to lost species will force you to question your place in the vast interconnected web of life.
or just to themselves in their excitement.’
When Harry Saddler first encountered a quoll while camping with his father, he was struck by the beauty of the rare creature who had emerged from
the bush, sniffing for dinner. As Harry frantically snapped a photo, the fast-moving mammal disappeared back into the undergrowth.
Many years later that blurry photo remains a memory, as fleeting as the animal it captured. After two centuries of habitat destruction, quolls are now on the brink of extinction and Harry, contemplating fatherhood, aches for the absence of all the species lost to children born today.
Questions Raised by Quolls is an eloquent examination of extinction and conservation set against the backdrop of global climate change. From his own family lineage, Harry reveals how humanity’s ever-accelerating modern way of life runs parallel with the destruction of the natural world. Evocative and challenging, this eulogy to lost species will force you to question your place in the vast interconnected web of life.
199 pages, Hardcover
First published June 21, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 13, 2021
‘Australia has the highest extinction rate in the world.’
I found this book a fascinating meditation on the consequences of habitat destruction. I have seen quolls, but only in wildlife sanctuaries and zoos in Tasmania. I know that there are Eastern Quolls at the Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary, which I have visited occasionally, but I have not yet seen them. But reading this book also reminds me of some of the introduced species I do see regularly, including foxes and rabbits in the Snowy Mountains.
I am reminded, too, of the footage of the last (captive) thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) who died in 1936. I walked past the site of the Beaumaris Zoo last time I was in Tasmania. I have since read that the last thylacine, named Benjamin, was in fact a female.
In this book, Mr Saddler reflects on the impact of human activity on our environment, on the species lost or critically endangered, on the efforts being made by some to save others. He reflects also on the responsibility of choosing whether to have children. The impact of the way we live has significant impacts on the natural world: the destruction of forests, the introduction of other species, the pollution of the environment.
This book made me stop, to think about the world in which I live and the world in which I would like future generations to live. It is too late for the thylacines, but we can still save the Tasmanian Devils and the quolls. At least I hope so.
‘The Australian landscape will never be what it was. Too many species have been killed, each one significant in its own way to the overall environment.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
I found this book a fascinating meditation on the consequences of habitat destruction. I have seen quolls, but only in wildlife sanctuaries and zoos in Tasmania. I know that there are Eastern Quolls at the Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary, which I have visited occasionally, but I have not yet seen them. But reading this book also reminds me of some of the introduced species I do see regularly, including foxes and rabbits in the Snowy Mountains.
I am reminded, too, of the footage of the last (captive) thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) who died in 1936. I walked past the site of the Beaumaris Zoo last time I was in Tasmania. I have since read that the last thylacine, named Benjamin, was in fact a female.
In this book, Mr Saddler reflects on the impact of human activity on our environment, on the species lost or critically endangered, on the efforts being made by some to save others. He reflects also on the responsibility of choosing whether to have children. The impact of the way we live has significant impacts on the natural world: the destruction of forests, the introduction of other species, the pollution of the environment.
This book made me stop, to think about the world in which I live and the world in which I would like future generations to live. It is too late for the thylacines, but we can still save the Tasmanian Devils and the quolls. At least I hope so.
‘The Australian landscape will never be what it was. Too many species have been killed, each one significant in its own way to the overall environment.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
June 7, 2024
Another wonderful book from Harry Saddler. Lifting off from a childhood encounter with a quoll through the loss of quolls and their habitat, research and projects to reintroduce quolls through various parts of Australia, the current state of quoll populations and the impacts of European colonisation on Indigenous animals and bird life. Harry also lives through the Covid-19 pandemic and ponders his position on becoming a parent.
A very thoughtful and beautifully written book.
A very thoughtful and beautifully written book.
September 29, 2021
Good, though a tad incoherent in places, and seemed to fold in on itself at times or lose its way, particularly noticeable in the last half, which reads more like a Medium article that just got a bit long.
Saddler has a lovely, easy-to-read voice, especially for non-fiction. At its best, he’s vivid and anchored, thoughtful and challenging, informative and informed.
For the Western Australians out there though, this is very much a book about Eastern States quolls, and you’re never really allowed to forget it. It’s almost as though we simply ceased to exist, even compared to mentioned states like Tasmania and South Australia.
The hardback cover is lovely.
Saddler has a lovely, easy-to-read voice, especially for non-fiction. At its best, he’s vivid and anchored, thoughtful and challenging, informative and informed.
For the Western Australians out there though, this is very much a book about Eastern States quolls, and you’re never really allowed to forget it. It’s almost as though we simply ceased to exist, even compared to mentioned states like Tasmania and South Australia.
The hardback cover is lovely.
September 20, 2021
Update: Full review and discussion of this book now on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr_8O...
Just wow. I really connected to this book on such a personal level. Questions Raised by Quolls is a part nature non fiction, part memoir of Saddler's thoughts on the conservation of everything wonderful about Australia's natural world. In 192 pages, Saddler manages to mirror so many thoughts of my own in the past 12 months when it comes to climate change, colonialism, environmental degredation and choice whether to have children in the year 2021.
The horrific bushfires of 2019/2020 in Australia reached headlines around the world. I grew up 20 minutes from Cobargo, and I cannot tell you how utterly hopeless I felt watching on as our world burned. The bushfires not only destroyed towns and family homes but killed millions of Australian wildlife. I was only embittered further as a federal and state governement who continually denied climate change and systematically cut funding to crucial state emergency services denied any culpability. Saddler discusses the grief at this event as well as the many different actions that have dealt death by a thousand cuts since British arrival in 1770, to Australia's unqiue ecology. Saddler also acknowledges the shameful outcomes this has had against Aboriginal Australians, and how indigenous thinking suppressed in the name of "progress" and Neoliberalism.
But of course, this book is also about Quolls. What is a Quoll you may ask? A Quoll is a small marsupial creature that essentially fulfills a similar ecological role as a cat. Quolls used to be very prolific across the Australian continent, but as a result of some of the isues I have mentioned above, plus the introduction of feral species such as cats and foxes, their numbers have been decimated. But the conversation community is fighting back. Despite the lack of backing and financial support, there are people and communities who are investing their time and resources to strengthen native quoll populations so that we won't have to live in a world without Quolls. The overall message of Saddler's book is one of hope. Saddler writes:
"As I watched them in that perfect moment of peacefulness and contentment I realised that the happiness I feel in any given encounter with wildlife runs parralel with the awareness that such wildlife is a shadow of what it was in my parents' time, or in my grandparents' time. The sorrow is there, but crucially so is the joy."
I loved this book. If you like nature/climate writing, are interested in Quolls or Austalian Natural History, please read this book.
(Also - I think this review is the first one on goodreads for this title - so please, buy a copy of this book / request it at your local library!)
Just wow. I really connected to this book on such a personal level. Questions Raised by Quolls is a part nature non fiction, part memoir of Saddler's thoughts on the conservation of everything wonderful about Australia's natural world. In 192 pages, Saddler manages to mirror so many thoughts of my own in the past 12 months when it comes to climate change, colonialism, environmental degredation and choice whether to have children in the year 2021.
The horrific bushfires of 2019/2020 in Australia reached headlines around the world. I grew up 20 minutes from Cobargo, and I cannot tell you how utterly hopeless I felt watching on as our world burned. The bushfires not only destroyed towns and family homes but killed millions of Australian wildlife. I was only embittered further as a federal and state governement who continually denied climate change and systematically cut funding to crucial state emergency services denied any culpability. Saddler discusses the grief at this event as well as the many different actions that have dealt death by a thousand cuts since British arrival in 1770, to Australia's unqiue ecology. Saddler also acknowledges the shameful outcomes this has had against Aboriginal Australians, and how indigenous thinking suppressed in the name of "progress" and Neoliberalism.
But of course, this book is also about Quolls. What is a Quoll you may ask? A Quoll is a small marsupial creature that essentially fulfills a similar ecological role as a cat. Quolls used to be very prolific across the Australian continent, but as a result of some of the isues I have mentioned above, plus the introduction of feral species such as cats and foxes, their numbers have been decimated. But the conversation community is fighting back. Despite the lack of backing and financial support, there are people and communities who are investing their time and resources to strengthen native quoll populations so that we won't have to live in a world without Quolls. The overall message of Saddler's book is one of hope. Saddler writes:
"As I watched them in that perfect moment of peacefulness and contentment I realised that the happiness I feel in any given encounter with wildlife runs parralel with the awareness that such wildlife is a shadow of what it was in my parents' time, or in my grandparents' time. The sorrow is there, but crucially so is the joy."
I loved this book. If you like nature/climate writing, are interested in Quolls or Austalian Natural History, please read this book.
(Also - I think this review is the first one on goodreads for this title - so please, buy a copy of this book / request it at your local library!)
October 2, 2021
This book is beautiful, incredible and inspirational. Set so close to home it means that much more being able to visualise and learn all about this incredible area and how to best look after it.
September 30, 2021
I thought this was going to be a book about quolls, but it is quite a bit more than that. While there was enough quoll material in there to keep me going, this book is also a reflection of the author's feelings about conservation, guilt, Covid, politics, colonisation, community and more. Much of it is interesting, and aligns with my own views, but is also depressing at times and can be repetitive. A quick read though, and easy enough to persevere with.
October 26, 2021
What a thoughtful, question provoking book. Highly recommended.
February 11, 2023
Questions Raised by Quolls is a very personal meditation on species extinction and conservation in the context of global climate change.
Saddler does not balk at asking the difficult question about whether he should have a child of his own:
This is what it really means when we talk about existential threats. The planet will ultimately survive. It is the species on it, including us, that are in peril.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/09/02/q...
When I think about the animals that have disappeared from the Australian continent and its surrounding islands — the thylacine, its last living survivor pacing hopelessly back and forth in its concrete cage and left to freeze to death; the Bramble Cay melomys slowly starved of food as climate change pushed the sea around its tiny island home higher and higher; the numerous native and unique rodents all-too-easily hunted by cats and foxes throughout Australia, etc., etc, — it feels emblematic of everything else that colonisation has destroyed, or attempted to destroy, and I feel an almost unbearable weight of loss, a lead-like heaviness in my heart. I ache for the absence of these unique species, each inherently deserving of their place on earth, and I ache for the lost or fragmented knowledge of them and of their place in the vast interconnected web of life. (p.26-7)
[caption id="attachment_113699" align="aligncenter" width="300"]The last living Thylacine, Hobart 1933 (Wikipedia)[/caption]
Saddler does not balk at asking the difficult question about whether he should have a child of his own:
... did I imagine, when I was a boy bushwalking with my parents, or a young man hiking with my father, that one day I might bring my own children hiking with me through that same landscape? I can't remember. But I know that, for as long as I've been old enough to think far into the future, I've wanted to one day have a family. Now I can all-too-easily imagine myself — in my early forties as I write this, and my father the same age that my grandparents were when I was a boy — pointing out the same things to some hypothetical child that my father pointed out to me. That child has been hypothetical my whole life — now, I'm wondering: can you still call a child hypothetical if it will never exist? (p.9)
This is what it really means when we talk about existential threats. The planet will ultimately survive. It is the species on it, including us, that are in peril.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/09/02/q...
December 26, 2022
4.5 stars
"If you're not worried, you're not paying attention."
So says a popular social media slogan. But it is of course totally true.
Sometimes books like this make me feel hopeless; sometimes they galvanise action. What makes me sad is that I have been reading books like this for years and nothing seems to be changing.
The author uses the story of the extinction of many species of Australian quolls as an example of the whole Australian landscape of extinction of native fauna and flora as well as the loss of indigenous culture and language. Australia has the unfortunate distinction of having the highest extinction rate in the world. We are also the only first-world country to make the world top-five hotspots for deforestation. Obviously we can and need to do better.
There is despair at the lack of forward motion by governments and corporations but the author is also clear in pointing out that solutions based on the current systems are doomed to fail: "these 'solutions' are nothing of the sort, because in the end they're just ways of allowing ourselves to continue doing what we're doing, when doing what we're doing is the entire problem to begin with."
The book was written after the pandemic and the lockdowns that made Melbourne the most locked down city in the world. So there is also discussion of this world altering event.
But this is also a lovely example of nature writing as the author discusses different quoll reintroduction and monitoring programs. Not well-known as one of Australia's iconic wildlife emblems, the quoll in the past played an important part in the ecosystem. But being a smaller carnivorous predator, they fell foul of the early colonists and were hunted to extinction in many instances. The spotted quolls, or 'native cats' as they were called, also have an attractively spotted coat and their skins were sold.
Another call to action that should not be ignored.
"If you're not worried, you're not paying attention."
So says a popular social media slogan. But it is of course totally true.
Sometimes books like this make me feel hopeless; sometimes they galvanise action. What makes me sad is that I have been reading books like this for years and nothing seems to be changing.
The author uses the story of the extinction of many species of Australian quolls as an example of the whole Australian landscape of extinction of native fauna and flora as well as the loss of indigenous culture and language. Australia has the unfortunate distinction of having the highest extinction rate in the world. We are also the only first-world country to make the world top-five hotspots for deforestation. Obviously we can and need to do better.
There is despair at the lack of forward motion by governments and corporations but the author is also clear in pointing out that solutions based on the current systems are doomed to fail: "these 'solutions' are nothing of the sort, because in the end they're just ways of allowing ourselves to continue doing what we're doing, when doing what we're doing is the entire problem to begin with."
The book was written after the pandemic and the lockdowns that made Melbourne the most locked down city in the world. So there is also discussion of this world altering event.
But this is also a lovely example of nature writing as the author discusses different quoll reintroduction and monitoring programs. Not well-known as one of Australia's iconic wildlife emblems, the quoll in the past played an important part in the ecosystem. But being a smaller carnivorous predator, they fell foul of the early colonists and were hunted to extinction in many instances. The spotted quolls, or 'native cats' as they were called, also have an attractively spotted coat and their skins were sold.
Another call to action that should not be ignored.
August 19, 2023
The only time I have seen a spotted quoll is as a volunteer on a project looking at automated wildlife cameras set in forest blocks to capture images of native animals. It was a program designed to control the impact of introduced predators on Western Australia to monitor animals and see if our management strategies are working. I had a lot fun doing this and learning about wildlife and how they have to cope with foxes, cats and dogs. So much of this responsibility of the conservation and care of wildlife would not be possible without the unselfish help of people like the author, practitioners, non government wildlife aid networks and the motivated public. This book has a lot of accumulated knowledge. Now to convince my neighbour that his peace-loving, sleepy moggie can turn into a killing machine as it hides in my native shrub along our dividing fence line. Australia has lost so many mammal species but I hope we can all strive to change this.
July 13, 2024
This certainly was another engaging read from Harry Saddler. I found his observations about how we interact with animals and our environment thought provoking and I enjoyed his sharing of his experiences with native flora and fauna. His observations and experiences during Melbourne's many lockdowns was also interesting to read.
November 10, 2021
A wonderful - but basically sad - book about what we choose to keep in the world, what we choose to create in the world, and the consequences of these choices.
Very highly recommended.
SM
Very highly recommended.
SM
February 20, 2022
3.5 stars.
Really interesting & enjoyable to read about conservation projects around Australia! But could’ve done without the author’s personal throughline of ‘should I have children’.
Really interesting & enjoyable to read about conservation projects around Australia! But could’ve done without the author’s personal throughline of ‘should I have children’.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 10, 2024
A book about extinction, focussing on quolls. Fatherhood is not a theme of the book. The author wonders if he should have children. A rather dry study
January 20, 2022
A reflection on conservation, colonialism and community, a fantastic read and a perfect book to start the new year. Saddler philosophically examines what the times we are living through mean for the environment and for ourselves, ultimately it is a hopeful and empowering read.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews