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Painted Wolves: Wild Dogs of the Serengeti-Mara
A photographic portrayal of a pack of wild dogs on the Serengeti in Tanzania.
- GenresNatural History
240 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 1991
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About the author
Jonathan Scott
249 books15 followersLibrarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
For the history professor, see Jonathan^^Scott.
For the history professor, see Jonathan^^Scott.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 16, 2023
Beggars really cannot be choosers when it comes to wild dogs, which is the primary reason for the suspiciously high rating I'm giving this, despite the number of flaws the book contains.
Naturally, being more a photography book than a textbook, it's a little light on statistical information and the like, and really adds little to the science of wild dogs that wasn't already discussed by Hugo van Lawick in Innocent Killers (and Solo), and Lory Frame in Swift & Enduring. Scott is also a bit on the sentimental side for my particular taste and some of his attempts at purple prose are... well, he sure was trying something, I guess.
The wild dog anecdotes themselves are often scanty in comparison to lengthy descriptions of driving to destinations (destinations that have been as well or better described by other authors), and huge swaths of the final chapters are filled with superficial statements about the people in the surrounding areas and the conflict between wildlife and ranchers as well as wildlife and poachers and the heavy toll disease takes on the wild dogs (insistently ending the book on a hard downer even though it's absolutely unnecessary as the ground was covered earlier, and it really breaks the flow of the "story" he was telling us). He even spends a long time babbling about a particular poacher for some reason. Not really what I came to this book for, and most of it has again been covered far better (and more appropriately) in other books. It felt a lot like he was just filling pages.
Far worse is when, at the end, he mentions some notes he made about incidents related to the wild dogs that sound like they could be really interesting if he'd bothered to elaborate, and most especially if he'd set them up instead of filling them in right at the end, as if he'd only just thought of them, as opposed to recording them years prior. Certainly they'd have been more interesting than his little short story about a cattle ranching boy looking at wildebeest (what was that even supposed to be? It was such a bizarre departure from the format of the rest of the book)
Aside from that, there are some sentence fragments, some scenes he begins painting in detail and then it's like he forgot he was doing that as the next sentence has moved on to either a much later moment or another subject altogether.
The photography is nice, but not especially stunning for the most part, at least not in comparison to van Lawick. But it's in color, unlike Innocent Killers, and there's just a few anecdotes that prove interesting enough to be worth all the trouble as well.
Naturally, being more a photography book than a textbook, it's a little light on statistical information and the like, and really adds little to the science of wild dogs that wasn't already discussed by Hugo van Lawick in Innocent Killers (and Solo), and Lory Frame in Swift & Enduring. Scott is also a bit on the sentimental side for my particular taste and some of his attempts at purple prose are... well, he sure was trying something, I guess.
The wild dog anecdotes themselves are often scanty in comparison to lengthy descriptions of driving to destinations (destinations that have been as well or better described by other authors), and huge swaths of the final chapters are filled with superficial statements about the people in the surrounding areas and the conflict between wildlife and ranchers as well as wildlife and poachers and the heavy toll disease takes on the wild dogs (insistently ending the book on a hard downer even though it's absolutely unnecessary as the ground was covered earlier, and it really breaks the flow of the "story" he was telling us). He even spends a long time babbling about a particular poacher for some reason. Not really what I came to this book for, and most of it has again been covered far better (and more appropriately) in other books. It felt a lot like he was just filling pages.
Far worse is when, at the end, he mentions some notes he made about incidents related to the wild dogs that sound like they could be really interesting if he'd bothered to elaborate, and most especially if he'd set them up instead of filling them in right at the end, as if he'd only just thought of them, as opposed to recording them years prior. Certainly they'd have been more interesting than his little short story about a cattle ranching boy looking at wildebeest (what was that even supposed to be? It was such a bizarre departure from the format of the rest of the book)
Aside from that, there are some sentence fragments, some scenes he begins painting in detail and then it's like he forgot he was doing that as the next sentence has moved on to either a much later moment or another subject altogether.
The photography is nice, but not especially stunning for the most part, at least not in comparison to van Lawick. But it's in color, unlike Innocent Killers, and there's just a few anecdotes that prove interesting enough to be worth all the trouble as well.
Displaying 1 of 1 review