Showing 1–12 of 271 results
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Lions in the Balance: Man-Eaters, Manes, and Men with Guns
Artist/Author: Packer, Craig$85.00 Add to cartFrom flat-topped acacia trees to great migrations of wildebeest across an edgeless expanse of grass, the Serengeti is one of the world’s most renowned ecosystems. And at the apex of this incredible landscape prowls its seemingly indomitable ruler: the Serengeti lion. These majestic mammals are skilful hunters, iconic, and integral to Serengeti health. But they also commit infanticide, eat local people and destroy local livelihoods, are a source of profit for those who make money shooting or conserving them (and sometimes both), and are in constant danger from the encroachments of another species: humans.
With Lions in the Balance, celebrated lion researcher and conservationist Craig Packer takes us back into the complex, tooth-and-claw worlds of lion conservation and behavior. A sequel to Packer’s Into Africa – which gave many readers their first experience of field work in Africa, of Tanzanian roads, of long hours spent identifying lions by their ear marks and scars, and of the joys of bootlegged Grateful Dead tapes beneath savannah moons – this diary-based chronicle of adventure, real-life danger, and corruption will both alarm and entertain. Packer’s story offers a look into the future of the lion, one in which the politics of conservation will require survival strategies far more creative and powerful than any now possessed by the citizens of the savannah – humans included.
Packer is sure to infuriate poachers, politicians, and conservationists alike as he minces no words about the problems he sees. But with a narrative stretching from Arusha to Washington, DC, and marked by Packer’s signature humour and incredible candour, Lions in the Balance is a tale of courage against impossible odds, a masterly blend of science and storytelling, and an urgent call to action that will captivate a pride of readers.
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Elephant
Artist/Author: Fuller, Errol$80.00 Add to cartElephants are among the most beloved of all creatures. Their behaviour can seem almost human, from their complex social interactions to their need to mourn their dead. They are also among the most persecuted of animals, subjected to untold cruelty at the hands of humans through the ages . In this stunningly illustrated book, Errol Fuller provides a rich and moving portrait of elephants, exploring their natural history, the legends that have grown up around them, their unique place in art and literature, and their urgent need for protection today.
Fuller traces the evolution of these majestic animals from prehistoric mammoths and mastodons to today’s African and Asian elephants, and looks at their behaviour, herd dynamics, and social life. He examines the role of elephants in cultures around the world, from folklore and fine art to the exploitation of elephants as war machines and circus animals. Fuller also discusses the importance of conservation, warning that continued poaching and habitat degradation could send these iconic animals the way of the dodo.
Featuring many evocative photos never before published, Elephant is a fittingly exquisite tribute to these breathtaking creatures.
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Handbook of Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises
Artist/Author: Carwardine, Mark$68.00 Add to cartThis outstanding new handbook to whales, dolphins and porpoises is the most comprehensive, authoritative and up-to-date guide to these popular mammals. With nearly 1,000 accurate illustrations – complete with detailed annotations pointing out the most significant field marks – this new handbook covers all 90 species and every subspecies in the world.
Many of the world’s most respected whale biologists have collaborated on the concise text, which is packed with helpful identification tips from cetacean expert, Mark Carwardine. Mark’s informative text is accompanied by up-to-date distribution maps and photographs for each species. Beautifully designed, to ensure critical information is quickly accessible, this is an indispensable resource that every whale-watcher will want to carry out to sea.
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The Enchantment of the Long-haired Rat: A Rodent History of Australia
Artist/Author: Bonyhady, Tim$34.00 Add to cartThe fascinating story of a much-maligned and little-understood native Australian rodent.
The long-haired rat breeds and spreads prodigiously after big rains. Its irruptions were plagues to European colonists, whofeared and loathed all rats, but times of feasting for Aboriginal people.
Tim Bonyhady explores the place of the long-haired rat in Aboriginal culture. He recounts how settler Australians responded to it, learned about it and, occasionally, came to recognise the wonder of it. And he reconstructs its changing,shrinking landscape—once filled with bilbies, letter-winged kites and inland taipans, but now increasingly the domain of feral cats.
An astonishing history, The Enchantment of the Long-haired Rat illuminates a species, a continent, its climate and its people like never before.
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Animal Nutrition: From Theory to Practice
Artist/Author: Hynd, Philip$100.00 Add to cartNutrition is the key driver of animal health, welfare and production. In agriculture, nutrition is crucial to meet increasing global demands for animal protein and consumer demands for cheaper meat, milk and eggs and higher standards of animal welfare. For companion animals, good nutrition is essential for quality and length of life.
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Protecting Pollinators: How to Save the Creatures That Feed Our World
Artist/Author: Helmer, Jodi$51.00 Add to cartWe should thank a pollinator at every meal. These diminutive creatures fertilize a third of the crops we eat. Yet half of the 200,000 species of pollinators are threatened. Birds, bats, insects, and many other pollinators are disappearing, putting our entire food supply in jeopardy.
In North America and Europe, bee populations have already plummeted by more than a third and the population of butterflies has declined 31 percent. Protecting Pollinators explores why the statistics have become so dire and how they can be reversed. Jodi Helmer breaks down the latest science on environmental threats and takes readers inside the most promising conservation initiatives. Efforts include #famers reducing pesticides, cities creating butterfly highways, volunteers ripping up invasive plants, gardeners planting native flowers, and citizen scientists monitoring migration.
Along with inspiring stories of revival and lessons from failed projects, readers will find practical tips to get involved. They will also be reminded of the magic of pollinators – not only the iconic monarch and dainty hummingbird, but the drab hawk moth and homely bats that are just as essential. Without pollinators, the world would be a duller, blander place. Helmer shows how we can make sure they are always fluttering, soaring, and buzzing around us.
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Those Wild Rabbits: How They Shaped Australia
Artist/Author: Munday, Bruce$40.00 Add to cartA century ago Australia was home to 10 billion rabbits, thriving in their adopted home. Storyteller Bruce Munday finds the rabbit saga irresistible – the naive hopes of the early settlers, the frustration, environmental damage, cost to agriculture, dreams shattered, and the lessons learned and ignored.
Those Wild Rabbits highlights not only the damage done but also Australia’s missed opportunities for real rabbit control. It recognises the bush’s paradoxical love affair with an animal that was at one time a significant rural industry and is still recalled with nostalgia. More importantly, it offers hope for a brighter future, making the case for continued research to drive the next rabbit-control miracle, because rabbit plagues of the past will become the future unless we capture the history and embrace the lessons.
Awarded the Keain Medal for the South Australian Historical Book of the Year, 2017
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Among the Pigeons: Why Our Cats Belong Indoors
Artist/Author: Read, John L.$35.00 Add to cartDuring the last century, global domestic cat numbers rocketed past 200 million, along with a surge in cat diseases and numbers of feral cats and sick, injured and malnourished cats. Cat shelters are overflowing. Hundreds of thousands of cats are euthanised every year by despondent animal welfare workers. Misplaced sentimentality, sometimes promoted by corporate greed of cat food companies, has exacerbated this situation through promoting irresponsible feeding of strays.
Ecologist and author John Read has travelled the world consulting cat experts and collating the most recent science. In Among the Pigeons he balances the allure of indoor cats with the animal welfare, human health, and conservation issues they create when allowed to roam. But he also presents solutions, from breeding ideal indoor pet cats to development of humane and targeted tools to control feral cats.
In striking parallel to the repercussions of human-induced climate change, warnings about the damage wrought by free-ranging cats have been largely denied or overlooked. But we ignore these issues at our peril. For our own mental health and endangered wildlife worldwide, time is running out.
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Whales and Dolphins of Aotearoa: New Zealand
Artist/Author: Todd, Barbara$50.00 Add to cartRichly illustrated, entertaining and highly educational, Whales ‘Tohora’ brings the fascinating underwater world of cetaceans to life with a special focus on the whales and dolphins of the South Pacific. For centuries whales have captured our imaginations and ignited our emotions. We have revered and mythologised them, hunted them to the brink of extinction and passionately protected them. But how much do we really know about whales? Based on the hugely popular, internationally touring Te Papa exhibition ‘Whales ‘Tohora’, this all-new book brings these majestic marine mammals and their underwater world to life, with a special focus on the whales and dolphins of the South Pacific. From the first richly illustrated, entertaining chapter, readers are immersed in the salty sea – the home of the whales – to explore their amazing diversity, biology and adaption to life in the oceans. Throughout the book, hundreds of breath-taking photographs, historical pictures, astonishing facts and figures and informative illustrations and diagrams bring the whale world to life. Here, too, are stories from people whose lives have been inextricably linked with whales – from legendary South Pacific whale riders to international whale scientists to conservationists to former whalers and their families. A powerful combination of storytelling, science and culture reveals the relationship between whales and humans, now and into the future.
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Handbook of the Mammals of the World (HMW), Volume 9: Bats
Artist/Author: Don E., Russell A Mittermeier (Editors), Ilian Velikov, Blanca Martí de Ahumada, Alex Mascarell Llosa, Faansie Peacock, Jesús Rodríguez-Osorio Martín, Lluís Sogorb Mallebrera (Illustrators)$340.00 Add to cartVolume 9 completes the Handbook of Mammals of the World series, and it deals with the bats, order Chiroptera.
Our knowledge of bats has exploded in the past two decades, and all of that information is reflected in this volume. The number of recognized species has increased by more than 400 during that time and is still growing. Bats occupy almost every habitat on six continents and their ecology is incredibly diverse. Pollinators and seed dispersers for thousands of species of plants, bats are critical for the maintenance of tropical ecosystems.
As always, the text includes up-to-date information on every species, and each one is carefully illustrated. The family accounts include color photographs documenting a variety of behaviors of these interesting mammals.
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Saving the Tasmanian Devil: Recovery through Science-based Management
Artist/Author: Hogg, Carolyn, Samantha Fox, David Pemberton, Katherine Belov$120.00 Add to cartThe Tasmanian devil is threatened by Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD), a transmissible form of cancer that has reduced the population by over 80%. Hunting, extreme climate events, vehicle collision and habitat destruction also put pressure on this endangered species. The recovery effort to save the Tasmanian devil commenced over 15 years ago as a collaborative initiative between the Tasmanian government, the Australian government, the Zoo and Aquarium Association Australasia, and many research institutions.
Saving the Tasmanian Devil documents the journey taken by partner organisations in discovering what DFTD is, the effect it has on wild devil populations, and the outcomes achieved through research and management actions. Chapters describe all aspects of devil conservation, including the captive devil populations, applied pathology, immunology and genetic research findings, adaptive management, and the importance of advocacy and partnerships. Saving the Tasmanian Devil will provide management practitioners and conservation scientists with insight into the complexities of undertaking a program of this scale, and will also be of value to researchers, students and others interested in conservation.
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Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer
Artist/Author: Marra, Peter P. (Author), Chris Santella (Author)$55.00 Add to cartIn 1894, a lighthouse keeper named David Lyall arrived on Stephens Island off New Zealand with a cat named Tibbles. In just over a year, the Stephens Island Wren, a rare bird endemic to the island, was rendered extinct. Mounting scientific evidence confirms what many conservationists have suspected for some time – that in the United States alone, free-ranging cats are killing birds and other animals by the billions. Equally alarming are the little-known but potentially devastating public health consequences of rabies and parasitic Toxoplasma passing from cats to humans at rising rates. Cat Wars tells the story of the threats free-ranging cats pose to biodiversity and public health throughout the world, and sheds new light on the controversies surrounding the management of the explosion of these cat populations.
This compelling book traces the historical and cultural ties between humans and cats from early domestication to the current boom in pet ownership, along the way accessibly explaining the science of extinction, population modeling, and feline diseases. It charts the developments that have led to our present impasse – from Stan Temple’s breakthrough studies on cat predation in Wisconsin to cat-eradication programs underway in Australia today. It describes how a small but vocal minority of cat advocates has campaigned successfully for no action in much the same way that special interest groups have stymied attempts to curtail smoking and climate change.
Cat Wars paints a revealing picture of a complex global problem – and proposes solutions that foresee a time when wildlife and humans are no longer vulnerable to the impacts of free-ranging cats.
