Winner of the 2022 Rachel Carson Environment Book Award * Winner
of the 2022 Science in Society Journalism Award (Books) * Finalist
for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
"Thoughtful, insightful, and wise, Wild Souls is a
landmark work."--Ed Yong, author of An Immense World
"Fascinating . . . hands-on philosophy, put to test in the
real world . . . Marris believes that our idea of wildness--our
obsession with purity--is misguided. No animal remains untouched by
human hands . . . the science isn't the hard part. The real challenge
is the ethics, the act of imagining our appropriate place in that
world." --Outside Magazine
From an acclaimed environmental writer, a groundbreaking and
provocative new vision for our relationships with--and
responsibilities toward--the planet's wild animals.
Protecting wild animals and preserving the environment are two ideals
so seemingly compatible as to be almost inseparable. But in fact,
between animal welfare and conservation science there exists a space
of underexamined and unresolved tension: wildness itself. When is it
right to capture or feed wild animals for the good of their species?
How do we balance the rights of introduced species with those already
established within an ecosystem? Can hunting be ecological? Are any
animals truly wild on a planet that humans have so thoroughly
changed? No clear guidelines yet exist to help us resolve such
questions.
Transporting readers into the field with scientists tackling these
profound challenges, Emma Marris tells the affecting and inspiring
stories of animals around the globe--from Peruvian monkeys to
Australian bilbies, rare Hawai'ian birds to majestic Oregon wolves.
And she offers a companionable tour of the philosophical ideas that
may steer our search for sustainability and justice in the non-human
world. Revealing just how intertwined animal life and human life
really are, Wild Souls will change the way we think about
nature-and our place within it.
