Book review:
Tenacious Beasts: Wildlife Recoveries That Change How We Think about Animals by Christopher Preston
By Allison De Jong
Christopher Preston is a Missoula treasure, a professor of environmental philosophy at the University of Montana and someone you’ll often see hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, and exploring with his wife, Lisa, in the wild places around Missoula. And his recent book, Tenacious Beasts, is a delight. Part of that delight may stem from the fact that some of the book takes place on my home turf and features familiar biologists and scientists. But my primary joy in reading this book comes from the beautifully told, compelling stories about wild creatures across the globe that, even in a time of diminishing biodiversity and large-scale extinction, have managed to bounce back and even thrive.
The tales Christopher shares range from wolves returning to the Netherlands (yes, the Netherlands!) to bison recovery in the western U.S., from salmon finding their way back to the Olympic Peninsula to Marsican brown bears roaming across Italy. There are also tales of whales, otters, pronghorn, beavers, owls, and more. Christopher gathers his stories from the biologists, Indigenous communities, and wildlife enthusiasts who love these animals, all of whom also acknowledge the challenges that arise whenever humans and wildlife cross paths. That arise even more quickly when wildlife appears in places it hasn’t been found for decades, or centuries, or more.
And it is this tension between humans and wild creatures that this book examines so thoughtfully. Christopher’s stories focus not only on biology and ecology but also weave in ethics and philosophy, because so often wildlife recovery depends upon varying levels of human intervention—and a change in human perspective. Which sparks questions: What exactly is our place in wildlife recovery? How much intervention is too much—or not enough? Is it time to reconsider our perceived separation between “wild” and “civilized”? What possibilities appear when we rethink our relationship with wild creatures?
There are no easy answers, but Tenacious Beasts helps us appreciate the nuance of the possibilities, and encourages us to ponder wildlife recovery, and our place in it, in new and fresh ways. These stories from ecosystems and cultures around the globe inspire hope in a time when we desperately need it. They show us the resilience of wild creatures paired with human ingenuity. While fully acknowledging the challenges we face, both wild creatures and humans alike, this book shows us what is possible when we act with courage and creativity.
