Harare Review of Books

328 pages.

First published on Feb. 21, 2023 (MIT Press)

Non-fiction.

I have finally finished reading this phenomenal, epic book. It took me a while because I was interested in everything, and it’s packed full of…everything. I’m a lover of animals and nature, and if you are, too, then this is a must-read.

Per Tenacious Beasts, many animals have come back from the brink of extinction (local, or global), and Preston details how this has happened—sometimes through human intervention, and at other times in spite of us. Foxes, whales, owls, wolves, bison, sea otters, and others have been imperiled by human activities. What sets this book apart is the massive amount of work Preston put in, from research, to extensive interviews with all kinds of people: those working in conservation, activists, and even farmers affected by human-wildlife interactions.

There are numerous delightful details (my copy of the book is rather well-highlighted now). For example, male barred owls are smaller than females, and females are much more aggressive, and sea otters are kelp forest rescuers with a huge appetite for sea urchins, which are ruiners of kelp forests. There’s a huge amount of information in the book that will stick in your head and make you wildly popular at parties, if those are the parties you go to.

I’ve also spent some time contemplating the arguments presented in the book for how to think about our present and future, encompassing climate change, wildlife extinction/recovery, and human intervention in environmental management. Although Preston does not advance overtly political views, I’m more persuaded than ever that capitalism and colonialism (with technology as their tool) were the architects of our current problem, and that Indigenous ways of seeing were always the correct approach and will be the solution, something Preston also ponders in the book. Preston also talks about the dangers of “Fortress Conservation” (not explicitly mentioned in those terms, but the concept is referenced), warning that this will not be the way back. In all, I appreciate Preston’s analysis of the current situation, and his conclusions about the way forward.

Thank you to MIT Press and to NetGalley for this illuminating and engrossing read.

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