Book Reviews 679


perceived need to be objective and data-driven despite our recognition that this is not what drives us to continue in our exhausting work. Maybe we have this wrong, a point clearly made by Dolly Jørgensen (2019): ‘emo- tional frameworks matter deeply in both how people mentally understand nature and how they interact physically with it’ (p. 5) and ‘the way we see a species can impact its stand- ing on the planet more than anything covered in ecology textbooks’ (p. 6).


References


FRASER, J., PONTESCO, V., PLEMONS, K., GUPTA,R.&RANK, S.J. (2013) Sustaining the conservationist. Ecopsychology, 5, 70–79.


JØRGENSEN,D.(2019) Recovering Lost Species in the Modern Age. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.


KENT REDFORD ( , redfordkh@gmail.com) Archipelago Consulting, Portland, Maine, USA


Hunt for the ShadowWolf: The Lost History of Wolves in Britain and the Myths and Stories that Surround Them by Derek Gow (2024) 256 pp., Chelsea Green Publishing UK, London, UK. ISBN 978-1-64502-042-4 (hbk), GBP 20.00.


Almost a decade ago, during a visit to the now-shut UK Wolf Conservation Trust in Beenham with my course-mates from the Silwood Park campus of Imperial College London, I got a fascinating glimpse into the history and current status of wolves in Great Britain. As the wolves paced in their enclo- sures, I learnt about how this once widespread species was hunted to extinction on the island by the combined effects of accelerated deforestation and a bounty system brought about through the cultural vilification of the species. It made me think about how wolves in my native India have a similarly bad reputation, particularly in popular literature, where they are often portrayed as brute and evil.


In Hunt for the Shadow Wolf, Derek


Gow—an active rewilder who is known for his work with water voles, wildcats, beavers and other species—goes on a quest to uncover the true nature of the vilified wolf, hoping to help reconcile our troubled relationship with this apex predator. Gow begins this journey by illustrating the underlying dislike that people have for wolves, which led to the nar- ratives, policies and actions that ultimately drove the species to extinction in Great Britain. In the introduction he writes about the death of the last wolf in Scotland,


purportedly killed by the legendary Highland deer stalker MacQueen of Pall a’Chrocain in Darnaway Forest, Morayshire. From there, through assorted pieces of evidence painstak- ingly gathered from family histories, churches, museums and other sources during his jour- neys throughout Britain, Gow leads the reader to a better understanding of this majestic animal.


Humankind’s engagement with the wolf,


though often fraught in recent centuries, has at times been almost reverential. Drawing on the notion of the wolf as a larger-than-life, mystical creature, wolf-related terminologies have crept into the English language in several ways, including the names of human settle- ments, and wolf parts have long been regarded as powerful remedies to treat a wide range of ailments and afflictions, such as breast pain, for which a wolf’s fore-foot was recom- mended, and epilepsy, the treatment of which was thought to be possible using a wolf’s heart. Rogerius, the 13th-century Italian physician, gave the autoimmune dis- ease lupus its name because he thought the fa- cial lesions associated with the disease were reminiscent of wolf bites. Reverence for wolves is found in many cul-


tures and throughout human history, as are stories and reports of human children raised by wolves, such as the ancient Roman tale of the mythical twins Romulus and Remus, who were suckled by a she-wolf. In his book, Gow references Dina Sanichar, a feral boy who was discovered among wolves in India in 1872 and forced into an orphanage, and who, despite subsequently spending many years in human company, never learnt to speak and continued to vocalize in grunts and howls for the rest of his life; some believe Sanichar may have served as the inspiration for the character Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book. Gow is a skilled storyteller and I appre-


ciated his various personal anecdotes pep- pered throughout the book, such as his work with two captive wolves, Nadia and Mishka, who were adopted by the wildlife park in Kent where he used to work. However, al- though well-researched and referenced, the book’s structure is slightly erratic, which does not allow the breadth of Gow’s research to shine through to its full effect. In light of the European Commission’s


proposal to change the status of wolves in the European Union from ‘strictly protected’ to ‘protected’, which would allow EU nations to cull wolves at scale for the first time in 4 decades, this book is a timely publication. Although the wolf population has recovered in many parts of Europe and the species is no longer teetering on the brink of extinction, environmental organizations fear that this conservation success could be jeopardized by


ASIEM SANYAL ( , asiem.sanyal@fauna-flora. org) Fauna & Flora/Fundação Príncipe, Príncipe Island, São Tomé and Príncipe


CorporateNature: An Insider’sEthnography of Global Conservation by SarahMilne (2023) 272 pp., The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona, USA. ISBN 978-0-8165-4701- 2 (e-book), USD 35.00.


After many years of effort and advocacy, it is now widely agreed that social research has a vital role to play in biodiversity conservation. This research comes in various different forms and flavours, based on different ob- jectives, methods and disciplinary perspec- tives. Some are obviously useful to conserva- tion, such as studies of factors influencing pro-environmental decisions amongst consu- mers. Others may at first glance appear less useful, and even hostile or damaging to con- servation, but have the potential to offer pro- found longer-term value if taken seriously. Sarah Milne’s book Corporate Nature is a


perfect example of this latter category of con- servation social research. It provides an in-depth account of the work of Conservation International in Cambodia over more than a decade, exploring how the idea of payments for ecosystem services became crystallized within the organization as a global policy idea that was then implemented on the ground without taking sufficient account of the local context. Milne alleges this led to a series of failures, including, in her view, complicity in a major illegal logging operation that was devastating for the unique biodiversity of the Cardamom Mountains and for the livelihoods of resident people. Milne also sees links between these failings and the murder of Chut Wutty, an environmental activist and former Conservation International employee who was her personal friend. In carrying out the research for this book,


Milne moved between different roles with respect to Conservation International over the course of more than 10 years—as an employee, an independent researcher and an external advisor and consultant at various times. This is highly unusual, and gives the book an incredible level of detail and depth of analysis that would not have been possible without the insights Milne gained through


Oryx, 2024, 58(5), 677–680 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S003060532400125X


the proposed change. Personally, I hope this often misunderstood animal receives the support it needs to thrive in our human- dominated world, and that we will find a way to coexist with these ecologically and culturally important predators. The book’s overall tenor of encouraging environmen- tal stewardship, could help to change public perception of this unjustly vilified animal.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140