Chris Santella

Peter P. Marra

In 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.

The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

Cat Wars

Russell Greenberg

For centuries biologists have tried to understand the underpinnings of avian migration: where birds go and why, why some migrate and some do not, how they adapt to a changing environment, and how migratory systems evolve. Twenty-five years ago the answers to many of these questions were addressed by a collection of migration experts in Keast and Morton's classic work Migrant Birds in the Neotropics. In 1992, Hagan and Johnston published a follow-up book, Ecology and Conservation of Neotropical Migrant Landbirds. In Birds of Two Worlds Russell Greenberg and Peter Marra bring together the world's experts on avian migration to discuss its ecology and evolution. The contributors move the discussion of migration to a global stage, looking at all avian migration systems and delving deeper into the evolutionary foundations of migratory behavior. Readers interested in the biology, behavior, ecology, and evolution of birds have waited a decade to see a worthy successor to the earlier classics. Birds of Two Worlds will complete the trilogy and become indispensable for ornithologists, evolutionary biologists, serious birders, and public and academic libraries.

Peter P. Marra

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