A review by mischief_in_the_library
Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea and Human Life by George Monbiot

2.0

I was really excited about this book. I heard a bit of George Monbiot's TED talk about the effects of reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone, and it sounded fascinating. So I picked up his book, read the first four chapters and wondered if I was actually reading the same book he spoke about, seeing as these first chapters seemed to be about the author going fishing and what he was thinking about at the time. I almost stopped reading at this point, but I flipped forward a few pages and the next chapter title suggested the rewilding part was coming. And these chapters had some really interesting discussions. But the tone of it felt...off. It felt like a memoir, in which we are told the story of how George decided that places would be better with more animals, more varied plants, more nature, and how we might go about that. There were references everywhere, but it wasn't as scientific as I was expecting and hoping. The argument felt too positive. There seemed to be almost no discussion of downsides to rewilding, only annoying bureaucracy and rich people getting in the way of an obviously good plan. I would've liked to hear more about ways it could go wrong, the risks involved, and why the benefits outweighed the risks. Instead we got tables of animals with Monbiot's ratings on how suitable each animal would be to introduce, with very little explanation of how he came up with these numbers.

Some people loved Monbiot's style. It's not a typical science non-fiction, which is a genre I particularly enjoy, and maybe if my expectations had been tempered a bit, I would have been able to persist further with this book. In the end, it became too much of a chore to keep going, so I DNF at about 65%.