The Beast in the Garden: The True Story of a Predator's Deadly Return to Suburban America

by David Baron

Book Overview

When residents of Boulder, Colorado, suddenly began to see mountain lions in their backyards, it became clear that the cats had returned after decades of bounty hunting had driven them far from human settlement. In a riveting environmental tale that has received huge national attention, journalist David Baron traces the history of the mountain lion and chronicles one town's tragic effort to coexist with its new neighbors. As thought-provoking as it...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393326349
• ISBN13: 9780393326345
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Examining ecotones

Humanity's interaction with the rest of nature is often a sordid tale. Humans and other animals have long contended for living space, but the North American experience is nearly unique. Our dealings with wild life, plant and animal, have swung from nearly absolute exploitation and extinction to various versions of preserve and protect. Both attitudes have been clouded by ignorance and misunderstanding. David Baron vividly and expertly examines these views. He explains how one community, Boulder, Colorado, has become a model for a new view of coexistence with our fellow creatures. It may have taken the inadvertant sacrifice of one young man to show how our relationship with wilderness must be reconsidered and recast.Baron's science journalist's skills grant him the role of emissary, crisscrossing the border between the human and cougar communities. He carefully observes the lifestyle of the New West inhabitant. "White, wealthy and progressive" suburban Boulder came to typify a new term in biology - the "ecotone". Ecotones are the interface of humanity and wilderness. Homes at town's edge, open lawns and gardens attracting deer, jogging paths over isolated ridges and remote canyons are a novel environment. Cougars, once fearful of men, and dogs, followed their usual prey of deer into this zone. In doing so, they adapted to conditions readily. Baron demonstrates the falsity of many myths surrounding the cougar. They are highly adaptive creatures, even possessing a "culture" few humans recognise, let alone understand. They feared the wolf packs encountered in the past, but quickly learned pet dogs are no threat. And cougar mothers taught their cubs Fido could provide a meal. Once thought to follow fixed movement patterns, cougars are now recognized as random patrollers of territory. To humans, this unpredictability poses an unexpected threat. It's led to attacks on people - in Boulder, it led to the death of an eighteen-year-old student.This captivating account of how awareness of the ecotone emerged is flawless. There are heroes, villians, people whose views are challenged and reactions to new provocations. The hero of this story is not the slaughtered youth, Scott Lancaster, but Michael Sanders, wildlife "manager". Sanders, and colleague Jim Halfpenny, struggled to understand what was happening in the Boulder ecotone. They recorded cougar sightings and activity, trying to formulate a picture of puma behaviour. They anticipated potential threats while appealing to government agencies to assist them in their work - to no avail. Local politics and attitudes intervened. Even a direct attack on a woman failed to budge preconceptions. The result was the sacrifice of a young man on the alter of ignorance and misunderstanding. Baron urges that this sacrifice not be in vain.His conclusion suggests the ecotone isn't limited to the Colorado mountains. Wolves, racoons, coyotes and even geese are invading marginal habitats at the

The Remaking of Nature

David Baron has written a superb book on what is likely to be a growing problem in the United States for some time to come. While the main story is about an increasing number of close encounters with mountain lions that culminates in a fatal attack on a teenager in the greater Boulder, Colorado area, the implications behind how it all began are far more wide-ranging. Ultimately, this book is about how Americans are reordering their relationship with nature and don't even realize it.Baron tells the story well. Even though you know where the book is headed, you are still gripped by the narrative; you still hope the fatal ending Baron has already told you about in the beginning of the book might still be averted. The author also weaves several historical and biological asides into the story that smartly explain it. The significance of mountain lion attacks on dogs, for example, is made far more ominous because Baron has told the reader of the mountain lion's previous relationship with wolves. The author has his prejudices, but it's hard not to agree with him after reading the book. He strongly believes that nature's relationship with man must be managed. He convinces the reader that whatever we call the environmental policies that helped animals like the mountain lion return to Boulder (and elsewhere in the U.S.) in the 1980s, it is not a return to an original state of nature as it existed before white settlers so much as it is a whole new world. And that new world has its own rules that are different from those in the past. Not understanding that will force us to learn some painful lessons.

If You Love This Planet, Read This Book!

A friend of mine heard an interview with author David Baron on NPR. What impressed him was how balanced and objective his view was. My friend immediately bought two copies of The Beast In The Garden, one for himself and one for me. The whole question of how humans can live with wildlife is a highly charged emotional issue on both sides. As I made my way deep into the bowels of this book I realized how utterly ignorant and naive I was. The author manages to examine the story of human interactions with magnificent but hungry wild animals with extraordinary intelligence . He conveys his passion for Nature at the same time that he maintains his objectivity. Shortly after I finished reading this book, a mountain lion killed 35-year old cyclist Mark Reynolds whose body was found after another cougar attack along a popular trail in the Orange County Foothills. The lion had dragged Reynolds off the trail and his body went undetected for many hours. The cougar, protective of its partially buried prey, later mauled another passing biker. Anne Hjelle, 30, was rescued by her riding companion (who hung onto her leg) and other trail bikers as she was being dragged by the head into the brush. My 35 year old son and his girlfriend also ride in areas where they have seen mountain lions and now they are reading this book. It is clear that we human predators will need to change our habits if we wish to share the landscape with other highly evolved predators. You will see the world with wiser eyes after reading this book!Suza Francina, former mayor of Ojai, California, spokesperson for sustainable lifestyles and author, The New Yoga for People Over 50 and Yoga and the Wisdom of Menopause

Incredible! Are there six stars?

I am an author who has written about man-eating lions for Men's Journal and have researched the subject extensively. NO ONE has written as well and authentically as David Baron. This is an extraordinary book that manages to thread the needle, avoiding sensationalism, but also not shying away from critiquing the more environmentally pc among us. It is an extraordinary piece of writing, a literary work of non-fiction that deserves a wide readership far beyond those interested in predators and adventure journalism. Read the book. Buy the book. Give the book. One of the very best pieces of non-fiction you could hope to acquire.

Outstanding book...

This is an outstanding book about the relationship between humans and mountain lions. The story centers on a jogger tragically killed (and partially eaten) by a mountain lion that had become habituated to humans. In the process of telling the story (a factual event), the author describes the history and evolution of mountain lions, their historical relationships with humans, lion behavior, the problems encountered when humans and mountain lions move into each others' habitats, and how the two can coexist. The author does a great job of tying everything together in a work that is both very informative and highly readable. I highly recommend this book! It is one of the best books I have read in a long time.