Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds
*Starred Review* Sterba tells the story of, as he puts it, how we turned a wildlife comeback miracle into a mess. The eastern third of the U.S. hosts the majority of Americans and is also the home of a burgeoning population of animals that have adjusted to life near and among humans. This sharing of the landscape has been fueled by three factors: the vast regrowth of forests as farms were abandoned during the Industrial Revolution, the return of decimated and now protected wildlife to the land, and the exurban sprawl created when people moved out of the cities and deeper into the countryside. Dividing his text into three portions, Sterba examines how the clash between suburbanite and animal came about. The first part covers the history of deforestation, farming, reforestation, and the post-WWII movement into the suburbs. The resurgence of wildlife after near-extermination during the settling and taming of the East fills the second portion. Perhaps the most thought-provoking section discusses how Americans have become removed from the realities of wild animals and of working the land, equating nature with bird-feeding and food with the supermarket. This is an excellent introduction to a “problem” that is often one of human perception. --Nancy Bent