Cougar
Although National Park Service employee Danz (Of Bison and Man) states in his introduction that his purpose in writing this book is to determine whether cougars are more dangerous to humans than North America's other four major predators?the grizzly bear, the black bear, the gray wolf and the jaguar?he often roams far from his original thesis. Danz's research into the elusive cat is impressively thorough, much of it harvested from first-hand interviews, but his abundant facts and anecdotes fail to coalesce into a coherent argument. That flaw combines with his dry writing to make his book read like a long (if deeply informative) encyclopedia entry with subheads for appearance, breeding and family life, hunting, vanishing territory, relation with humans, relation with other animals, etc. In the end, Danz treads a careful line between zealous environmentalists and fiery hunters by concluding that "the cougar can and should inhabit only locations that are not used as everyday living space by human beings." Photos.Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.