We all know we’re in wild animal habitat when we enter the campground. Leave food unattended and you might find yourself in a battle with a bear. But what if the battleground was your own backyard?
In Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds, author Jim Sterba walks us through our shared history with numerous North American wildlife species — how we nearly wiped them out and how we have brought them back in force.
Backyard battles with geese, deer, raccoons, feral cats and wild turkeys are regular occurrences for a growing number of Americans. Without meaning to, many of us have created more attractive habitats than animals can find elsewhere. At the same time, most Americans spend 90 percent of their time indoors, where TV images of photogenic wildlife don’t coincide with the reality of wild animals living nearby.
Jim Sterba has been a foreign correspondent, war correspondent and national news reporter for more than three decades for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
