Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads Gewilde dieren.
A non-fiction book I've wanted to read for a while now!
This book deals with the many re-introductions of animals that have happened so far (or are currently happening) in the Netherlands. A lot of species have vanished here throughout the years, or are vanishing as we speak, so re-introducing them might be a solution. However, not all re-introductions are a success...
I like this book a lot. It's very educative and goes really into the subject of the re-introductions. Heck, the first part doesn't even talk about any specific re-introductions yet, but just goes over the concept in general, which was very intriguing. Only after we get the basics of re-introductions in the Netherlands out of the way do we dive into the individual species.
And I really like this part the most. We get a few species of each type of animal featured (bugs, fish, sea-creatures, reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals). Because of this, the book never felt one-note or like it prioritized the return of one of these animals over the other, which was nice. Sure, a bug may not look as cute as a beaver, but they're still very important to the ecosystem.
The part where the book goes over each animal's re-introduction contains a brief description of the animal, how and when it vanished and the steps that were taken or are being taken to bring them back and by whom. Sometimes there's also results to be shown (not always positive, mind you), sometimes there's not because it's still too early to tell if the re-introduction was successful, or there's simply not enough data.
The book also contains several pages worth of tables showing overviews of animals that have vanished and their current status in our country. Some are still gone, some were successfully re-introduced, some were re-introduced but without success, and others lack data. Just a nice overview that also includes some animals that weren't talked about in depth in the chapters.
Overall this was a really good book. My only complaint would be that I spotted a few formatting/presentation issues here and there, where a sentence would just cut off before the next chapter started. This only happened once or twice, but it was enough to put me off and I did indeed double check if I wasn't missing any pages. But nope, the sentence just cut off. Kind of unfortunate, but doesn't break the book for me.
Rating: 4/5
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