Book Review: Wildlife by Dorien Claes

 

Note: This book isn't available in English (yet).

I picked this one up because it looked quite short yet appealing. It's yet another non-fiction. 

In this book, Claes dives into wild animals and various aspects of them, such as their biology, evolution, threats they face, animals in captivity, behavior, training methods, methods of studying them, conservation methods and more.

Overall I liked this book, however I will give you one major warning going in: It's brief as hell. If you want to put things into perspective: I followed one year of a college course on the subject of wildlife management. This book basically encapsulates everything I learned in that one year and puts it in a book that's less than 200 pages long, including a lot of pictures. So while there's a lot of information, the author goes through it super quick and doesn't go much in-depth (with a few exceptions). It just feels kinda like a crash course on wild animals. If that's your thing, I think it's neat. I was looking for a short read here, after all. But if you expect the author to take their time and actually go in-depth on the subject they're discussing, you'll probably be disappointed.

That said, the book worked fine for me and it does touch on pretty much every major point I've learned in my one-year course, even if briefly. I also really liked the presentation, with many photos of various animals spread throughout. 

Honestly my only other possible gripe other than how fast the book goes through the subject matter is one wrong fact I spotted: that Komodo dragons have mouths full of bacteria an are not venomous. This is an outdated theory and it has since been proven (this book is rather recent) that they are venomous. Probably just a common outdated fact that slipped in but it was nonetheless very noticeable. Please keep in mind that I am not all that knowledgeable about reptiles, but even I know that dragons are venomous and that it isn't the bacteria in their mouths that kills their prey.

Overall this is a fast-paced non-fiction book about wild animals, however it does address a whole lot of topics surrounding wildlife. If you aren't distracted by the fast pace and brevity I do recommend this one.

Rating: 4/5