Dr. Castelló is once again back in the Newly Noted column with his next addition to the Princeton Field Guides series: “Canids of the World; Wolves, Wild Dogs, Foxes, Jackals, Coyotes, and Their Relatives.” Following the same highly effective format he employed in his 2016 field guide to bovids, this new guide covers not only every species of wild canid presently inhabiting the planet but every recognized subspecies of them as well.
I can’t say that reading Professor Jenks’ book will improve your Cougar or Not skills, but it will present you with a wealth of information regarding the dynamics of the diet, nutrition, diseases, behavior, genetics, prey base, and a number of other important topics pertaining to these much misunderstood and increasingly imperiled animals.
The public perception – due in no small part to the success of the film “Blackfish” – of keeping cetaceans, particularly Orcas, in captivity has taken a decidedly downward turn from the family-friendly spectacle it once was. But where did all this fascination with keeping these enormous marine mammals in captivity first begin, and how did the general public become so enamored of them in the first place?
At the recently concluded BirdFair, should you have popped in at the Princeton University Press stand you would have noticed two new additions to the Britain’s Wildlife series prominently featured: Britain’s Spiders and Britain’s Mammals. While the spider guide has yet to reach my desk, a copy of the one for mammals appeared just this past week.