Wild Cats

Lynx  Bobcats  Mountain Lions
by Candace Savage

It's about the wild cats that inhabit North America- bobcats, lynx and cougars (aka mountain lions). The first section is about lynx and bobcats, the middle part is about mountain lions, and the last segment discusses threats from mankind and conservation efforts. It was nice to read more detail about the lives of bobcats and lynx (which I don't often come across) but the part on cougars was awfully reminiscent of Heart of a Lion- lots of reiteration on how they are ruthlessly killed by man. I'm glad to say we've made some changes for the better- when this book was published, the author predicted that Florida panthers would go extinct by 2015. Here it's almost the year 2020, and numbers have grown steadily due to lots of work. (At this book's printing, Florida panther numbers were around only fifty individuals. In 2015 there were 100 to 180 of them. The most recent count appears to be 120 to 230- still not a large population, but definitely a vast improvement!) The strength of this book lies in its photographs- most of them are great and I thumbed through the book more than once just to look at them all again. This would be great for younger readers- it really only has a few pages of text per section, followed by twice as many full and double-page spreads of photographs, with captions giving some more information. A really nice read for a single sitting, if you want to learn a bit about the American cats.

Rating: 3/5              136 pages, 1993