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Humans and Hyenas: Monster or Misunderstood (Routledge Studies in Conservation and the Environment) - Softcover

Book 5 of 23: Routledge Studies in Conservation and the Environment

Somerville, Keith

 
9780367436414: Humans and Hyenas: Monster or Misunderstood (Routledge Studies in Conservation and the Environment)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0367436418 ISBN 13: 9780367436414
Publisher: Routledge, 2021

Synopsis

Humans and Hyenas examines the origins and development of the relationship between the two to present an accurate and realistic picture of the hyena and its interactions with people. The hyena is one of the most maligned, misrepresented and defamed mammals. It is still, despite decades of research-led knowledge, seen as a skulking, cowardly scavenger rather than a successful hunter with complex family and communal systems.

Hyenas are portrayed as sex-shifting deviants, grave robbers and attackers of children in everything from African folk tales through Greek and Roman accounts of animal life, to Disney’s The Lion King depicting hyenas with a lack of respect and disgust, despite the reality of their behaviour and social structures. Combining the personal, in-depth mining of scientific papers about the three main species and historical accounts, Keith Somerville delves into our relationship with hyenas from the earliest records from millennia ago, through the accounts by colonisers, to contemporary coexistence, where hyenas and humans are forced into ever closer proximity due to shrinking habitats and loss of prey. Are hyenas fated to retain their bad image or can their amazing ability to adapt to humans more successfully than lions and other predators lead to a shift in perspective?

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in the environmental sciences, conservation biology, and wildlife and conservation issues.

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About the Author

Keith Somerville is a Member of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent, UK, where he is a professor at the Centre for Journalism. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, UK, and a Member of the IUCN CEESP/SSC Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Routledge
Publication date
2021
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0367436418
ISBN 13 
9780367436414
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
276