Honorary Professor Professor Keith Somerville‘s latest title ‘Jackals Golden Wolves, And Honey Badgers – Cunning, Courage and Conflict with Humans’ is published by Routledge/Earthscan in their Conservation and Environment series this month.
It explores the fascinating and complex lives of the honey badger, the African jackals (black-backed and side-striped), African golden wolves, and Eurasian golden jackals. In recent years, interest in these creatures has grown exponentially, through wildlife documentaries and media clips showing the aggressive, fearless, and tenacious behaviour of the honey badger, with jackals often presented in a supporting role.
It includes historical narratives, folklore, and contemporary accounts of human–wildlife relationships and conflicts. It traces the evolution of the species; their foraging and diet; the development of their relationships with humans; and their commensal, kleptocratic, and symbiotic relationships with other carnivores, raptors and birds. It also charts the recent expansion in European jackal numbers and ranges, now including as far west as the Netherlands and as far north as Finland. Blending historical observations by non-scientists, colonial officials, administrators, and early conservationists with contemporary scientific accounts, and presents a new multidisciplinary approach that will interest researchers, scientists, and students in wildlife conservation, human–wildlife relations, zoology, biology, and environmental science.
Professor Somerville hopes that the title will ‘increase knowledge of human wildlife conflict and encourage further research into the jackals, golden wolves and honey badger species examined’.
Jackals, Golden Wolves, and Honey Badgers Cunning, Courage, and Conflict with Humans