Wildlife Conservation on Farmland: Volume 2: Conflict in the Countryside

This book is the second volume in a two-part series (the first being “Managing for nature on lowland farms”) that gives an engaging overview of David MacDonald’s Oxford-based research group’s work on wildlife and farmland. Over the past few decades the WildCru team has tackled a wide range of research topics at the interface between ecology and human society, with a strong focus on wild mammal populations.

This volume, the second of the pair, deals with the wildlife conflicts that beset agriculture and other forms of countryside management. The book has a strong leaning towards mammals, with chapters on fox, badger, mink, otters, moles and rats, but also includes chapters on other taxa (notably birds and crayfish). Other sections examine ways in which science can benefit society, by finding new ways to mitigate effects of predators or to translate conservation findings into landscape scale management.

The scope of the book occasionally feels limited by the focus on studies with which the authors are directly involved, which don’t always illustrate a representative range of relevant situations. Happily, most chapters are built on very solid foundations and, whether they concentrate on presenting new findings or reviewing past work, are authoritative and clear. Highlights include the opening chapters on foxes and badgers, which are engagingly written and present the reader with a wealth of useful information, and the chapter on the effects of gamebird releases, which draws fascinating parallels between farmland bird trends, body size, and pheasant management. Overall, this book should be of interest and value to anyone interested in wildlife conflict, particularly in the context of lowland farmland in Britain.

Book reviewed by Mark Wilson