Fuzz - Mary Roach

   2021; 292 pages.  Full Title: Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Animal Rights; Wildlife Science; Non-Fiction; Humorous Essays.  Overall Rating : 9½*/10.

 

    He came with the house.  A cute little field mouse with reddish-brown fur and a white snout.  Actually, he was probably here first, back when the orange grove had not yet been cleared to make a housing subdivision.

 

    He was mostly a nuisance, scampering around from room to room.  The standard mousetraps we set up didn’t fool him at all.  So the exterminator suggested we buy some "glue traps" and set them around.

 

    One night, a week or so after we did that, there was a sorrowful squealing in the laundry room.  The little mouse had run into a glue trap, got stuck, but didn’t immediately die.  He started hyperventilating when I picked up the trap-plus-mouse and eyeballed him.

 

    What to do?  I could toss him into the trash can and let him starve, but that would be cruel. So I bopped him on his stuck head with a screwdriver and that did the trick.  He died instantly, executed for merely being in the way of human encroachment.  But I’ve always wondered…

 

    Was there a more humane way to handle the “mouse in the house”?

 

What’s To Like...

    Fuzz is Mary Roach’s latest book, and the fifth of hers that I’ve read.  In it, she examines the inevitable tensions that arise when humans overrun areas where other animals are already comfortably existing.  We humans will prevail, of course, but figuring out how to best handle those displaced species is quite the challenge.

 

    The diversity of animal groups examined is impressive.  Bears and wolves can get territorial when hikers and campers invade their domain; but they also take keen delight in raiding the dumpsters of any nearby cities.  In northern India, elephants and leopards are an obvious hazard, but deaths by macaque monkey attacks are also a problem.  California has its cougars, the Vatican has its gulls, farmers have their crows, and everyone everywhere (including me) may have to deal with rats and mice.  Even the plant kingdom gets involved.  Douglas firs engage in what the author calls “arboreal manslaughter”, and legumes such as rosary beans and castor beans are accomplices in murders.

 

    Mary Roach is a “hands-on” writer.  She takes an intensive 5-day WHART course (Wildlife-Human Attack Response Training) to learn what to do if you come face-to-face with a bear.  Hint: the answer is different for black bears vs. grizzly bears.  She travels to India to learn about controlling elephants and to Rome to learn whether it’s a sin to take the life of a rodent or bird.

 

    As always, the text is loaded with Mary Roach’s wit, humor, and trivia tidbits.  You’ll learn whether hibernating bears pee and poop during their long nap, the intricacies of “rabbit arithmetic” (2 x 3 = 9,000,000), and the German word for scarecrow (“Vogelverschrikker”).  But she discusses the serious issues of wildlife conservation as well.  You’ll learn why poisoning, relocating, importing predators for the pests, scarecrows/loud noises/lasers, glue traps and doing nothing are not permanent answers to the problem.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Bejesus (excl.) : an exclamation of surprise or emphasis.

 

Excerpts...

    On June 26, 1659, a representative from five towns in a province of northern Italy initiated legal proceedings against caterpillars.  The local specimens, went the complaint, were trespassing and pilfering from people’s gardens and orchards.  A summons was issued and five copies made and nailed to trees in forests adjacent to each town.  The caterpillars were ordered to appear in court on the twenty-eighth of June, at a specified hour, where they would be assigned legal representation.

    Of course, no caterpillars appeared at the appointed time, but the case went forward anyway.  (loc. 61)

 

    There is, or there was, a hunter gull that hung around St. Peter’s Square, site of the aforementioned floral vandalism.  We know this because the bird was caught on camera in 2014.  You can watch it in slow-motion as it swoops in, beak first and irony ablaze, to nail the white “peace dove” that Pope Francis had just released.  Every January the pope appears on a balcony with children from a Catholic youth group to read a message of peace and release a dove.  The dove survived, but the tradition did not.  In later years, a helium-filled balloon in the shape of a dove was released.  (loc. 3089)

 

Kindle Details…

    The e-book format of Fuzz costs $8.98 at Amazon right now.  Mary Roach has seven more e-books for your Kindle, ranging in price from $8.98 or $11.99.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.4/5 based on 3,122 ratings and 201 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.84/5 based on 26,239 ratings and 3,574 reviews.

 

“It’s hard to be tolerant when there’s a bear in your kitchen.”  (loc. 623)

    There’s a small amount of profanity in Fuzz.  I counted just 12 instances in the first 50% of the text, but that included a pair of f-bombs.  Later on, the slang term for male genitalia was utilized four times.

 

    I don’t really have anything else to quibble about.  Some of the negative reviewers at Amazon and Goodreads didn’t like Mary Roach’s sense of humor and/or thought the text was boring.  I respectfully disagree on both counts.

 

    The final chapter is a poignant personal note by Mary Roach.  She finds peace and coexistence with a roof rat in her home, solving the problem by discovering, and closing, the entryway the rat uses to get into her attic.  I wish I had done that when I dealt with my field mouse.

 

    9½ Stars.  One last thing.  One of the highlights in Chapter 9 was Australia’s Great Emu War, fought in the 1930s, and which has always made me chuckle.  It shares the spotlight with a conflict I was unaware of: the American military versus the gooney birds (albatrosses) on Midway Island.  The winner in both cases was . . . well, Mary Roach tells it better than I can, so read the book.