Wild Edens: Africa's Premier Game Parks and Their Wildlife

Wild Edens. Africa's Premier Game Parks and Their Wildlife, by Joseph James ShomonIt was our pleasant experience to read an extraordinary book! Although lacking in graphics, we do consider this one much richer in content than the more familiar, photo-laden publications covering this subject.Wild Edens has a very well written, interesting and varied text. The author combines skill with expert knowledge in different areas, i.e., ecology, geography, history and zoology, giving the reader a complete picture of these most important African National Parks. In Appendix 1, a short essay about David Livingstone and his pioneering disclosure of central Africa, is well worth reading.Appendix 2, with its complete list of the parks, gives very useful information to readers planning to be visitors.An outstanding description of the killing of a buffalo by a pack of hyenas in Aberdares Park is most impressive (Chapter 3). The reader feels strong sensations while witnessing the "cruelty" of the natural world and the tense relations between hunters and the hunted, in nature's domain.Because this is a book of major interest and value, we find it unusual to discover a gross mistake...The legend of the colour photograph depicting a zebra and two baboons at Jane Goodall's camp near Lake Tanganika (see colour photographs next to pg. 80, with a similar photo on the back cover). It reads: "Zebra and chimpanzees"... It is clear that the photographed monkeys are not chimps (Pan Troglodites), but baboons (Papio Cynocephalus). Zebras and baboons have the same habitat, ` savanna', while, typically, chimpanzees live in a forest. It would be rare for the two breeds, zebra and chimp, to meet in the wild ... their habitats being so positively different. How an error such as this could have been overlooked by such a competent author is disconcerting. However, this oversight certainly does not, in any other way, jeopardize the special value of a "different" book on wild life.José Xavier de Basto Coimbra, Portugal with Jacqueline Martin Texas, USA