Will I love Eat, Poop, Die?

This book brilliantly and entertainingly crystallized my thoughts about the role of animals in ecosystems and the shortcomings of how they are too often perceived by policy makers.

These ideas had been fermenting while I worked on wildlife issues in the Vermont Statehouse. The hunting lobby took the legitimate issue of overpopulating deer and applied it to all wildlife, arguing for greater license to kill everything, while advocacy groups tried to make the case that “wildlife watching” was broader based and generated more money than hunting license fees.

I didn't disagree with that last argument, but to my mind, both… show more.

Animals are more integrated into the human world than I thought. We enjoy their company, are inspired by their skills and intelligence, and fear their ferocity. Roman’s book explains how animals shape our surroundings in powerful ways.

I found myself saying “No, Way!” multiple times throughout the book. For example, seabirds create clouds above islands from the vapors released from their poop. Tiny insects called ‘midges’ fertilize fields with their dead bodies to the tune of one hundred pounds per acre. Across the animal kingdom, 21 seconds is consistently the time it takes to empty a bladder!

From this book,… show more.