Micky Cartwright

Well kudos for tackling a difficult subject but unfortunately I did not find it brilliantly executed. Most infuriatingly there is a lot of wading through the author's personal experience, most of which is not relevant to the discussion. Initially I thought it was leading somewhere but eventually realised it was simply not so entertaining, name-dropping filler. It was good to have examples of successful eradication programmes but many were very similar so didn't tease out different aspects of the debate. Other examples were briefly introduced without any real discussion - most notably that of deer. There was a very short and simplified discussion around woodland impacts of deer but it missed out the entire Scottish Highland deer management issue. This must have been a conscious decision on the part of the author but it felt like the elephant in the room throughout the book. There were moments where it felt like the book I hoped it would be towards the end where there was a slightly more thorough examination of differing philosophical standpoints. However these were too short and some of the people that sounded like they had something interesting to say were given a single paragraph and their viewpoint clumsily summarised and dismissed rather than disecected. On a plus point, the most interesting part of the book is the issue closest to the author's heart and knowledge, that of the Uist hedgehog. Here there is a more 3 dimensional feel to the explanation of the issues and introduction to the different stakeholders. In summary: largely infuriating waffle but occasional moments of significant interest. Sorry Hugh!