The Better to Eat You With

The Better to Eat You With Fear in the Animal World

by Joel Berger

University of Chicago Press, 2008
Cloth: 978-0-226-04363-0 | Electronic: 978-0-226-04364-7
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.001.0001

AVAILABLE FROM

University of Chicago Press (cloth, ebook)
Amazon Kindle (PDF)
Apple Books
Barnes & Noble Nook
Chegg Inc
Copia Interactive
DeGruyter Multi-User Ebook Program
Google Play
University Press Scholarship Online (UPSO)

ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

At dawn on a brutally cold January morning, Joel Berger crouched in the icy grandeur of the Teton Range. It had been three years since wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone after a sixty-year absence, and members of a wolf pack were approaching a herd of elk. To Berger’s utter shock, the elk ignored the wolves as they went in for the kill. The brutal attack that followed—swift and bloody—led Berger to hypothesize that after only six decades, the elk had forgotten to fear a species that had survived by eating them for hundreds of millennia.

Berger’s fieldwork that frigid day raised important questions that would require years of travel and research to answer: Can naive animals avoid extinction when they encounter reintroduced carnivores? To what extent is fear culturally transmitted? And how can a better understanding of current predator-prey behavior help demystify past extinctions and inform future conservation?

The Better to Eat You With is the chronicle of Berger’s search for answers. From Yellowstone’s elk and wolves to rhinos living with African lions and moose coexisting with tigers and bears in Asia, Berger tracks cultures of fear in animals across continents and climates, engaging readers with a stimulating combination of natural history, personal experience, and conservation. Whether battling bureaucracy in the statehouse or fighting subzero wind chills in the field, Berger puts himself in the middle of the action. The Better to Eat You With invites readers to join him there. The thrilling tales he tells reveal a great deal not only about survival in the animal kingdom but also the process of doing science in foreboding conditions and hostile environments.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Joel Berger is John J. Craighead Professor of Wildlife Conservation at the University of Montana and senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. He is coauthor of Horn of Darkness and author of Wild Horses of the Great Basin, the latter published by the University of Chicago Press.

REVIEWS

“The complex and nuanced interplay between predator and prey is an essential thread in the fabric of nature. Joel Berger’s substantial contributions to this emerging world view have been rendered through simplicity and elegance—by observing prey and their predators across global landscapes in a purposeful way. This book, delivered in the personalized style of a life’s journey, tells an absorbing story of how big animals alter their behavior so as to manage the risk of being eaten.”

— James A. Estes, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz

“How long do the ghosts of monsters linger before their misty essence evaporates? And when the monster itself (wolf, tiger, men) returns with meat hunger, how long before prey rediscover terror? What created the singular fleetness and visual acuity of pronghorn antelope? How necessary are predators and the fear of them in maintaining the resilience of wild places? Joel Berger has written a stirring adventure of wildness, prey naiveté, animal culture, and science.”

— Michael Soulé, Research Professor Emeritus in Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz

“The Better to Eat You With offers a very novel, important, and global view of the complex interrelationships between predators and prey. Science, culture, and practical issues meet head on, as they must, in a book that surely will change existing views about the role of fear in the evolution of behavior. Only world-renowned and indefatigable field biologist Joel Berger could pull off such a comprehensive analysis of how past and present must be studied as we try to figure out how all animals—nonhuman and human—will be able to share harmoniously our one and only planet in the future. Berger’s book is a landmark contribution to the study of behavior and conservation.”

— Marc Bekoff, author of The Emotional Lives of Animals

“Joel Berger is a world-class conservation scientist with a rare ability to transform knowledge into conservation action. In The Better to Eat You With he conveys the mysteries and wonder of wildlife behavior in a fast-paced narrative that both informs and inspires.”

— Bill Weber, author of In the Kingdom of Gorillas

"When ecologist Berger noticed that elk in Yellowstone were no longer afraid of wolves, who had been absent from the ecosystem for 60 years, it sparked a quest to answer three major questions: Can naive prey avoid extinction when their predators are reintroduced? To what extent can animals learn fear? And what can current behavior teach us about past extinctions and future conservation efforts? We follow Berger as he attempts to answer these questions by radio-collaring moose in below-zero temperatures in Grand Teton National Park and comparing how bison mothers in areas with wolves, areas without wolves, and areas with new wolf packs react to wolf calls. . . .The excitement and drudgery of fieldwork, combined with the author’s discoveries on how fear of predators changes the behavior of their prey, make for a book that teaches and thrills equally."

— Booklist

"Berger’s research involved majestic hardships and eccentric practices that included pitching carnivore dung baseball-style at browsing moose to see if they responded to the scent. He is the hairy-arsed action-man academic whose experience comes not from the lab but from the wild world. Culture is not something that divides us from the animal world: it is one more thing that links us."

— Simon Barnes, Times (UK)

"The Better to Eat You With builds upon the canon of important natural history literature that includes the writings of Leopold, the Muries, the Craigheads, George Shaller, E. O. Wilson, and Jacques Cousteau. . . . The book is that fine a read."

— Tom Wilkinson, Jackson Hole News & Guide

"[The] extraordinary first-hand accounts of elk standing placidly as wolves approach in full view and promptly slaughter them make for gripping reading. They also have profound implications for programmes seeking to reintroduce top carnivores to habitats where they have long been absent. . . . A refreshing change from the dry and preachy tone often found in conservation books."

— Luis Villazon, BBC Focus

"An informative, fun read."

— Choice

"Every once in a while, one encounters a book that does not simply drive the scholar to meditation upon diverse philosophical theories, but speaks to her very mode of being-in-the-world, her practice of being human. Every once in a long while, one reads a book that changes how we see the world. This is one of those rare books. As Berger so eloquently phrases his core message, 'the question is not about wild or captive, animal or human. It is about all of us--living beings together in one place, on a single planet.'"

— Wendy C. Hamblet, Metapsychology

"Berger reports solid scientific information then goes beyond it in an extraordinary effort to understand animal fear and its role in survival and reproduction. The result is a luminous account of animal individuality and emotion."

— Barbara J. King, Times Literary Supplement

Foreword

Prologue - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0001
[predators, prey, carnivore reintroductions, conservation, extinction, fear]
This chapter begins with the author's first-hand accounts about prey that are unafraid of predators due to lack of exposure to these. It then suggests that if there are lessons to be learned and applied to conservation, we need to look both to past and current attempts to understand how carnivore reintroductions affect modern prey. If naiveté contributes significantly to the evil quartet of extinction—overexploitation, habitat destruction, invading species, and secondary extinctions—we must know why, and develop remedies to enhance the path to survival. This book centers on three questions: (1) Can naive animals avoid death and population extinction when they encounter re-introduced carnivores? (2) To what extent is fear culturally transmitted? (3) How can an understanding of current behavior help unravel the ambiguity of past extinctions while contributing to future conservation? (pages 1 - 4)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

Part I The Hunt for Eden

The Wolf is at the Door-Who's Afraid? - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0002
[carnivores, species reintroduction, predators, wolves, bears, American West, carnivore repatriation, prey]
The continuing global decline of large carnivores today has catalyzed great interest in reintroduction with the dual goal of restoring populations and reestablishing ecologically important relationships with other species. The repatriation of predators like wolves and bears to their native ecosystems will always be an emotionally charged and culturally disruptive issue. Humans who incur few if any burdens associated with carnivores generally favor restoration; those living rurally and in closer proximity have greater antipathy. In the American West, carnivore repatriation has been especially divisive. This chapter asks: Can prey species adjust to their presence? Indeed, can people? (pages 6 - 19)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

The Shy Giant of the Forest - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0003
[Jackson Hole, Grand Teton, moose, species reintroduction, predators, prey, survival, wolves, Wyoming, elk]
It had taken two and a half years for wolves to arrive in Grand Teton from Yellowstone. Neither the public nor the park or state wildlife authorities knew they were in Jackson Hole. The primal hunters had yet to be heard or seen. Would their prey—moose, elk, bison, and mule deer—know the difference between coyotes and wolves, or were all wild canids just different-sized versions of each other? This chapter describes a study on the survival tactics associated with the coming of wolves. The study focused on Wyoming moose. The working assumption is that predator-naive individuals are less fearful than predator-savvy counterparts. If true, and either naive moose or elk fail to learn, then the claim that they will be decimated will be correct. On the other hand, individual elk or moose that acquire, retain, and use knowledge about predators to promote their survival will, by definition, learn. (pages 20 - 41)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

A Tropical Primate in Alaska - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0004
[moose, Alaska, predators, prey, ravens, carnivores, scavengers]
This chapter describes the author's interest in the behavior and ecology of moose in Alaska. One of his studies involves the relationship between ravens and moose. Ravens regularly feed on carcasses with eagles, foxes, and smaller scavengers. They might also wait nearby for bears and wolves to finish eating or just join the feast. The author speculates that if moose were savvy to sounds of dangerous species, they might also be responsive to ravens, particularly given the connection between ravens and carnivores at carrion. He has also studied the behavior of moose in areas without dangerous predators and those where big carnivores were reintroduced. (pages 42 - 67)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

Emissaries of a Dying Epoch - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0005
[bison, wolves, predators, predation, Canada, Yukon, Alberta, Northwest Territories, Yellowstone, Tetons]
This chapter describes the author's efforts to study bison interactions with wolves, focusing on three geographical areas—those with wolves, those without, and those where bison were once predator-free but now experienced predation. Options of the first sort were limited to northern Canada. The Yukon and Alberta each had about four to five thousand wolves; the Northwest Territories some ten thousand. Areas without wolves were plentiful south of Canada. Only Yellowstone and the Tetons offered the third scenario—bison that had been wolf-free but were so no longer. (pages 68 - 82)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

Part II The Meek and the Bold

Subarctic Shadows - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0006
[bison, wolves, Wood Buffalo National Park, Canada, predators, howling]
This chapter describes the author's efforts to study bison interactions with wolves. Wood Buffalo National Park is the one spot on the globe where bison should respond to wolves. Sequestered in the vastness of subarctic Canada, this Denmark-sized reserve is the planet's only region where bison remain the mainstay of wolves. The author observes a collective lack of response by bison to predator cues. Wolf-savvy bison from the Canadian north did not even lift their heads to wolf playbacks. Perhaps bison just never respond to wolves. Hearing a distant wolf howl may indicate little about their readiness to hunt. Or, it may be that bison have learned that howling wolves are not hungry wolves. (pages 84 - 93)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

To Know Thy Enemy - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0007
[vervet monkeys, leopards, wildebeest, elk, predators, prey, cultural emergence, fear, antipredator behaviors]
This chapter discusses how species alter their behavior in response to predators. Vervet monkeys, for instance, tend to associate preferentially with humans when leopards are near, less so when they are not. Wildebeest in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park rest on manicured lawns at night, a period when lions and spotted hyenas are most active yet still shy of people. Elk congregate around Yellowstone National Park headquarters, sites less frequented by wolves and bears. More contentious than how the risk of death modifies a species' or population's behavior is its cultural emergence. How do prey acquire knowledge? How is fear transmitted? How much time is required for a population to adjust? To understand how antipredator behaviors develop in a population is not easy and it is ever so challenging for large mammals. Researchers are faced with three initial difficulties—handling animals, obtaining adequate sample sizes, and performing field experiments. (pages 94 - 113)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

Among the Naive - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0008
[moose, calves, juvenile survival, Grand Teton, Jackson Hole, hunting policies]
In 1999, a CNN story that focused on animals in Grand Teton reported that mothers and calves were thriving, but unexpectedly, the number of calves was relatively low. The recent decline dropped the Jackson Hole moose population to the bottom tenth to fifteenth percentile in North America. A second marker of fecundity was also low. Like deer, moose have the capacity to produce twins, an event which occurs only when mothers are healthy with much body fat. Alarmingly, twinning rates in Teton moose had also diminished. This chapter describes the author's efforts to gather data on calf survival with and without mothers, in order to offer information about juvenile survival that would inform hunting policies. (pages 114 - 127)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

A Tiger East of the Sun - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0009
[Russian Far East, tigers, predators, elk, moose, grizzly bears, brown bears, Sikhote–Alin Mountains, Ainu, Dersu Uzala]
The Russian Far East is the northernmost home of the tiger. These specialized carnivores stride across white sands lining the Sea of Japan. They consume seal, and they live in deep snow where temperatures plummet to −40°F. In the Russian Far East, as throughout Europe, elk are known as red deer. In Russian they are called ilch or izubar. Large bruins with a dish-shaped face and a well-defined hump are grizzly bears to Canadians and Americans but brown bears to everyone else. In Russian, the word is medveeyet. Like elk and brown bears, moose, too, are Holarctic in distribution. The same species occurs from Mongolia and Manchuria to Europe and throughout boreal North America. In Europe and Scandinavia, moose are called “elk.” In Russia they are moose, the local word being los. It was the ilch (elk) and los (moose) that lured the author to the Sikhote–Alin Mountains, an area once hunted by the Chinese, by the Ainu of Japan, and more recently, by Dersu Uzala. (pages 128 - 148)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

Part III A Search for Ice Age Relicts

A Continent of Virgins and Recent Ghosts - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0010
[Africa, North America, Pleistocene, large mammals, predators, scavengers, extinction, grazers]
Africa has been called the living Pleistocene. Only there do vast herds of wildebeest and gazelles, zebra and giraffes still sweep across spacious savannas. Only there do large carnivores persist in assemblages as diverse as they had been in the past. Unlike other continents, Africa has retained 85 percent of the large mammals that lived between 11,000 and 50,000 years ago. In contrast, North America's spectacular megafauna collapsed well before the twentieth century. An estimated 73 percent of the species larger than a hundred pounds vanished between nine thousand and thirteen thousand years ago. The extinct were browsers and grazers—a half dozen species of elephants, llamas and camels, two types of peccary, and three kinds of horses. Disappearing also were the predators and scavengers—the dire wolf, the short-faced bear, the atrox lion, the American cheetah. (pages 150 - 159)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

On Being Caribou and Musk Ox - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0011
[predators, prey, Alaska, wolves, predator, caribou]
This chapter describes the author's efforts to study the interaction between predators and prey in Alaska, specifically caribou response to wolves. Caribou rely on different tactics to thwart enemies. They avoid deep snow, mainly because vulnerability to predators increases. They also seek open areas, since visibility for predator detection is better. Beyond these strategies, behavior may vary among populations and between individuals even within the same population. At high altitudes, pregnant females often separate from herd mates. Speed is also important to outdistance all but aerial predators. Unlike moose or bison, caribou rarely will fight carnivores, and then only as a last resort. (pages 160 - 173)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

Islands of Ice and Innocence - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0012
[caribou, wolves, predators, Kangerlussuaq–Sisimiut, Greenland, Inuits]
Even today, Greenland is mostly inaccessible. With but a few coastal roads, the favored modes of transport are snowmobiles and dog sleds in all but the capital, Nuuk. The majority of Greenlanders are Inuits, many of whom make a living hunting seal and whale. Local economies are bolstered by tourists, among them adventurers of all kinds—hunters, climbers, and racers. Researchers also come. This chapter describes the author's study of caribou in an area known as Kangerlussuaq–Sisimiut. In contrast to other areas, the Kangerlussuaq site had two advantages. Caribou were protected from human hunting, and wolves had been absent from anywhere between four hundred to four thousand years. (pages 174 - 192)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

Part IV The Predator’s Gaze

Changing the Rules of Engagement - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0013
[prey, predators, Africa, Australia, Argentina, central Asia]
There are different ways to explore prey and predator relationships. In a few instances, prey have expanded into areas that lack effective carnivores. Then, we can ask whether prey differ in responses to recently extirpated or long-extinct predators. Other sorts of insights can be gleaned when wildly exotic species invade. Sometimes they are introduced animals known as aliens. They can also be humans armed with new technologies. With these issues in mind, the author describes spent time in Africa, Australia, Argentina, and central Asia in order to study how prey and predator relationships have changed. (pages 194 - 217)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

Nomads of the Gobi - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0014
[kulan, Mongolia, equids, hunting]
This chapter describes the author's studies in Mongolia. His primary focus is on a different species, the kulan. Fleet but stout, tawny with powerful legs and beige rumps, kulans have short, erect manes, dark dorsal stripes, and thin fluted tails with black tips. These half-ass, half-horse animals are legendary for their endurance and cunning. They have also been the quarry of hunting expeditions, including one led in the 1920s by Roy Chapman Andrews of New York's American Museum of Natural History. Even today, kulans are still persecuted, though not legally. Like zebras or feral horses in the western United States, free-ranging equids are disliked by herders, because they eat grasses, as do domestic stock. (pages 218 - 235)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

The Silent Cats of Patagonia - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0015
[cats, mountain lions, pumas, cougars, gato Andino, Andean mountain cat, Patagonia]
Cougar sightings have increased in California's Venture County, as they have throughout Washington, Colorado, and Montana. Even in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska, cougars are now returning. Known also as mountain lions or pumas, these cats are the most widespread carnivore in North and South America. Pumas reach their largest sizes far to the south, on the cold plateaus and steppes of Patagonia. Males weigh an average of 165 pounds, females 100. The bulk of their diet there is neither pets nor native species. Instead, as in most of the world, food choice is a product of history, happenstance, and availability. This chapter describes the author's efforts to catch a glimpse of the elusive gato Andino. The Andean mountain cat is reminiscent of Asia's high-elevation snow leopards. (pages 236 - 246)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

Part V Making the Beast More Savage, or Less?

A Credibility Conundrum - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0016
[science, natural history, carnivore reintroduction, United States]
This chapter discusses how many still fail to make the link between the study of natural history and the study of science. The rancor between science and application has grown only firmer, whether the issue is global warming, stem cells, or ecological restoration. When knowledge becomes available, the public demands it, along with accountability, a force that causes governmental practices to change. The acceptance of cold, hard facts is far easier when they have no bearing on our culture, our beliefs, and our economies. Science is controversial, and some people will never believe a fact is a fact unless they witness it. The chapter considers the issue of carnivore reintroduction in the United States, where the base of knowledge has shifted from fact to perception. (pages 248 - 255)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

Different Sides of the Darwinian Divide - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0017
[ecosystems, life, prey, hunting peoples, North America]
Humans have affected virtually all life on the planet. Some ecosystems have fallen apart. Remote ones remain filled with biological treasures. This chapter asks: When populations were smaller in our distant past, were our impacts less? Or, did we drive the blitzkrieg of fellow mammals only one hundred centuries ago? More to the point, did prey naiveté contribute to the success of North America's first hunting peoples? (pages 256 - 265)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

Of Fear and Culture - Joel Berger
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226043647.003.0018
[naive prey, extinction, reintroduced carnivores, fear, conservation]
This chapter addresses the following questions: (1) Can naive prey avoid extinction when they encounter reintroduced carnivores? (2) To what extent is fear transmitted culturally? (3) How can an understanding of current behavior help unravel the ambiguity of past extinctions and still contribute to future conservation? Answers to the questions have come in spurts and only with partial resolution. Gains have been made and lessons learned. They vary from individuals to populations, from North America to Africa, and by species—past to present. (pages 266 - 278)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Readings of Interest and Exploration

Index