I originally picked this book up as a reference for my MPhil thesis due to there being a whole chapter dedicated to Cave Hyaenas. After utilising the chapter as much as I could, I put the book down because of the increasing work pressures, promising myself that once I’d handed in my dissertation I would sit down and start reading the book from scratch.
Dissertation duly finished, I collapsed into a deckchair and was immediately transported back to Pleistocene Britain, as time periods go, one I was very familiar with. Ross Barnett covers mammals that were/are endemic to Britain. Although
most had been extinct for a while, some that had only recently become extinct in Britain (and by recent I’m talking extirpations around the Roman occupation of Britain, the Medieval period and the 16th to 18th centuries).
Each chapter covers a different mammal (in chronological order of extinction) with a thorough introduction, a depiction of the animal, a small poem relating to it, dates of when they became extirpated (locally extinct) as well as globally extinct, and a map of localities in Britain where remains of the creatures have been found and radiocarbon dated (extremely useful for when you are looking at the spatial distributions of Cave Hyaenas in Britain!).
In this book Barnett covers: Cave Hyaenas; Homotherium (Sabretooth Cats); Cave Lions; ‘Woollies’ - Mammoths and Rhinoceroses; Irish Elks (Megaloceros); Bovids - Wisents and Aurochs; Bears - Polar Bears, Brown Bears and Cave Bears; Northern Lynxes; Grey Wolves and Eurasian Beavers.
The first chapter of the book covers the Pleistocene in terms of climate, the glacial/interglacial stages and Britain’s connections to Europe. He also goes into the possible causes of Pleistocene animal extinctions, such as disease, climate and the spread of Anatomically Modern Humans (the factor that Barnett theorises to be the most likely). It was refreshing that he tackled this at the start of his book, almost as if to get this ‘out of the way’, this is because I find that within books about the Pleistocene, extinctions (especially man induced) are an overarching theme. The blog post by TetZoo (https://tetzoo.com/blog/2021/5/17/ross-barnett-2019-the-missing-lynx) perfectly sums this up.
In further chapters such as the Lynx, Wolves and Beavers (Chapters 9, 10 and 11) Barnett goes into detail regarding the process of rewilding. Rewilding is defined as conservation efforts aimed at restoring and protecting natural processes and wilderness areas including the reintroduction of keystone species back into the area. This has been successfully done in 2009 with Beavers in Scotland, having previously been hunted to extinction around the 16th century for their pelts and a natural secretion called castoreum which was, and still is, used in medicine and perfumes. The rewilding candidate that Barnett strongly advocates for a return to Britain is the Lynx, which has been successfully reintroduced by projects in Switzerland and Slovenia. He believes that the Scottish Highlands, due to the abundance in deer (a lynx’s prey of preference) as well as the absence of large human populations would give it the best chance of thriving here once again. I agree with Barnett on this and have always been an advocate for rewilding, especially with Britain’s native carnivores. As much as I would love to see the reintroduction of Spotted Hyaenas and Lions, I doubt the public would share my view on this!
I especially enjoyed the annotations and anecdotes within each chapter. The annotations provided little titbits of facts relevant to what he had mentioned in the main chapter, an example being ‘that Wookies in the Star Wars franchise were named so after an actor made a joke using a friends last name, which was a locational name originating from Wookey Hole (Mendips, Britain)’.
As a palaeontologist with a PhD in zoology from the University of Oxford, Barnett makes use of his experience with the remains of these animals. He focusses primarily on ancient DNA, especially of extinct cats. He writes about his attempts (some successful and some not) of extracting DNA from fossils, a process which to me is extremely interesting and I am keen to learn more about.
He ends the book on a positive note by providing success stories of rewilding, reintroduction and resurrections. He does go on to suggest another key idea, instead of resurrection - maybe we should just remember the species that we had lost such as the great woolly mammoths, cave lions and Neanderthals, because if they were resurrected, what would become of these animals? Most likely, they would become attractions in zoos and suffer mentally. I am much for the idea of remembering these animals as they were. As cool as it would be to be able to see a live woolly mammoth or woolly rhinoceros, I believe that we need to focus all of our efforts on the conservation of their extant counterparts.
Overall I enjoyed this book immensely and would strongly recommend to anyone who is interested in Pleistocene megafauna.
Barnett, R. 2019. The Missing Lynx: the Past and Future of Britain’s Lost Mammals. Bloomsbury Wildlife, London. pp. 352. ISBN 978-1-4729-5734-4. Hardback/paperback. (Find it or order a copy from your local bookstore)