The Elephant in the Room

“Extinction happens, but it doesn’t just happen. Books about species extinction and endangerment concentrate on causes like overhunting, habitat loss, invasive species, and so on, but as Kalaugher relates in her thoroughly accessible book, most have little to say about the most insidious cause of all: virulent, highly transmissible infectious diseases capable of producing massive losses within incredibly short periods of time. Environmental disruptions, nowadays overwhelmingly the byproduct of deleterious human activities, can exacerbate the situation by throwing together pathogens and species in new combinations neither had ever experienced. Whether this might have led to sudden losses as people spread over the planet (think woolly mammoths, giant lemurs, and dodos) remains a subject of specialist debate, but current examples of disease-induced population collapses (think monk seals, saiga antelopes, black footed ferrets) suggest that the issue is very real, not a figment of overheated theory. The Elephant in the Room is the story of pathogen pollution and our role in forcing it on the world, told through an absorbing mix of cutting-edge science, intelligent analysis, and clear warnings from the field.”–Ross D. E. MacPhee, author of “End of the Megafauna: The Fate of the World’s Hugest, Fiercest, and Strangest Animals”

Liz Kalaugher is a science journalist and the coauthor of Furry Logic: The Physics of Animal Life. Her writing has appeared in BBC Focus magazine, the Guardian, New Scientist, and Physics World, among other outlets. She lives in Bristol, UK.