This book has a lot of good information on the history behind various "pests'" interactions with humans. For this reason, I continued reading. However, the blatant (and self-acknowledged) bias with which the author treats various species, and the sugarcoating of brutal massacres of animals, made this at times difficult to get through.

Most egregious to me was the mouse chapter, in which the author reveals she worked torturing mice in labs. She casually references how she forced dangerous substances into these mice, interspersed with lighthearted, "quirky" commentary about lab life. She gushes about how cute the mice were and how adorable they are when she gave them Fruit Loops, then talks about how she murdered these same mice (but she said  "sorry" in her head so it's okay!). And to cap it off with a final insult, she portrays lab mice as a "success," saying the hell on earth that is an animal testing facility being a new niche mice managed to gain, because they are artificially bred by the millions there. 

Her insistence on a quirky, pop sci tone throughout insulted the gravity of what's actually going on. Her insistence on a quirky, pop sci tone throughout insulted the gravity of what's actually going on.  I am rather tired of pop sci written in this style in general; it always feels like the author is trying too hard to make things fluffy, entertaining, and relatable rather than actually imparting serious knowledge with depth. 

The only time she gives actual full acknowledgement to the animals is, predictably, in the cat and elephant sections. Here she talks about the destruction cats wreck on native species (destruction which far eclipses any of the other species she talks about in the book) but then goes out of her way to explore non-lethal methods and their effectiveness, trying to find some sort of balance or way to prove the cats can be saved.

But with rats? Not even blinking an eye at causing them painful deaths. Snakes? She goes for an outing beheading their babies. She openly acknowledges her bias, saying it doesn't make sense she is worried for cats but not at all concerned about the other animals. But does acknowledging the bias actually do anything useful with it? She seems comfortable in her cognitive dissonance and writes off this lip service as sufficient. 

Usually at the end of the chapters she makes attempts to add nuance, acknowledging human culpability in bringing invasive species over. But these acknowledgements seem far too brief after pages and pages solely spent on methods of killing these animals.

Even when she positions herself as pro-animal, she often only looks for ways to exploit them. Suggesting a solution to the issue of so many abandoned pigeons is to go back to killing and eating them (she herself goes into detail about how eating a baby pigeon). Does she ever entertain the idea of eating feral cats? Of course not.

So why did I keep reading? As I said, there was actually valuable information in here. I learned a lot about things which I previously had no knowledge in, such as elephants raiding crops and causing destruction to farmers. This chapter was the best chapter by far for this reason, giving a nuanced look at Western ideas around wild animal protection (usually revolving around admiring prized species from a distance, always in wild areas sectioned off from humans, with no real co-existence taking place) clashing with the people who actually live with these animals. 

Animal conservation in general is continually viewed as preserving a walled-off, pristine space to observe the animals Western culture deems inspiring and worthwhile, relying on images of beautiful or cute animals to get monetary donations, rather than the complex entanglement with ecosystems that indigenous peoples have been doing far before colonialism wrecked havoc. The author's offering of indigenous perspectives on species co-existence were good to see in a book like this, which is near entirely anthropocentric otherwise. 

So while I continually had to hold back at this author's dismissal of cruelty under quirky pop sci writing, the history and new knowledge I gained made me feel it worthwhile to finish.